


Risk Addiction

by OonionChiver



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Magic, Canon deviations, Creative License, Cullen Has A Dark Past (TM) That Followed Him Out Of Kinloch Hold, Dark elements, Denial of Feelings, Dorian Has A Blood Curse That Will Kill Him If He Falls In Love, Dubious Consent at the Start Because They're Both Not In A Great Place Mentally, Enemies to Lovers, Epic Length, Falling In Love, Flashbacks, Found Family, Hurt Cullen Rutherford, Hurt Dorian Pavus, Literally The Happiest Ending of All Time, M/M, Magical Cullen, Misunderstandings, Non-con is NOT main pairing, Possession, Rough Sex, They Like To Play, no beta we die like Boromir, now with art, terrible decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-01-21 08:40:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 32
Words: 581,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21296651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OonionChiver/pseuds/OonionChiver
Summary: Flirting with Cullen was a dangerous game, but falling for him, well, that was nothing less than deadly.
Relationships: Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford
Comments: 1749
Kudos: 625





	1. Oh Dear

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Risk Addiction. If you're re-reading, I love you so much! If you're new, here's your bulletproof vest to protect your heart. 
> 
> A few warnings and notes here because this turned into the longest Cullrian Fic ever written and to accurately tag everything would be impossible. 
> 
> The explicit rating spans a WIDE RANGE of sexual elements, including mild consent play, as well as violence, emotional extremes and canon typical gore. I cannot stress enough how happy of an ending this will have though. I swear to you it will be WORTH it. 
> 
> There is also dark content at times; past non-con, intense emotional ups and downs, violence and a lot of Hurty McHurtersons. 
> 
> With all that said, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I fucking loved writing it. 💜💜💜
> 
> P.S - If you love this pairing like I do, come check out my gemstone bracelets based on this pairing! 
> 
> https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SwishAndFlique

[](https://imgbb.com/)

_Prologue_

This was a dangerous game of which Dorian Pavus was highly aware, fuck you very much.

Cullen Stanton Rutherford may have seemed worn and faded to some; a respected Commander, but a dulled blade due to his withdrawal from the Templar Order. _He was great in his day_, some even said, speaking of Kirkwall, of battles alongside the Champion. Oh, his command was invaluable, no one doubted that. His efforts towards the Inquisition were immeasurable, everyone was sure but still, on the rare occasions Dorian moved through the soldiers without them glaring, sneering or even spitting at him, he heard things. He heard what Cullen’s soldiers thought of him and even though most assessments were steeped in generous admiration, everyone spoke of him like an old, tamed lion who had seen terrible things and now rested in the shade. They spoke of him _fondly_ and that was just… ridiculous.

They didn’t know him. They didn’t watch like Dorian watched. They only saw what everyone else saw.

Lavellan, at least, understood. In the very beginning - the Haven days, as Dorian thought of then - Lavellan had taken Dorian to one side, speaking with him in a friendly way. She was kind and attentive, asking about his life. Her curiosity of Tevinter and Imperium shone in her eyes and Dorian actually enjoyed speaking with her, though they disagreed here and there. He’d been ready to politely take his leave when she’d stopped him, her thin, strong fingers curling around his wrist.

And then she’d warned him about Cullen.

‘_He__’s a good man_,’ she’d begun with. ‘_Commander Cullen. I__’ve spoken to him as much as he’ll allow.’_ Dorian had smirked. Lavellan was apparently insatiable in her efforts to know everyone and everything. ‘_And I__’ve no doubt he’s an asset to the Inquisition.’_ The **_but_** hung heavily and unspoken between them and she swallowed before continuing. _‘I’ve warned the others, Solas and Vivienne about—’_

‘_About how he despises mages?__’_ Dorian had filled in curtly, crossing his arms. _‘Oh, no need to attempt to shock me there, my dear. I can read all shades from a glare and the Commander’s was a dark rainbow of tormented hatred.’_

Lavellan had burst out laughing, her voice soft and pleasant. Dorian couldn’t help but like her, even in those early days. ‘_Well, despite your creative license, you have the essence of it, yes. I just__… for now, I’d be happier if you gave him a relatively wide berth. Until things are a little more stable.’_

Well, things were more stable, certainly. Skyhold was the definition of stability, no? Dorian would never admit it aloud, nor really even to himself, but each time he returned back from the Hinterlands or the Oasis or Maker forbid, the sodding Wastes, he breathed a little easier. His books and things waiting for him, companionship in the tavern with the others, Sera and Bull especially… it felt almost like a home. Skyhold was strong and removed from the dangers posed in such terrible times.

And oft found wandering around Skyhold, was Commander Cullen.

Well, things had become more stable and Lavellan’s warning _had_ stipulated a caveat, had it not? If anything, her warning had made Dorian want to see up close and personal how much the Commander truly hated mages. It was a perverse desire and of course Dorian followed it gladly.

So, he’d begun watching him. Speaking to him when he could. Pushing for communication where he could have otherwise simply left things. Cullen was ever distant and respectful at first, if one ignored the coldness in his eyes which Dorian did _not_. Cullen made clear that did not enjoy being in Dorian’s presence.

Which did rather the opposite of deterring Dorian.

During downtime in Skyhold, while Lavellan got to know everyone else and giving Dorian much needed respite from places like the Fallow _fucking_ Mire, Dorian plotted to be wherever Cullen might be. It was stupid and childish. Dorian _knew_ this and yet his heart always sped up with gleeful excitement when his plans worked out and he managed to place himself in Cullen’s path. He shouldn’t have _enjoyed_ the way the Commander’s eyes darkened whenever he saw Dorian, yet again, lurking near his destination.

Sometimes, Cullen didn’t see him though. Sometimes Dorian’s plans to annoy actually backfired and Dorian ended up outright _stalking_ Cullen, watching him like a fucking ghoul.

Dorian needed a hobby. Or a good fucking. Or a nice combination of both.

As a result, he saw Cullen in unguarded moments. Tiny flashes of real feelings, real emotions. He saw when Cullen was in pain once, a few seconds after a War Room meeting when Cullen left last and something struck him internally. The pain lit up his features and Dorian was taken aback by how _young_ Cullen really was beneath such a dull eyed exterior. He clutched at his head, a migraine most likely, and his face was wrought with agony. Dorian almost made himself known, instinctively wanting to help… but even Dorian wasn’t quite that stupid. Or maybe he wasn’t brave enough to see Cullen realise that Dorian was _lurking in shadows_ hoping to piss him off with his mere existence.

Another time, he saw something quite frightening. Cullen and Lavellan had been speaking with Fiona in the tower. Siding with the mages had been a difficult decision for Lavellan, but she was outspoken about mage rights, despite not actually being one, bless her. Cullen remained stoic and respectful the whole time, even smiling once, albeit in a forced manner, when Lavellan cracked a joke between them, attempting to make light. Dorian had watched carefully when Cullen excused himself, citing an enormous workload and pressing time constraints. Lavellan left with Fiona and Cullen only went a short distance, into Dorian’s library in fact. Dorian watched from the other side of the tower, bathed in shadows with the smell of bird shit and crow caws all around. Cullen went to the small, narrow window and placed both hands against the stone, his head dropping down low.

He took a deep shuddering breath and when he turned, his facade took a split second longer to fall back into place. Dorian saw darkness, he saw murderous anger. Cullen’s trembling hand found the pommel of his sword and he stilled, blinking shutters of professional calm back into place once more. The Commander, again. The Inquisitor’s Lion.

But Dorian had seen it and he could not _un_see it. Cullen hated mages in a way that went beyond the general southern mistrust and resentment Dorian was coming to find. Cullen had wanted to kill Fiona. Maker’s balls, he probably wanted to kill _Dorian_.

Dorian _really_ should have stopped after that but he didn’t. In fact, he stepped it up and started flirting with the man.

Cullen had been speaking with Lavellan in the War Room. Pointy sticks go there and stone throwers go there… urgh, Dorian did _not_ care for military tactics. Josephine was informing them about the threat made against the Empress’s life, intimating the best way to go about preventing it was to attend Halamshiral, attend an actual _ball_ and ooh, Dorian was far more interested in that, truth be told.

Leliana’s gaze was sharp and never left Dorian, especially when he’d sighed and said, ‘_Well, I__’m up for it if our handsome Commander saves me a dance.’_

Everyone looked at him then; Josephine with poorly concealed pity because really, it was a shit attempt to get under Cullen’s skin and the worst example of flirting Dorian had ever come up with. Leliana seemed to immediately understand everything about Dorian’s life and who he was and found him spectacularly wanting, if somewhat amusing. Lavellan outright cringed and Cullen…

Oh dear. Cullen’s glare was _thunderous_. His usually reserved brown eyes turned positively glacial and when his lip curled, Dorian could only stare at that scar, wondering how much it had hurt to receive and if Dorian would feel such pain when Cullen murdered him.

Artfully, Josephine moved onto outfits and Dorian’s heart was thundering so hard in his ears he didn’t even have it in him to object to the bright red colour she was concocting. Cullen’s gaze was absolute, unflinching steel and he didn’t look away from Dorian. It took a lot for Dorian to maintain the gaze and only when Lavellan cleared her throat and asked Dorian a direct, inane question, did he look away, grateful for the out.

So _yes_, flirting with Cullen was a dangerous game and Dorian knew it. He’d seen it the moment Cullen had locked eyes with him and not in a nice, normal, _I__’m-Going-To-Fuck-You-Until-You’re-Sorry_ kind of way, the way Dorian might have pushed for with someone wonderfully (un)suitable back in Minrathous when feeling petulant and lonely. Cullen did not _like_ Dorian and Cullen was fucking lethal.

But Dorian had always been fascinated with lethality and boundaries were made to be poked and prodded until they fell. He resolved to try again, with less people around and with better material.

He didn’t have to wait very long.

*


	2. Provocation

Flirting came naturally to Dorian, always had. Just the little _ways_ about people, knowing what they liked, knowing how they wanted to be addressed… it always thrilled him, even when it was a woman. He adored seeing people light up, gaining access to a secret smile, a half-bitten lip. It thrilled him, but this…

This was different.

‘Excuse me,’ Cullen said brusquely, moving to get past and oh, Dorian was taking his life in his hands when he did _not, _in fact, excuse the Commander in the gardens of Skyhold. He remained in the way, blocked his path and smirked. With extreme resentment, Cullen brought his gaze to Dorian’s, the weight of it was startling, like a physical blow. ‘I said, _excuse me.__’_

It hurt him to be polite, Dorian could see that. It simply _burned_ Cullen to not shove Dorian aside the way he should have been able to because this was the South, not Tevinter, and mages were lesser in all ways here, apparently.

‘Y’know,’ Dorian said, slow and leisurely, purposefully milling about in front of the Commander. ‘I don’t think you’ve ever come to the gardens before.’

Cullen stared. He wasn’t blinking and his expression was rather… _dead_.

‘Nor you, Ser Pavus.’

Dorian wondered if he was going to shove past or simply walk around him, but he didn’t think either was likely. That would mean admitting defeat to a mage and Dorian couldn’t imagine Cullen embracing defeat in any capacity. The sun was setting slowly, leeching Skyhold of the bright, safe sunshine Dorian usually enjoyed. The air was crisp and cold, enough that Dorian could just about see each of his exhales.

‘Been watching me, have you?’ Dorian quipped, letting his expression turn suggestible and sultry. Old territory, _easy_ territory.

Cullen twitched. His scar moved ever so slightly and Dorian knew he wanted to sneer, to accuse Dorian of the precise same thing, given that it was true and Dorian _was_ prone to popping up all over the place like Elfroot in the Hinterlands.

‘Not at all, I assure you,’ he ground out. Dorian relished the sound, the force of it because he was dredging something even mildly emotional from Cullen, something the Commander was not willing to give and _fuck_, Dorian really needed to get a life or a nug or something.

‘Lovely evening, no?’

Cullen wasn’t having it. His eyes absolutely bored into Dorian, furious and placid all at once. ‘Move aside.’

Dorian couldn’t help it. ‘Or what?’

Brown eyes darkened and Dorian’s blood was _thrumming_ through his veins, hot and terrified, liquid fire. ‘Or I’ll move you.’

‘Would you, now?’

‘You ask a lot of questions, _mage_.’ The word slipped out like Cullen just couldn’t control it, though really Dorian could have been reading into it too much. Essentially over-analysing a four-letter word and a very slight grimace, Dorian might - just _might_ \- have been a bit obsessed.

‘Inquisitive by nature, I suppose. Good thing I’m in the _Inquisition_, eh? I suppose you don’t get a lot of mages questioning you, though, do you?’

Cullen was silent for a long, unreadable moment before he said, ‘You’re incapable of speaking truth, like so many of your kind. Hiding behind questions, cowering beneath the safety of sowing doubt in others. You have neither the strength nor the fortitude to state _anything_ and so here you stand, wasting my time with vapid questions, seeking a reaction you wouldn’t know how to cope with.’

_Wouldn__’t know how to cope with… _The world tilted slightly, Dorian’s heart lurching for so many reasons. It was more words than Cullen had ever spoken to him _combined_. The intensity behind Cullen’s expression, the set of his jaw and the violent flare of his eyes radiated in warning for Dorian to move back, move away and never return. Dorian’s instincts, however, were _not_ suitably warned off. The signals became muddled; fear replaced with sudden, _pounding_ fucking captivation because Dorian adored being the centre of attention in every way, even if that way was bad.

So very bad.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Dorian purred, not moving an inch and certainly not blinking. ‘I think I’m brave enough to state a few things with some certainty, _Commander_.’ Cullen waited and Dorian noted he was breathing through his nose a little faster now, so angry. So very angry. ‘I could state that your hatred for mages stems from _fear. _Yes, I think that would be fairly unequivocal.’

There was no delay in the Commander’s reply. ‘Mages are dangerous,’ Cullen said, as though by wrote. ‘A man who looks upon a mage without fear is a man who has never seen the extent of the devastation they can cause. Fear is rational.’

‘And your hatred? Is that rational?’

‘I harbour no hatred towards mages.’ Dorian was about to say something else, lips already quirked and confident that _this_ would be enough the shatter all that self-control when Cullen advanced, invading Dorian’s space by a single step only, but it was enough to make Dorian consider retreating on rather _late-to-the-party_ survival instinct. He held his ground, though even as Cullen continued. ‘And even if I did, you would have nothing to fear from me. We are all in service of the Inquisition, as you say. I believe what you allude to,’ he said, voice lethally soft all of a sudden. ‘Is my continued conviction that, despite having left the Templar order, magic should serve man.’

For the first time in his life, Dorian felt _flustered, _like he was in over his head. It was a beautiful, heart-stopping feeling.

‘Are you sure you don’t mean, _mages _should serve man, Commander?’

Cullen sneered. Dorian’s blood was rushing in bad directions. _‘Move_.’

‘No.’

When Cullen slowly walked into Dorian, it was like being met with a stone wall. Cullen was immovable and absolute, his pace slow and unstoppable. Dorian really didn’t want to walk backwards but it was either that or be _pushed over_. It was defeat, plain and simple and when Cullen sped up, Dorian stumbled.

But Cullen reached out and caught him, preventing him from falling. He caught Dorian like he was nothing; easy to hold and control and even _save_ if he so desired. He held Dorian by the shoulders, fingers digging in to the bare flesh of his upper arm, his face bare inches from Dorian’s.

‘Careful,’ the ex-Templar whispered like silk over a razor blade. ‘We wouldn’t want you _hurt_, would we?’

Then he righted Dorian by lifting him up, actually _lifting_ him off the ground for a moment, and setting him down. This time when Cullen advanced, Dorian moved aside. His upper arms stung slightly because Cullen had gripped him much harder than necessary. The Commander swept past, not even looking at him now.

‘I bid you good evening, Ser,’ Cullen said in a cold, _smug_ manner that had Dorian scrambling to retrace when his best laid plans had been turned entirely on their heads.

* * *

Setbacks, Dorian had decided, were excellent.

What was the fun in being best at everything, anyway? Challenges were made to be overcome, difficult tasks begging to be accomplished. It hadn’t taken long for Dorian to shake off the unnerving feelings from being _manhandled_ by the Commander and summarily dismissed like he was like literally nothing.

That was fine, though; Dorian was used to _that_ feeling.

The Herald’s Rest was going to start charging him rent, at this rate. Maybe Dorian could concoct a cunning plan to get the wine back to his own room? Though in all fairness, his _cunning plans_ of late were not exactly up to scratch, were they?

‘Dorian,’ Iron Bull sighed, flicking the Tevinter mage on the side of his face and… _ow_ that bloody hurt! Beastly Qunari, able to inflict devastating pain with his thumb and finger. That made Dorian laugh. He snorted into his glass. Bull didn’t seem impressed. ‘_Dorian_. You need to sleep.’

‘I think you’ll find,’ Dorian slurred, happily in the throes of a most elegant buzz, so close to that non-existent state of being _numb_. ‘That I’m a grown man and I’ll sleep when I want to. With _whomever_ I want to, at that.’

Bull stared. ‘Uh-huh.’

Dorian might have been a little too drunk to tell, but Bull seemed somewhat pissed off. That was funny too, that Dorian could piss off even the people he was friends (and former fuck-buddies) with but not… _not_….

‘I’m gonna get to him, Bull,’ Dorian said, narrowing his eyes and nodding sagely. ‘My plan was too… puerile, that’s what it was. I need to st-step things up!’

Cabot took the glass from his hand rather unceremoniously. Dorian was about to complain _loudly_ when Bull hoisted him up and began guiding him around the back of the tavern.

‘Gerr_off_,’ Dorian slurred wildly. ‘I want more wine, even if it _is_ fennec piss!’

‘I doubt there’s any left, Vint,’ Bull said dryly. ‘And you’re gonna sleep even if I have to knock you out cold.’

Dorian glowered but accepted defeat. He _was_ tired, but again that didn’t mean anything. Dorian very rarely slept, he much preferred drinking and fucking and then not thinking about either of those things immediately after. Sometimes Bull would get annoyed when Dorian hadn’t slept for a few days.

Thankfully, Bull didn’t even try to get Dorian back in his own room. He took him to Bull’s own space out back. They passed Krem, who was chatting to Maryden. Krem gave Dorian an appraising once over and then rolled his eyes.

‘He’s way too drunk for it, Chief,’ Krem pointed out. Dorian’s mouth was too slow on the uptake to respond with all that glorious wit the mage was capable of. Bull grunted.

‘Yeah, I noticed that, thanks.’

Because Dorian was really a somewhat morose drunk, especially towards the end of the night, he opened his mouth to remind Krem that he and Bull didn’t _actually_ fuck anymore because Bull thought Dorian could use some stability and Bull, who had much to offer Thedas and the world entire, could apparently not offer stability.

What came out, though, was a little bit of vomit.

* * *

Setbacks, Dorian decided gingerly sipping his herbal tea the next morning, were nothing less than a declaration of war. Dorian fucking Pavus was not going to be setback from his… plan to… what was his plan, again? Oh right, yes.

Dorian fucking Pavus would _not _be thwarted from invoking a true and furious response from the clearly dangerous and patently lethal Commander of the Inquisition’s forces.

Hmm, maybe he needed to reword that. It sounded vaguely like an angry suicide note.

Cullen hated mages and Dorian needed to see it, needed to hear him say it and _show_ it because Dorian was so sick of masks. He’d left Tevinter, hadn’t he? If he wanted to stay in a place where hiding your true nature was not only expected but fucking_ lauded _then he wouldn’t have come to the land of soggy Mabari, mud and snow.

But there was also something quite perverse lurking in Dorian’s manifesto and it had nothing to do with _honesty_ or unmasking. The plain fact of it was that Dorian had always been in control when interacting with most people, family excluded, from the age of sixteen onwards. He _wanted_ to find himself over in his head, he _needed_ to see what Cullen would do.

Cullen was a dam with hair-line cracks in the foundation. Dorian felt compelled to push and poke, it was his nature. He knew that when and if he could break that dam, the events that followed would be quite out of his control and really, that was too much to resist.

‘What in the fucking hell are you up to, Vint?’ Bull asked, fondly resigned. He’d made Dorian a little bundle of blankets on the floor, taking the bed for himself obviously and when Dorian awoke, his body was screaming in protest. ‘I see those wheels turning in your head. It’s rarely good.’

At least he’d given Dorian tea. Tea was good. Tea was essential.

‘I’m trying to think of the most insulting way to tell you to fuck off,’ Dorian said, blowing over the surface of his hot drink. ‘And falling back on the good old classic of, _“fuck off, Bull._” Not my best, but the intent is oh so real, I assure you.’

‘Maybe you should talk to Lavellan,’ Bull suggested, stripping off and dressing right there and then. ‘She’s got all them long words and patience, plus she really likes you. Always telling everyone how great you are, even Cullen.’

Bull chuckled, strapping on a fresh armour plate, one that had been meticulously cleaned of blood and spatter while Dorian fought to keep his expression free of anything resembling interest. ‘Well, she’s kind to a fault, our Inquisitor, no denying that.’

‘Yeah,’ Bull said. ‘He really doesn’t like you, does he?’

Dorian became suspicious. ‘Whatever gave you that impression?’

‘Maybe the way you’re always following him around, trying to goad him into killing you?’ Bull said it casually, his attention mostly with his morning ablutions as he splashed water on his face. ‘But then what do I know? I was only a spy for the Qun, not some fancy, masochistic Vint who’s obsessed with rejection.’

Dorian’s glare was weak because he was hungover, not because _any_ of that was true. ‘Some of those words were rather long, you know.’

‘Yeah,’ Bull said, grabbing his weapon and throwing Dorian a wink. ‘Sometimes people surprise you.’

* * *

Dorian ignored everything Bull had said. He locked it away in a box and threw the box into a deep, dark gilded closet.

As the day progressed, he spent most of it alone with his thoughts and came to the conclusion he’d been going about this the wrong way. All wrong.

Cullen was a soldier. If Dorian came at him with a sword, Cullen would cut him down before Dorian had a chance to do anything. Cullen’s defences were too well built for a frontal attack. No, Dorian had to be _sneaky_. Step up his game and do something the Commander wouldn’t expect or see coming a mile away.

‘Chess?’

Cullen didn’t look up from his desk. Dorian hadn’t needed to knock, which was good because that would have been awkward when Cullen likely refused to allow him entry. The Commander was hunched over paperwork, that damned, ugly helm around his shoulders and the tips of the fur quivered as he wrote.

Dorian wanted to clear his throat and reiterate, but _no_. Cullen had heard him and Cullen couldn’t outright ignore him forever…. could he?

After a painful stretch of time, Cullen sighed and laid down his quill, raising his placid, albeit displeased gaze to face Dorian.

‘Pardon?’

Dorian wondered how much it might sting Cullen to say,_ I beg your pardon?_ to a mage and if it had ever happened.

‘Chess,’ Dorian said again, pleasant and aloof. ‘I hear you play.’

Cullen gave Dorian that, _I know your ways, mage_, kind of glare and then looked back down, resuming his scribbles. ‘I am busy.’

‘Yes, I see that, hence why I was offering a brief reprieve before you inevitably return to this mountain of paperwork. A small break to play chess, nothing more.’

Dorian noticed Cullen’s hand tightened around the quill.

‘No, _thank_ you.’

‘Ah, well,’ Dorian sighed wistfully. ‘For the best, I suppose. We both know you could never beat me.’ Cullen’s eyes looked up from his page, but not at Dorian, at some other space which needed to be glared at, apparently. If Dorian had to guess, he supposed the Commander was mentally counting to ten. ‘All your honour and _rules_ are really nothing compared to my evil Tevinter innovation and genius. It wouldn’t do to have the Commander of the Inquisition beaten so _thoroughly_ in front of everyone.’

Cullen wasn’t stupid. Dorian knew the man recognised when he was being baited but that wasn’t the point. Dorian also knew that for Cullen to swallow such an insult, albeit one in service of a goad, would be nigh impossible.

Or so Dorian hoped.

‘Well,’ Cullen said, slowly dragging his gaze to Dorian with a forcibly neutral expression in place. ‘That simply wouldn’t do, would it?’

‘Lovely,’ Dorian said, allowing none of the victory he felt into his tone.

* * *

Cullen brought his sword everywhere with him. When he sat opposite Dorian outside in the pleasantly shaded cloister with a pre-set chess board, the mage couldn’t help but notice how Cullen’s hand rarely strayed too far from the hilt.

When Cullen saw him staring, the Commander simply said, ‘One never can be too careful.’

‘Of course,’ Dorian said, looking down at the board. ‘Soporati such yourselves must always maintain the illusion of safety. Hauling massive, long swords everywhere while a mage has only to wave their hand, quite understandable.’

Dorian almost wanted to wave _his_ hand to illustrate but even his warped instincts knew that was a bad idea. 

Cullen didn’t like that word, _Soporati, _Dorian could tell. The Commander said nothing though, silently watching Dorian like he was prey; not to be startled lest he escape.

It was magnificent.

The game began in the same silence and for a while, neither spoke. Dorian was a little rusty with chess, truth be told, and Cullen was anything but. It was less than twenty minutes before he thrashed Dorian.

The mage half expected Cullen to sweep wordlessly away, but instead he sat back in his metal garden chair and surveyed Dorian in a way that usually preceded speech.

‘You played with your father?’

The question was unexpected, but Dorian had been on high alert for anything, so he didn’t hesitate to answer. ‘No,’ he said, mirroring Cullen’s body language. ‘Alexius mostly. Occasionally with his son, Felix.’

‘Did Alexius allow you to cheat?’

Dorian chuckled. ‘No, he didn’t. It would make Felix laugh, sometimes.’

Cullen’s stare never wavered. ‘There’s some discord with your father, no?’

Dorian hated himself for blinking. ‘Discord?’

‘Yes,’ Cullen went on softly, _patiently_. It made Dorian’s magic churn irritably beneath his skin because he’d never found patience and patronisation to be agreeable. ‘I heard rumours of the meeting in Redcliffe, of the Retainer.’

Forcing himself to laugh dismissively, Dorian said, ‘I’m surprised you could sift through the sheer volume of rumours to find a pertinent one.’ Cullen didn’t speak, he’d stated his question and was awaiting an answer. ‘But yes, there’s discord. Not all of us have idyllic parents and doting siblings, Commander.’

‘May I ask,’ Cullen went on, completely ignoring the jibe about his own (apparently) perfect family. ‘What the nature of this discord is?’

Dorian's anger flared, defences riling helplessly. ‘Why?’

Cullen shrugged exquisitely, suddenly imbued with catlike grace. Those eyes were _riveted_ on Dorian. ‘Friendly curiosity.’

The mage tried to reconcile that fact that this was actually his own plan being used against him. _Again_. Well fuck that, Dorian wasn’t going to be _cowed_ by the Commander’s knowledge of how to hurt him without even touching that metal monstrosity at his hip.

‘Do you already know?’ Dorian asked, idly picking up a chess piece and fiddling with it. All part of the _new _plan, he told himself. Appear vulnerable, appear flustered. Bang up job, so far. ‘Because rhetorical questions are beyond dull, Commander.’

‘I’ve heard rumours, but as I’m sure you’re aware, such whisperings are, more often than not, unreliable and misleading.’

_Like the rumours about you,_ Dorian barely held back. He was excessively relieved that Lavellan hadn’t told anyone the full extent of the meeting. He trusted her and _liked_ her; it would be sad to lose a friend when he’d only just found one for the first time.

‘Well,’ Dorian said, meeting Cullen’s piercing stare. ‘Tell me a rumour and I’ll graciously confirm or deny.’

‘The rumour I heard,’ Cullen explained with an almost mesmerising combination of gentle calm. ‘Though I do not care for such scurrilous gossip myself, of _course_, was that your father disowned and exiled you from Tevinter for your predilection towards men.’

The word _exiled_ hung heavy in the air between them. Dorian let it sink in, let the pain of that one word, which changed the entire narrative of his journey and his life, truly impact him.

‘As always,’ Dorian said, placing the piece back on the board, purposefully in the wrong place because fuck you, Cullen. ‘The truth of the matter lies somewhere in between.’

The Commander waited.

‘I left Tevinter,’ Dorian said, proud of himself for keeping his voice absolutely free of the tremble that vibrated in his chest. ‘By _choice_. No dramatic exile, I’m afraid, though my father does indeed disapprove of my _predilection for men_, as you so mildly put it. Such a nice, clean Chantry boy thing that to call it, that. _“Predilection for men”,_ instead of _“fucking every man I could get underneath”._ Your manners do you credit, Commander.’

If there was anything smug about Cullen before, it was gone now. The _Chantry boy _comment had riled him again. Dorian filed that away, revelling in the opportunity to use it as often as possible in the future.

‘And that’s all? No detail you left out, Ser Pavus?’

Again, he waited as though he had all the time in the world, never once letting his gaze wander from Dorian. The Commander seemed to want that pain, brought to light and split open for his own satisfaction. If I can’t hurt you, then I’ll _hurt you. _

And a lesser mage might have gotten up, there and then. Quipped something _almost_ rude and strutted away.

A lesser mage, Dorian fucking Pavus was not.

‘Is that what matters to you, Commander? The _details_? It must be terribly frustrating, having no way to truly vent all that seething hatred and violence churning within. But if you need sordid details of my humiliation and pain, I’m happy to share. Whatever a sad, virginal, _Chantry boy_ like you needs to get off at night.’

Dorian was breathing faster than he would have liked but _fasta vass_, his temper was frayed and this was _not_ what he was used to. There was a split second where he was sure this was it; this was _enough_ to get a proper reaction - a fucking outburst even - from the man. Cullen was absolutely still, giving away nothing and Dorian waited with bated breath, anticipation curling through him.

But Cullen did not lash out. Instead he smiled. He fucking _smiled_ wide and it was like the sun except there was nothing warm about it. He was pleased, yes, but it was as cold as ice.

‘I did so hope to take your measure, Ser Pavus,’ he said, leaning forward, hands clasping together, still smiling and oh, it was rather terrifying.

Dorian’s mouth had gone very dry. ‘Sorry?’

‘Yes, you see,’ Cullen went on making no effort to hide his satisfaction, still tainted with disgust. ‘Lavellan speaks so _highly_ of her Tevinter friend, I almost questioned my initial impression of you. Perhaps you were not merely a shallow, self-involved brat, used to getting your own way. Perhaps there _was_ more to you. But no, you proved me right in the first.’ He stood up slowly, towering over Dorian. ‘You are _base_. You seek to undermine me, to provoke me.’ When he leaned over the table, hands on either side of the board, Dorian fought to control himself and his reaction. Only when he was close enough that Dorian could see all the different shades of brown in the Commander’s eyes did Cullen speak again, his voice abject silk. ‘Hear me when I say this. Stop following me, stop watching me. You will not survive my provocation, _mage_.’

* * *


	3. Cautionary

For the next two weeks, Lavellan took Dorian everywhere with her. Sera and Bull were solid company and Lavellan, well. She was fast becoming a wonderful friend to Dorian. There was apparently a rather endless source of things to be done throughout Ferelden and Orlais in the build up to the ball at the Winter Palace. Lavellan’s priorities were sometimes geared more towards helping farmers with errant rams and recovering mementos than consolidating power.

And Dorian sort of loved her for it.

But he also wasn’t blind and while he greatly appreciated the company and the endless cracking of jokes between his travel mates, he knew the reason behind it. She was keeping him away from Cullen.

Dorian reached the end of his patience after an especially trying day spent trying to guide a pea-brained druffalo back to its pen. Lavellan was allowing them to languish out there, away from Skyhold and away from…

‘Are we _moving_ out here?’ Dorian asked Lavellan when Bull and Sera retired to their tent, the pair bickering cheerfully. The Inquisitor was sharpening her dual blades, the same motions over and over. It looked quite soothing.

‘Hmm?’ she asked, distracted and not focused on Dorian at all.

‘If we _are_ moving out here, I’d have preferred some warning. I might be embracing change and all, away from the luxuries of Tevinter, but swanning around the countryside skinning nugs and picking Elfroot all the while sleeping on a _bedroll_ in a mildewy tent with your impossibly loud snoring—’

Lavellan sighed and spoke, interrupting Dorian. ‘I’m worried about him.’

‘What?’

‘I’m worried about him,’ she repeated, sweeping back a lock of jet-black hair. ‘Cullen. I know your talents are wasted out here somewhat. Solas much prefers to come to the Hinterlands, the small tasks please him greatly. But like I said—’

‘Worried about _what_?’

She lifted her gaze, eyebrow slanted with doubt. ‘Dorian.’

‘Inquisitor.’

‘Don’t get _arsey_ with me,’ she warned, though there remained a friendly twinkle in her eyes. ‘You want me to say it? Fine. You’re pushing my Commander to prove some insane point and I honestly don’t think it’s going to end well. Cullen is…’ she paused, searching for the right words in an almost protective manner. ‘Greatly misunderstood. And _no_,’ she added quickly. ‘Not in a wishy washy, tragic kind of way. His reputation is fortunate enough to remain centred around his bravery and talent, both of which are self-evident. There are other aspects of him not so widely circulated.’

‘What aspects?’

‘I would not betray his confidence.’

‘So, he’s confided in you, then?’

Her eyebrow climbed a little higher and she continued with the whetstone.

‘Well,’ Dorian said, crossing his arms. ‘I still don’t see why _I__’m_ the one in a sodding time out when the Commander has the issues you’re so worried about!’

‘You _are_ the issue, Dorian.’ The moment she said it, Lavellan winced. ‘I mean to say… it’s better to give him time and distance from… whatever you’re so intent on doing.’

‘My intent is only to befriend him.’

Her glare was deadpan in the extreme. ‘Dorian, if you keep following him around trying to get a rise out of him, he’s going to lash out. I don’t want to lose _either_ of you, understand? Please.’

Dorian’s heart was beating very fast. ‘Because he’d kill me, wouldn’t he?’

Lavellan swallowed, looking away. ‘He might try.’

The moment turned awkward. Hearing another confirm what Dorian had suspected… it was a heavy, ugly thing. Dorian cleared his throat and looked down at his staff, warm in his hands. ‘Because I’m a mage.’

‘Not entirely, no.’

He looked up sharply. ‘Why _else_?’

She looked so tired. ‘Dorian, if I tell you this, you will swear to me, upon everything you hold dear, that you will never repeat it.’

Eagerly, _desperately_, Dorian nodded. ‘Yes, I swear, of course.’ He meant it too, Lavellan was his friend.

The small-framed Inquisitor with the world on her shoulders took a deep breath. ‘Cullen has been through an enormous amount of trauma in his life, a great deal of it before he even turned twenty. Such a _disorder_ of the mind is hardly ever spoken of but a few in my clan taught me that such trauma can manifest years later, affecting mentality and… judgement as well as other things. From what Cullen has confided in me, which I will _not_ repeat, I believe him to be affected so. This past trauma is something he struggles with on a daily basis and now he’s decided to _forgo_ something that was, at the very least, a consistent source of relief.’

Dorian was listening raptly. ‘The lyrium,’ he guessed. ‘I no longer smell it on him.’

‘I can honestly say that while I consider Cullen a true friend and a trusted advisor, his capacity to distinguish between ally and enemy when it comes to mages is… severely diminished. But that’s not all.’ Her gaze fixed on Dorian and she laid down her blades. ‘There are elements of your personality, indeed of yours_elf_, that aggravate him. Perhaps _aggravate_ is not the word, but it is the closest I can find. He struggles to ignore you the way he manages with Solas and Vivienne. He would struggle, I believe, even if you had _not_ made it your life’s mission to pursue him in whatever manner you’ve convinced yourself of.’

She was pleading with him to understand. Back _off_. Leave Cullen alone. It was extremely clear and she had provided contextual evidence to further support her advice.

Dorian, however, had only really heard one part of her speech.

_He struggles to ignore you. _

*

They returned to Skyhold a week later and Dorian’s priorities were to bathe, pamper himself, eat something _other_ than travel rations, imbibe alcohol and then immediately seek out Commander Cullen.

Because this time, he knew exactly what he had to do.

‘Why aren’t you drinking more?’ Sera asked, peering into Dorian’s cup of ale. ‘Also, where did your fancy shmancy _wine_ go?’

The elf was perched atop the table in the Herald’s Rest, Blackwall and Bull sitting like normal, polite beings on the provided chairs. It was early evening and Dorian was now so clean his skin was practically _singing_ with it.

‘On occasion,’ Dorian drawled. ‘One likes to blend in with the locals.’

‘Pfffft! As _if_!’

‘Yeah, Vint,’ Bull added, his one good eye narrowing. ‘Pacing yourself, are you?’

Dorian shrugged and glanced near the door, gauging the light outside. It was almost evening, though not quite. ‘My round?’ he offered, getting up and heading to the _ever_ exuberant and quick-witted Cabot who was busily polishing a filthy tankard with a dirty rag.

‘Another round, my fine fellow,’ Dorian chirruped with a wide, toothy smile.

Cabot made a disgusted noise, but he went about his duties. When Bull slung himself against the bar, Dorian dropped the smile and rolled his eyes.

‘Andraste’s tits, be a dear and fuck _off_, will you?’

‘It’s not gonna work.’

‘I think I can afford a round at the bar, Bull. I may have left behind extravagant wealth and all its trappings but—’

‘Cullen isn’t gonna fuck you, Dorian.’

The bold statement caught Dorian off-guard and he briefly fell silent, blushing faintly because that was _loud_ and people definitely heard.

‘How shall I bear the deprivation?’ he droned, sounding for all the world like he couldn’t have cared less.

‘What _is_ your obsession with him?’ Bull asked, blessedly in a lower tone. ‘Because if you really want to get roughed up, Vint, I’ll take you out back for a one-off.’

‘Be still my heart.’

Bull chuckled and shook his head. Cabot served the drinks, taking Dorian’s coin with a grunt. ‘Well, I don’t know how else to say it. I’m just tryin’ to be a friend. Do you really think so little of yourself? Or are you just determined to prove you’re such hot shit that you can make someone like Cullen, who _hates_ your kind, cross his own boundaries and fuck you through his desk?’

_Oh_, the imagery.

‘No,’ Dorian said, almost petulantly. ‘I am _not_. I’m taking it slow tonight because I don’t want a hangover when we have a fucking dress rehearsal for the Winter Palace in the morning and all that _red_ will be burning my eye sockets.’

With a snort, Bull gathered three of the drinks, leaving Dorian’s untouched. He paused before walking away and said in a low tone, ‘You’re worth more than this.’

Dorian remained at the bar, determinedly looking at his drink. It really didn’t help that Cabot was still standing right in front of him, not even politely pretending to be doing anything other than listening and staring. Bull’s words rang in his ears painfully, but they wouldn’t settle and sink because they just… weren’t true. Bull was kind, despite all his brashness and vulgarity. Kindness and honesty rarely coincided and he didn’t _know_ Dorian. Didn’t know his life before all this madness, didn’t know the mage beyond the mask Dorian wore and hated himself for.

He downed the drink and wiped his mouth like some Ferelden barbarian and left the tavern without another word.

*

The evening had melted into night and the Commander’s door was closed, but Dorian could see light coming from under it. He stood there longer than he wanted to admit, listening for any sounds within, mostly detecting an occasional shuffle. It was nerve-wracking and exhilarating and possibly the last thing he would ever do.

Dorian knocked on the door, closing his eyes against the thrashing fear within. Cullen’s voice was slightly muffled when he wearily called out, ‘Yes?’

The door opened easily but _loudly_. Maker, did every door squeak like this? Dorian hadn’t noticed until then. He pushed it all the way open and before any of the words he had planned could spring forth, he was met with a sight that fairly wrecked him.

Commander Cullen was standing at the foot of his ladder, boots and trousers still on but he was quite without anything else. He was _shirtless_, one booted foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, staring at Dorian, his mouth slightly parted in what could only be deemed shock.

It wasn’t that Cullen was beautiful (he was) and it wasn’t that Dorian could see, even from the front, that Cullen bore extensive scars which spoke of many years' worth of pain and manual healing.

It was that he’d caught Cullen in a vulnerable moment… and Cullen might actually kill him for it.

The Commander stepped away from the ladder. He glared at Dorian and his lip curled, shoulders tensed and hands balled into fists. Dorian had _almost_ regained the ability to speak when Cullen snarled, ‘Turn around and walk away, _now!__’_

_Deep breaths, _Dorian told himself. He kicked the door shut behind him. The sound didn’t cause Cullen to flinch but the action had his eyes narrowing and for the very first time _ever, _Dorian sensed that Cullen was threatened.

‘I just want to ask one question first,’ Dorian said smoothly, or it would have been if his voice wasn’t shaking. ‘Then I’ll leave and this time, I won’t come back nor continue to pester you so. I give you my word.’

The way Cullen stood, Dorian knew the man was gauging the time it would take to reach for his sword, how long before Dorian could hurl a fireball at him. Parsing out the details, playing through each scenario. He was ready to fight, rallying himself for something violent and all of that violence was going to be aimed right at Dorian.

Dorian had always loved being the centre of attention.

‘Your word is meaningless.’

‘One question. Then I’m _gone_.’

Dorian watched as Cullen half blinked, his jaw working furiously. ‘Ask, then.’

The mage so wanted to look away when he spoke. He wished he could say it glibly or while smirking, maybe leaning insolently against a wall or something but it had to come out plain and unadorned or Cullen would cut it down.

With tremendous effort, Dorian maintained eye contact with a furious, slightly unhinged ex-Templar and asked, ‘What would you do if I hit you?’

*

_Dorian was ten years old and in trouble, yet again. _

_He sat in the high-backed chair of his father_ _’s study, mutinously staring anywhere but where he was meant to. The study was beautiful and perfectly organised, filled with rare and valuable artefacts and volumes. _

_Dorian wanted to burn it all. _

_Halward Pavus sighed. _ _‘Dorian, you’re not even listening to me.’_

_‘I can listen and look elsewhere,’ Dorian said, moving his gaze down to his fingernails, still cracked and torn, marred with grit and dried blood. _

_‘I’m not angry,’ Halward repeated. ‘I’m not even disappointed. I’m just very, very concerned. You could have died, Dorian. All the other children said you _volunteered_ to climb it and that they told you not to. I realise the canyon is something of a,__’ he gestured vaguely. ‘Local benchmark for measuring bravery. I tried to climb it myself when I was fifteen or so, but son, you are only ten and you could have died. No one can climb it, especially not a child such as yourself.’_

_‘I almost made it to the top,’ Dorian said tightly. _

_‘Yes, I know that.’_

_‘My foot slipped.’_

_‘And were it not for the quick thinking of those older children you insist on loitering around, your mother and I would be childless right now.’_

_Dorian was old enough to know when a statement was intended to impact upon him. The concept of his own death was meant to be a deterrent, meant to shock him into behaving or at least into agreeing that such actions were never to be attempted again. _

_Except the only thing in his mind was the moment his foot slipped, replaying over and over as his body experienced the sick, swooping realisation that he_ _’d miscalculated… and he was going to die. The feeling had been terrifying, rightly so, but it hadn’t been… bad. It was thrilling and electric, unlike any of his previous exploits. _

_Dorian already knew he would try again. _

_‘You’re right, father,’ he said, making eye contact with Halward now that he felt confident enough to hide his nature. ‘It was a foolish risk and I shouldn’t have attempted it. I confess, I only wanted to impress the others.’_

_Halward__’s expression darkened slightly at the mention of Dorian’s older friends of whom he definitely did _not_ approve, one boy in particular. _

_‘You have nothing to prove to anyone,’ he told his son. ‘And even if you did, risking yourself and our family line is unacceptable. You are the future of house Pavus, Dorian.’_

_‘Yes, father.’_

_Halward seemed to sense that Dorian wasn_ _’t entirely sincere and he sighed again, frustrated that he hadn’t been able to reach his son on a meaningful level. _

_‘I do not like this wayward avenue you are starting down.’_

_‘Yes, father.’ _

_‘Very well, go on and have your hands healed.’ Dorian shot up out of the chair, thrilled to be dismissed. When his fingers clasped the handle of the door, Halward said, ‘You’re my son, Dorian. I am always here for you.’_

_Ten-year-old Dorian looked back at his father and blinked, surprised. _

_‘Thank you,’ he said, unsure of what else to say and still eager to leave. There was a whole world outside of dangerous places and people, thrills to be had in the absence of parents and caretakers. But his father was trying and that meant something. Dorian tried to muster up some genuine sentiment when he said, ‘I’ll try to be more careful.’_

_He almost meant it._

_*_

For a painfully long time, Cullen said nothing and his reaction was almost non-existent. Dorian wondered if the Commander had even heard him, maybe he’d spoken too softly or Cullen was simply too distracted, imagining all the ways he could kill Dorian.

But no, something in the way Cullen was _frozen_ told Dorian that he’d heard it. Dorian took a slow deliberate step forward and the non-reaction shattered.

‘Don’t,’ Cullen warned, eyes flashing. At his side, one hand tightly balled into a fist hard enough that his knuckles were white. The other hand made a motion towards the sword that wasn’t where it should have been at his hip. ‘Don’t you _dare_!’

But Dorian _did_ dare. He took another step and now they were almost in each other’s breathing space.

‘So?’ Dorian prompted. ‘What would you do?’

With the utmost hatred, Cullen spat, ‘Try it and see for yourself, _mage!__’_

It wasn’t _quite_ meant to discourage Dorian that time. Cullen was shaking; a very fine, almost imperceptible tremor running through him and yes, most of it was caused by anger and fury, but part of it wasn’t and Dorian could almost taste it.

‘Everyone has been warning me to stay away from you,’ Dorian said, daring to move one step closer, bringing them into intimate space because Cullen would never, _never_ back away from a mage. ‘Lavellan even _took_ me away, to protect us both, I think. But from what? What are you actually going to do to me, Commander? Kill me? That would be easy. Here I am, unarmed.’

‘Mages are _never_ unarmed!’

Dorian couldn’t prevent his lip curling ever so slightly, hazy and drunk on this feeling. Climbing higher and higher, so close to the top.

‘True,’ he acknowledged, not advancing further now that he was within reaching distance. ‘But we both know it would be easy, even so. So, I ask, _again_, what would you do if I hit you?’

Cullen’s pupils were blown wide, his eyes almost black. ‘You’re a fool.’

‘See, I don’t think you’d kill me. Not if you knew it was coming. A surprise attack would catch you off-guard and you couldn’t be held responsible for your actions, _but_ if you knew I was only going to hit you, not raise my hand with magic, I wonder… would you only _hurt_ me, instead?’

It was working. It was _working_ and Dorian was definitely fucked now, but what did that matter when he felt like this? Caught so thickly in the danger, no way out but through.

The Commander hated Dorian and he made no attempt to hide it, but the mage was affecting him in more ways than one. This beautiful, blond man, light of the Chantry personified… was shaking with need. He _needed_ to hurt Dorian.

And Dorian needed it in turn. Not the pain so much, pain was a part of it but it was not the driving force here. If he wanted pain, he could have gone to Bull.

It was the _risk_.

The risk that Cullen couldn’t actually control himself. That he wouldn’t stop, that he wouldn’t _make_ himself stop. Cullen was unstable.

Cullen was perfect.

Dorian’s hand moved fast, but Cullen was faster. He caught Dorian’s wrist with a loud slap of skin on skin, his grip bruising. He was breathing very fast.

‘If you start this, I’m not going to stop, even if you beg.’

Oh yes, Cullen was fucking _perfect_.

‘I don’t beg,’ Dorian replied silkily, unable to keep his eyes from flicking to Cullen’s mouth. That strong hand around his wrist was bruising, tight enough to break the bone if it increased just a fraction more. ‘I’ve never been taught how.’

They were close enough now that if Dorian moved forward even slightly, their bodies would brush together. Cullen would feel Dorian’s hardness, his eager shaft seeking friction and attention.

Cullen closed his eyes, not releasing Dorian or even weakening his hold.

‘Can you perform healing magic?’ he asked, so quietly that Dorian almost missed it.

‘Yes,’ Dorian lied. ‘I can.’

When the Commander’s eyes opened, the last remaining piece of restraint _dissolved_. He hit Dorian hard across the face; a powerful backhander that sent the mage reeling or it _would_ have, but Cullen caught him before he fell. The pain exploded across Dorian’s face, shorting out his mind and his ability to think.

Cullen had him by the wrists and he yanked him forward again, bringing Dorian to face him. He freed up one hand to drag his fingers roughly over Dorian’s face, swiping at the thin trail of blood he found there with an expression that plainly did not bode well for Dorian’s general survival but… but he’d asked about healing, hadn’t he?

‘So arrogant,’ he said, almost to himself, shaking his head. ‘But you all break the same, you all beg in the end.’

Dorian sneered. ‘I don’t beg, _Chantry boy_!’

And despite the near total darkness in Cullen’s eyes, a terrible kind of anticipation swirling there, Dorian could swear he saw a flash of grudging admiration.

‘We’ll see,’ Cullen said with soft malice. He shoved Dorian around, spun him and wrenched one arm up Dorian’s back in a painful twist. His other arm snaked around the mage’s waist, holding him there. ‘Do you know how close you’ve come to the end of my sword, mage?’ the Commander murmured. ‘How many times I wanted to punish you for daring to follow me, daring to provoke me?’

Dorian tried to swallow but Cullen wrenched his head back by the hair suddenly, exposing his throat. His breath caught painfully in the base of his neck.

‘Hmm, abandoned by your wit, for once? It’s a little too late for silence to appease me now, mage.’

In answer to the taunt, Dorian tried to wrench his arm free, to struggle away but Cullen was a fucking stronghold, _Skyhold_ personified. The movement made Dorian suddenly aware of the Commander’s hard cock, pressing insistently against his arse and that, if possible, made Dorian’s head swim even more because he was right, right, _right. _

Cullen twisted his arm and wrenched it high up Dorian’s back so that the mage had to turn. He was guided roughly to Cullen’s desk and though it might have been distracting, seeing Cullen sweep everything off of it, he could only keep his eyes on that monstrous great sword, leaning against the bookshelf, glinting malevolently in the meagre candlelight. It was well within Cullen’s reach now.

When the Commander shoved Dorian down onto the desk face first, it knocked all the air from his lungs and Cullen did not release his arm. The mage scrambled for purchase, ribs stinging.

‘Even now, you radiate _arrogance_,’ Cullen purred. ‘What a foolish creature you are, pursuing me in this way. Did you thrill in the dangers of pushing me in search of a reaction?’

Dorian closed his eyes, nodding.

‘Spoilt, reckless brat,’ Cullen went on as he kicked Dorian’s legs apart. ‘Blithely unaware of the risks you undertook to get here.’

‘I’m not unaware,’ Dorian ground out. ‘I knew the risks.’

Cullen stilled, falling silent. ‘Did you?’

‘Yes.’

‘So _that__’s_ why,’ he breathed, one hand sliding up the length of Dorian’s back, keeping him pressed awkwardly, _painfully_ against the desk. ‘Tell me what you wanted, mage.’ Dorian tried to dredge up the ability to speak but when Cullen’s hand slid into his hair, tightening cruelly, he briefly lost it again. ‘Tell me how much it excited you, knowing that I could have about turned at any moment and lost my temper?’

‘M-more than it should._’_

_‘Yes,’ _Cullen hissed, leaning down by Dorian’s face, lips brushing his ear. ‘Because in this too, you must excel above all your other fellow _abominations_, mustn’t you? _More_ powerful, _more_ dangerous, _more_ distracting. It’s been a long time since I granted a mage’s death wish.’

The Commander yanked Dorian upright, flush against his body. Cullen’s free hand wrapped about Dorian throat, fingers digging into the flesh there, pressing against his windpipe expertly.

‘Insatiable little _slut, _you are beyond deluded.’

It was getting harder to breathe, the world darkening dangerously and Dorian was almost lost to the sensation, but not quite. He pushed back against Cullen purposefully, grinding himself against the hardness he found there as if to prove him wrong.

‘You’re not the first mage to try and seduce me,’ Cullen breathed, his free hand snaking down Dorian’s front. ‘Do you know what I did to the others who tried?’

Dorian closed his eyes because he didn’t want to hear this but he also _did_.

When Cullen palmed Dorian’s cock, it took everything Dorian had not to moan wantonly and thrust into that hand. ‘Tell me what you think I did,’ Cullen instructed as the heel of his palm ground over Dorian, just this side of perfectly.

He released Dorian’s throat enough for the mage to breathe and speak. Dorian took great shuddering breaths, battling against dizziness from lack of air and the pleasure slowly coiling within his body from Cullen’s ministrations.

‘Tell me.’

Dorian shook himself. ‘I don’t know.’

Cullen’s hand ground harder, speeding up as it moved over the fabric.

‘Make an educated guess.’

‘I… can’t, I don’t know,’ Dorian panted, but he knew Cullen wouldn’t be satisfied and if he stopped grinding his palm over Dorian’s cock, the mage might actually die. ‘You… punished them?’

Cullen’s hand sped up. ‘No.’

Dorian keened. ‘Ahh, you… you hurt them.’

‘Would they have deserved it?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Would you deserve it?’

‘Yes, Maker, _yes_!’

‘What did I do to the circle mages who tried to seduce me, Dorian?’

The use of his given name pulled on a tightly wound chord in Dorian’s chest, pushing him dangerously close to the edge.

‘You… you killed them.’

Cullen’s hand _vanished_ and Dorian was about to cry or beg or scream for it back when Cullen’s teeth sunk viciously into the side of his neck. The pain was shocking and sudden but it was the _right_ kind of pain and everything was too much, just too much.

The bite alone forced Dorian to orgasm. The feeling was _wrenched_ from him, painful and overwhelming and nothing would ever feel that good again, he was sure of it. He spilled into his own smalls, head thrown back against Cullen’s bare shoulder, the Commander’s teeth still in Dorian’s fucking _neck_ as wave upon wave of hot, unbearable pleasure rocked through him.

Cullen released him abruptly, shoving him forward. Dorian’s arms flew out to brace himself against the desk. Thoughts muddled, he waited to see how Cullen would proceed, excited and terrified about what would inevitably come next.

‘Get out.’

“Wh-what?’

Dorian pushed up off of the desk and turned. Cullen wasn’t even looking at him, staring instead at the sword back in his hands once again. The hairs on Dorian’s neck stood on edge, eyes locked on the weapon.

‘You think I would sully myself with one such as you? A _mage_?’ Cullen shook his head, chuckling incredulously even though Dorian could see the state he was in; flushed from head to toe, heart thumping visible in his chest, pulse leaping in the hollow of his throat. He brought his gaze back to Dorian and _that_, at least, was ice cold; shuttered and distant. ‘I never killed the mages who tried to seduce me. That would have been a violation of my duty.’

‘What _did_ you do, then?’

Cullen blinked slowly, staring at the mage. ‘I humiliated them.’

Dorian couldn’t help it. He let out an incredulous laugh, a small burst of breath as he shook his head. There wasn’t anything left to say. _Again,_ he’d imagined himself about to best this fucking madman and _again_ he’d been shown how far from victory he really was.

‘I didn’t even need to touch your cock to make you come,’ Cullen said, shaking his head. ‘Now get _out_ and this time, don’t come back.’

*


	4. In War, Victory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, blown away by all the comments and kindness. I'm still a little nervous writing this, so that encouragement literally means the world to me.

‘And so, it becomes less about your proficiency for healing, not to impugn your talent which I proclaim to be substantial, but more for the fact that you’re somewhat of a…’ Dorian cast about for the least offensive term. ‘_Lone wolf _within Skyhold. Solitary and reclusive with deeply ingrained anti-social values which are, in this case, what I _really_ need.’

Solas was deeply unimpressed.

‘Is that perhaps _Tevene_ for, “Might I count on your discretion, Solas?”’

Dorian fidgeted, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. ‘As you say.’

‘Well,’ Solas went on, not rising from his chair, desk laden with papers all before him. ‘You may be assured of my secrecy but I would need to know what happened.’

‘What difference would it make?’

Damnable elf that he was, Solas just blinked serenely. ‘I do not especially like you, Dorian,’ he began and Dorian couldn’t help but laugh bitterly. Who _did_? _‘However,_ if you require intervention of some sort, I would not be averse to—’

_‘Intervention_?’

‘—arranging help on your behalf. The Inquisitor is your true friend, there is precious little she would not do for you.’

A headache began to pulse violently in Dorian’s temples. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his sore nose, temper hanging by a thread. ‘Will you heal me or not, Solas?’

‘Your injuries are consistent with—’

_‘Right_, I’ll just do it myself then!’

* * *

Dorian did _not_, in fact, do it himself.

Healing magic had never caught his morbid interests enough to justify training. His attempts to remove the finger painting of bruises around his neck didn’t so much as lessen the shade, let alone ease the ache.

It was the bruise on his face he was most concerned about. It would be worse the next morning yet it was already prominent and dark, his jaw aching every time he moved it and wasn’t that just perfect? Punishment for talking.

Cullen would have liked that.

‘Fuck it all to the void,’ Dorian grouched, pouring himself another generous helping of wine, stolen from Lavellan’s ever growing private stash on the way back to his room. It wasn’t very _good_ wine, on the verge of turning really.

It still did the trick at least. Now, when Dorian closed his eyes, he could still see Cullen, but he was _blurry_. The Commander might be imprinted there for all eternity, such was the depth of the brand. No amount of wine would quieten the words spinning through his mind on an endless loop.

_I humiliated them_.

Over and over.

As the wine began to run out, Dorian became increasingly morose, staring out of his narrow window into darkness and wondering, not for the first time, what the fuck was actually _wrong_ with him?

He didn’t _want_ to be this way. Maker, he wished he could forget all about Cullen and his intensity and his ceaseless ability to thwart Dorian at every fucking turn the way no one had ever been able to. There were other men, even in Skyhold where he was generally despised, who would have fucked him. He knew the looks, was fluent in that language of eye contact and appraisal. If it was just sex, he knew he could have gone to Bull, even though his friend had put a stop to it months ago. Dorian had extenuating circumstances, after all.

But it wasn’t just sex. Fuck, Dorian wasn’t even sure it was _about_ sex.

The risk with Cullen was extreme and thrilling and what Dorian had been searching for his entire adult life. It was too perfect, too _dangerous_ to let go of. Cullen saw right through Dorian, all the way to his very centre. He didn’t like what he saw, obviously, but he could see it. Dorian knew an obsession when he felt one. He knew himself well enough to acknowledge that he wasn’t going to let this go, no matter how many times Cullen slapped him down, no matter how literally.

Because… Cullen had been hard too. Dorian _was_ right about that. The Commander wanted Dorian even if it disgusted him, went against the grain of his being. And _that_ was the thing Dorian wouldn’t be able to let go of. Cullen wanted him _despite_ himself.

‘That vintage was tricky to find, you know.’

Dorian blinked owlishly and turned, finding Lavellan leaning in his doorway.

‘Eh?’

She shook her head. ‘Solas had me bring you this.’ The small glass vial she offered glinted in the candlelight and it took Dorian’s alcohol addled mind embarrassingly long to realise it was a healing potion.

‘Oh, well.’ He took it from her grasp rather sullenly. ‘I see. Apologies for helping myself to your stash.’

Lavellan shrugged and came inside, closing the door gently behind her in direct contrast to the way Dorian had kicked Cullen’s. ‘I can always find more.’

‘What is your obsession with these bottles?’

She sat on the edge of his chaise, leaning forward, hands together. ‘I suppose I like the idea of having a nice collection for my friends to enjoy when this is all over.’

‘Oh.’ Good one, Dorian. Why not go find an innocent snoufleur and kick that, too?

‘Solas didn’t say anything else,’ Lavellan went on. ‘But I’m not stupid.’

Dorian let out a shaky sigh, horrified and utterly unsurprised when tears sprang to his eyes. ‘What’s wrong with me, Ellana?’

She got up quickly and enveloped him in a warm, strong hug. It was… strange. Dorian tried to think of the last time he’d actually been hugged and failed dismally. He _had_ been hugged, though, yes? At some point in his life?

‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ Lavellan said, rubbing his back. ‘But there’s rather a lot wrong with you, Dorian.’ He laughed wetly, throat constricted with tears that were apparently just free-flowing now while the best, last hope of Thedas held him close. ‘It’s my fault, really, for even making you aware of him in such a light. I should have known better.’

Lavellan drew back and wiped Dorian’s tears away in a loving, sisterly gesture that made Dorian’s heart ache. ‘Imagine how happy we’d be if only you liked men and I liked women.’

She grinned and rolled her eyes. ‘You’re so _morbid_ when drunk.’ When her expression sobered slightly, Dorian winced in dreaded anticipation of the difficult questions he knew were coming.

‘Please,’ he blurted out. ‘Please, can we talk about it tomorrow? I’m so tired and if you stay with me, I might actually be able to sleep.’

There was no deliberation in her answer. ‘Of course I’ll stay,’ she said and he sagged with relief. ‘But tomorrow we’re talking.’

‘To your little elven heart’s content.’

* * *

Lavellan was a snuggler and Dorian didn’t mind one bit. For all the incredible, mind-blowing sex he’d had in his young life, no one had ever wanted to stay the night. That’s how things were in Tevinter, of course. Quick, intense fuck behind a statue in the garden and then back before the next round of canapes. Even with Rilenius, the secrecy had negated any opportunity for Dorian to learn what it felt like to wake up with someone cuddled around him.... save for that one week, the time spent together in Asariel.

It was… _wonderful_.

Dorian basked in the simple joy of being snuggled for about ten seconds before his dully throbbing head decided to ruin it all by wondering if, in any reality, Dorian would ever be able to get _Cullen_ to cuddle him in such a way and… well, that was rather unlikely to say the least.

The potion sat on his nightstand and Dorian was grateful he hadn’t taken it last night, lest the alcohol interfere with the healing properties. As he reached for it, Lavellan stirred and untangled from him.

‘Morning, Inquisitor,’ Dorian said, smirking as he sat up, potion in hand.

She stretched like a cat before blinking at him, eyes widening in a sympathetic wince. ‘Oooh, that looks painful.’

Dorian resisted the urge to touch his face. ‘It rather feels it too.’ He downed the potion eagerly, hoping it took his hangover with it. It was a bubbly potion, sharp and fizzing. The effects were almost instantaneous. His whole body felt refreshed, instantly _better_ and the sludgy residue of all that wine just vanished.

‘_Maker_, that feels better,’ he gasped. ‘I’ll have to thank him personally, somehow convince him to make more of it.’

Lavellan carefully traced her finger down his face. ‘Looks much better too. Like nothing even happened’

‘Oh,’ Dorian said, remembering _everything_ all of a sudden. ‘Good.’

‘Shall we break fast together?’ she asked pleasantly. ‘We have a little time before the fittings for the Winter Palace.’

Dorian grimaced at the thought of all that red, but cheerfully said, ‘Lead the way.’

* * *

Of course, Lavellan was sneaky. She plied him with food and tea before she laced her fingers together and fixed him with a stern look. Amid the hustle and bustle of morning life in Skyhold’s main hall, Dorian felt confident enough that their conversation wouldn’t be overheard, but that didn’t mean _he_ wanted to hear it.

‘Dorian,’ Lavellan began gravely, nodding to herself. ‘Let’s talk about last night.’

‘The five words most guaranteed to bring my food right back up,’ Dorian sniffed, but he wasn’t about to actually abstain. Maybe talking about it would help. ‘Have it your way, then. What shall we speak of?’

‘Will you tell me what happened?’

Dorian couldn’t help but feel the smallest bit curious. What did _she _think had happened? Oh, Maker, now he sounded like Cullen, didn’t he?

_Tell me what you think I did. _

_‘_You’ve but to ask.’

Lavellan understood that Dorian didn’t want to just _explain_ the whole thing, she would have to ask and be answered.

‘Did he hurt you without your consent?’

It melted his heart a little, her genuine concern. Maker fucking damn it all to _void_ he would actually die to protect her and not just because of the glowy do-dad on her hand. At least it was an easy question.

‘No.’

His answered didn’t seem to please her the way he thought it might have.

‘So… you wanted him to hurt you, then? Because Dorian, there’s rough sex and then there’s just being punched in the face.’

Dorian blinked. ‘I wanted him to hurt me.’

She looked down, swallowing. ‘Can I ask why?’

‘Why does anyone want _anything? _I just wanted it.’

‘You still do.’

‘I suppose there’s no point lying, is there?’

‘Dorian, this is dangerous for you both. I can’t outright forbid it and even if I could, I wouldn’t. You’re adults. I just can’t help but feel as though this will escalate.’

It was _definitely_ going to escalate, but Dorian didn’t say that to her. Instead, he reached over the table and grasped her hand. ‘Your concern is touching and greatly appreciated.’

When she glanced up, she was half smiling. ‘But fuck off, Ellana?’

He chuckled. ‘Please don’t, in fact. I’m not sure at this juncture of my life I’d know what to do without you.’

‘Then you’re stuck with me.’ She squeezed his hand briefly before letting go. Dorian looked to the side and caught Mother Giselle fairly glaring at him and he made sure to give her his sweetest, most saccharine smile in return. ‘All I ask is that you tread carefully, Dorian. I know you see Cullen as a… well, all right. I’ve no clue what you actually see Cullen as. A conquest, a challenge? I’m not sure, but he’s a person, Dorian. Just because he’s cold to you or _abrasive, _that doesn’t mean for a moment you’re not affecting his life and his ability to effectively command.’

‘I’ll walk the line, never fear, Inquisitor.’

‘And what a line it is,’ she commented dryly.

* * *

The dress rehearsal was really more of a final fitting, ensuring the matching outfits looked at… well, _matching_ as possible, Dorian supposed. Lavellan was bringing Bull and Sera along with Dorian. The best part of the fitting had been when Bull sneezed and ripped the entire back of his jacket in half much to the dismay of the seamstress and Josephine, who glared violently at Sera when the elf burst into loud, uncontrollable peals of laughter. It was a nice distraction, almost enough to ignore the Commander, irritably fussing with his many buttons in the corner while Leliana quietly muttered things that made him roll his eyes.

Dorian felt the state of things very clearly. He knew his role here was now to ignore Cullen completely. Avoid eye contact, stay away like he’d been told because Cullen had humiliated him, hadn’t he? Cullen had won, right? It was enough for _anyone_ to get the message. Dorian took a deep breath, straightening the red monstrosity over his chest. He observed the man from the corner of his eyes, not looking directly at him because… he knew he wasn’t supposed to. Periphery and nothing else from now on, right?

But when he looked directly at Cullen, because _of course_, he experienced a sick thrill of shock.

Cullen was already staring at him.

The jolt was primal. The sensation of being watched by something so formidable, it took Dorian’s breath away. Cullen didn’t look away either, he kept right on staring, gaze cold and untouchable but… there was something else. Challenging, perhaps.

Lavellan was talking to Dorian, that tone where she was purposefully trying to get his attention but he couldn’t look away. Not yet.

A plan began to form. A plan was _always_ fucking forming, but this one… oh this one was good. Dorian made a big show of looking away first after a few more drawn out moments of intensity, like he was nervous all of a sudden.

‘Yes, well,’ Josephine said, clearing her throat, shooting a glance in Cullen’s direction. ‘May we please go over some of the finer points of decorum again?’

Bull snorted. ‘Is there any point?’

‘Yes!’ Josephine insisted, mildly scandalised. Sera hopped up onto a small table nearby, ripping a crusty piece of bread apart with her mouth. ‘There _is_ a point, I assure you! Our behaviour will be scrutinised, every move we make, each interaction—’

Sera belched, patting her chest with an expression of mild surprise. ‘Big one, that.’

For a long moment, Josephine stared at her while Dorian fought to suppress a smile. He liked Sera more and more by the second. When Josephine turned a pleading look on Lavellan, who was also surveying the scene with her lips bitten into her mouth so as not to laugh, Dorian took pity.

‘I’ll keep an eye on this pair of ruffians,’ he drawled. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘The fuck is a _ruffian_?’ Bull muttered, pulling his pauldron back on now that the seamstress had to mend, or possibly whip up a new version of, his jacket. ‘Maybe Josephine has a point, boss,’ the Qunari went on. ‘Might wanna make a more… _diplomatic_ choice in who you take.’

Josephine’s brief moment of hope was crushed when Lavellan laughed like he’d cracked a joke. The diplomat then turned to the _Cullen-Leliana_ alliance. ‘Well, I’m afraid the bulk of the pressure falls to you two then,’ she snapped. ‘Leliana, I know you’ll be fine and Cullen… just look pretty.’

Dorian, who wasn’t looking at Cullen because he had a master plan, couldn’t help himself. He let out an unattractive snort of laughter.

‘Something amusing, Ser Pavus?’

Oh, he was _speaking_ to Dorian in front of the others and his tone was dripping _ice_.

And Dorian, he had all the snarky comments in Thedas lurking within him. Some of them were exceptionally funny, even if he said so himself, but he didn’t let a single one of them out.

Master plan.

‘No,’ he said reluctantly. It would be worth it. _So worth it_, he told himself. ‘No, just clearing my sinuses.’

He kept his back to Cullen which was extremely rude but really, what was Cullen going to do about it? Ignore him some more?

_Master plan. _

‘Yeah, it’s stuffy as arseholes in here,’ Sera chimed in, rescuing Dorian lazily. ‘Look, we all get it. Play nice, chew with your mouth closed, don’t get blood on the ballroom floor. Lady Nightingale over there can swish around all secret like, poking holes in the lords, Cully-wully can distract the ladies by standing in a corner looking flustered and Josie,’ she added, addressing Lady Montilyet in a casual, warm manner. ‘You just do what you do best.’

Josephine blinked, frowning slightly. ‘Which is?’

Sera took a huge bite of the bread crust, sending a shower of pale crumbs over the front of her jacket. ‘Make us look better than we really are.’

Resigned to her fate, Josephine nodded glumly and they began to disperse, Cullen striding out ahead, Leliana following closely. The Spymaster didn’t miss the opportunity to shoot Dorian a kind of cool, superior smirk on the way out.

Dorian though, he just wondered how much Cullen had hated Sera’s nickname for him and if he hated it more than, or perhaps on par with, _Chantry Boy._

* * *

The worst part of his plan was pretending to be nervous around Cullen. The journey was long and arduous, cramped at night and awkward as Lavellan cheerfully did what she could to keep frosty atmosphere’s at bay with the help of Bull and Sera and even, Leliana whose snarky wit and icy charm could provide distraction at times. Any time Cullen came near Dorian, the mage made sure to avert his eyes. Not always in a timely manner, of course. He couldn’t overdo it. Cullen was smart and likely watching Dorian closely to see if he was really going to back off, verifying his triumph.

Dorian worked to seem like his confidence had been knocked. Like he was afraid and trying to hide it behind bluster and swagger.

And Cullen, for all his intelligence and instinct, seemed to actually buy it.

‘Bull says you’re scheming,’ Lavellan commented blandly on the last night of travel in their shared tent. Dorian had just been nodding off, no mean feat on a wafer-thin bed roll atop lumpy grass.

‘Whuh?’ he asked, rolling over to squint at her like he hadn’t heard and didn’t understand.

‘Don’t play dumb with me,’ she warned in a motherly tone. ‘Whatever you’re doing, just don’t let it interfere with the Winter Palace mission. Yes?’

‘Duty first, as always, Inquisitor.’

He rolled away, pretending to sleep while his plan played on repeat in his mind, heart beating hard.

* * *

The Palace was a gleaming, poisonous bore and Dorian felt an almost nostalgic yearning for the glittering lethality of Tevinter by comparison. It was all so very _predictable, _though it was a pleasant change to sip wine that didn’t taste like vinegar for once.

Lavellan took it in her stride, the whispers and sly comments. She walked up to Celene with impenetrable confidence and said all the right things.

Dorian knew there were subtleties to observe; that a political tapestry was being woven this very night and the threads would stretch far and wide, shaping the lives of all in Thedas for years to come.

He wasn’t interested in any of that, though.

His _Master Plan_ was in play at last and it was all he could think of.

Without having to actually look directly at him, Dorian knew that Cullen was surrounded by twittering women and even a few men, simpering in the hopes of dancing with the Inquisition’s handsome Commander. The scene was in his periphery as he made the rounds, listening half-heartedly for any secrets Leliana could use. It was likely a good idea to get on her good side and the little alliance between she and Cullen was fairly terrifying when one considered the amount of lethality between the two.

When he wasn’t doing that, he just kind of… stood around, expecting fully to be shunned. Dorian was surprised at the amount of people who actually approached him, despite his reputation having preceded him well in advance. There were plenty who kept minimal safe distance, close enough to whisper viciously about the sordid Tevinter mage, exiled from his homeland for fucking one too many men in public. Dorian quite liked that persistent rumour, almost wished it was true. Still, plenty of others came up to him and made the kind of conversation he was well versed with. Probing, evaluating conversation. Taking the only measure that people such as these cared for. _What can you do for me? What of you can I break? What of you can I use?_

And Dorian indulged some of it because he had time to kill. Lavellan was sneaking around in between bells, hiding behind bushes to hear whispers. Dorian flirted shamelessly, almost outrageously and while it frightened away some, it attracted others. Dorian never discriminated when flirting; man or woman, he didn’t care. His charm was armour, smile sharp as Lavellan’s blades.

If he wasn’t quite so obsessed with his plan, he could have fucked a slim percentage of the ballroom, he was sure.

Every now and then, he made another unnecessary circuit, passing Cullen and the twittering mob around him. He never looked directly at the Commander, but he was careful to make it seem like he _wanted_ to. He projected weakness. He felt Cullen’s eyes on him each time he passed by.

Dorian heard a few chiming laughs after Cullen had said something abrupt to the morons desperate to be near to him, heedless of what he really was. They thought he was _amusing_. Helpless and gruff.

They didn’t know him.

Dorian’s proximity irritated Cullen, apparently. The mage hurried away, like he was afraid that Cullen would realise he was walking past him on purpose.

Dorian was drunk and not from the wine.

* * *

The night was still young when Lavellan insisted on a partnership between Celene, Gaspard _and_ Briala. Dorian couldn’t help but admire her determined optimism. Lavellan’s speech was actually quite rousing, saving the world and all that; the stuff Dorian could get behind when he was less obsessed with _other _issues. Orlesian parties such as this could go on all night, well into dawn but Dorian knew Cullen would want to leave as soon as he was permitted. The man radiated discomfort and irritability and Dorian could feel him no matter where he went.

But if there was an opportunity to further humiliate Dorian, the Commander might want to tarry a while longer in pursuit of that.

The attractive man Dorian was using seemed well aware of the extent to which he was being used and, if anything, it spurred him on even more in his pursuit of Dorian. Tarlen was tall and dark skinned with a smile that promised an evening of being fucked somewhere semi_-_public with a strong hand clamped over Dorian’s mouth. The construct was near perfect. It had been a while since Dorian had been able to flirt without the threat (or more accurately _lure) _of an unknown punishment.

When Lavellan left Cullen alone outside on the balcony, Dorian gave Tarlen a plainly _come-hither_ look, the kind that melted away even the coldest bluster from curious straight men, let alone danger-seeking predators like Tarlen, who followed with a smirk.

He made sure not to cross paths with the Dalish elf, lest she see him and, therefore, right through him. Dorian led Tarlen by the hand, acting dizzy and drunk, though it wasn’t an act by this point. The ball was in full swing, noise and laughter everywhere, the Orlesian elite rejoicing in the night’s events and near assassination attempts. A night in Tevinter without a murder might have been considered positively dull, but these were not Dorian’s people and that was both good and bad, though hardly relevant in the moment.

The night air hit Dorian like a stinging caress and he yanked Tarlen against him in a breathless kiss, their lips smacking loudly as he groaned. Tarlen stiffened when he heard, or perhaps _sensed,_ that they weren’t alone. Dorian broke the kiss, eyes opening and landing right on the Commander.

Cullen’s expression was a mask of barely contained disgust. He gave Dorian a very slow look up and down, expressing his antipathy to the fullest, then flicking his gaze onto Tarlen. His lip curled, posture rigid with control.

‘So sorry,’ Dorian laughed, his fingers playing with the lapels of Tarlen’s jacket, expensive and tasteful, charcoal grey lined with midnight blue. Not fucking _red_, by any measure. ‘We didn’t realise this area was already occupied.’

Cullen’s eyes narrowed dangerously and his hands were clenched tight. Dorian could barely contain his excitement. Cullen thought he saw right through the mage’s supposed attempts to make Cullen jealous or get his attention. Weak attempts to lure in the Commander, to irk and irritate him.

Yes, Dorian was a master fucking orchestrator. This time, anyway.

Maker’s gift that he was, Tarlen actually purred to Cullen, ‘Would you care to join us, Commander?’

Dorian had never been slapped by having someone _glare_ at him, but he suspected that’s what it would feel like when Cullen’s eyes moved to him, accusatory and just… _so_ full of contempt. Dorian didn’t know, really, what he’d ever actually done to Cullen to warrant this level of sheer, personal aggression.

Except follow him around.

And provoke him.

And attempt to seduce him.

‘No,’ Cullen said, voice oddly detached from his anger. _‘Thank_ you.’

Tarlen shrugged, looking back to Dorian, something calculating in his brown eyes. ‘Shall I meet you later?’ he asked quietly and Dorian almost faltered because that wasn’t how it was meant to go, but it was fine - he could roll with it, adjust to Tarlen’s rather stunning deductive skills.

‘No need,’ Dorian said, slipping his hand brazenly under the silk shirt he’d rucked up, hand running over Tarlen’s skin and muscle. ‘I’m sure Commander Cullen was just leaving.’

A small intake of breath. Indignant and sharp and so fucking _dangerous_. Dorian forced himself not to look and see how far he was pushing Cullen though he badly wanted to.

Had the ex-Templar not already been so worked up, so irritable in his skin beneath that stifling red and clashing blue, he might have stormed away and done just that. But Dorian had made sure to invade his bubble of distance as much as possible, infringing where Cullen had warned him not to and now… _now_ Cullen was too angry to leave. Too angry to just walk away and seethe elsewhere.

‘No,’ Cullen said quietly. ‘I’m not.’

_Don__’t celebrate too early_, Dorian warned himself. _That was your mistake last time. _

‘Ah,’ Tarlen said, looking between the two. ‘Dorian, come find me when you’re less _engaged_.’

He dropped a rather quaint kiss on Dorian’s cheek and walked away, managing to positively ooze wanton beauty as he went, but the mage’s attention was already back to its natural destination.

‘I told you to stay away,’ Cullen breathed, voice tight. ‘I _told_ you—’

‘Care to dance?’

The flippant request did exactly what Dorian hoped. Cullen’s little rant died in his throat, caught off-guard and oh, Cullen did not like to be caught off-guard.

‘Tell me,’ he spat, voice fraying around the edges. ‘Are you so desperate to be degraded that you’d risk yourself like this?’

Dorian laughed airily, sauntering closer to Cullen. ‘It’s a party, Commander. We’re bound to breathe the same air at some point during the night and, in case you didn’t notice, I rather had my attention vested elsewhere.’

It was bait, plain and simple. Dorian offered Cullen a version of himself to hide behind. _Silly, petulant Dorian who wants Cullen__’s attention so badly he’d flaunt himself cavorting with another just to get under his skin. _

All Cullen had to do was believe it which, Dorian knew, wouldn’t be much of a stretch at that point.

‘You’re a plague,’ Cullen snarled, barely moving his lips. ‘I want no part of your pathetic attempts to provoke me further, _mage_!’

‘So leave.’

_Leave, back away, return to the party, leave behind this small, quiet sanctuary and yield it to me. _

It was too perfect.

He was beneath Cullen’s skin now, burrowed deep and writhing. Cullen had no sword, no weapons in that stupid get up but that didn’t mean anything when Cullen himself was a weapon. In that way, they were almost the same. Dorian had power with or without his staff, the same as Cullen with or without his sword. They were both capable of fighting bare handed.

When Cullen invaded Dorian’s space, Dorian was certain Cullen was thinking the same thing.

‘So, you’ve come for more of the same, have you?’

He backed Dorian into the stone wall of the balcony, crowding him dangerously close to the edge without actually touching Dorian at all. Dorian slid into the role he’d crafted. Desperate, needy, naive.

‘Maybe.’

Cullen was losing his self-control.

‘I told you to stay away.’

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘I tried.’

It was easier not to look when Cullen’s hand threaded viciously through his hair, spinning the mage roughly around, facing away from Cullen and the party and all signs of life. When Dorian opened his eyes, he saw darkness and distant beautifully kept grounds. A sky with a green, blurred fracture in the distance and Cullen everywhere behind him.

The Commander slid his arm all the way around Dorian’s neck, a brutal, cloying choke-hold. Dorian immediately forced himself not to panic when all possibility of breathing normally was removed. Short, shallow breaths when and where he could, staring at the sky. Cullen’s other arm restrained Dorian around the middle, pinning those dangerous mage hands to his side.

‘You _like_ this,’ Cullen growled in his ear. ‘You like being powerless.’

Dorian swallowed. It wasn’t part of the act.

Cullen went on, ranting silkily, arm tightening slightly. ‘Do you like the feeling of weightlessness when I choke you, mage? Does the world quieten and slip away, held tight by a man who despises you?’

_Fuck. _

‘What if I allowed you to black out, right here? Strip you naked and just leave you to be found by everyone and anyone.’ Cullen laughed darkly, no humour in it. ‘You’d probably _love_ that, you’re such a whore.’

The world _was _dimming slightly, Dorian’s whole body struggling in the absence of air and no matter how good it may have felt, Dorian had a plan to execute and this time he would _not_ fail.

He ground back against Cullen, feeling the man’s hardness just like last time, pressed right in the cleft of his arse. Cullen’s arm tightened in warning, but Dorian didn’t stop this time. He made all kinds of sounds he knew would affect Cullen. Breathy, choked off little gasps and whimpers, literally using his body to rub against the man strangling him. Dorian was caught between the wall and Cullen, a wonderfully literal rock and a hard place. When Cullen grunted, the noise hit Dorian like a mind blast and he hoped, vaguely, that he didn’t actually pass out.

Dorian kept the motion going for a few seconds more, throwing himself into it because he needed Cullen wild and far gone and then he stopped. Cullen’s breath stuttered, panting like he’d been running.

Cullen would never _sully_ himself with a mage, he couldn’t just grind up against Dorian, it had to be Dorian doing it. Cullen needed that line of division and he _needed_ to get off this time, Dorian knew it.

The arm pressing into Dorian’s windpipe loosened and Dorian almost fell forwards, body genuinely limp but Cullen caught him and turned him around. Cullen was beautifully flushed, pupils so wide his eyes looked black not brown. Dorian controlled his breathing so he didn’t hyperventilate and Cullen kicked out his leg, dropping him painfully to his knees. Cullen didn’t move to unbuckle himself, didn’t do anything besides wait, breathing raggedly.

Dorian didn’t hesitate. His hands flew to free Cullen’s cock, straining painfully against the ugly red material. His mind was _swimming_ and he worried that he himself would be too far gone to remember that there was a plan, a _good_ plan, an _excellent_ plan.

Cullen’s cock was red and thick and Dorian wanted it more than any other cock he’d ever seen. He gripped the base and dragged his tongue from root to tip, drawing out a broken sound from Cullen whose control was cracking apart. Dorian almost expected hands in his hair, forcing him forward but they never came. Dorian didn’t tease, but he made sure to work Cullen up even more before he swallowed him expertly, the head slipping past the back of Dorian’s throat. This was an arena in which he excelled and Cullen wasn’t immune to the mage’s talent. He groaned loudly_. _

Dorian sucked Cullen like his life depended on it, which may have been the case and the whole time, Cullen never touched Dorian. It was almost disappointing, but Dorian understood. The line of division couldn’t be crossed. If he didn’t touch Dorian, then it was almost like Dorian was _forcing_ this on Cullen.

_You think I would sully myself with one such as you?_

No, Cullen couldn’t touch Dorian. Couldn’t fuck his mouth like Dorian knew he wanted, couldn’t pull cruelly on Dorian’s hair and choke him with his cock until Dorian begged and struggled for air. Cullen had drawn the line. He couldn’t step over it.

Not for a _mage_.

Sometimes Dorian dragged his teeth a little over the thick, spongy head and Cullen would hiss and snarl in warning, but still he didn’t touch him. Dorian was absolutely lost to the power and arousal and he was so hard it hurt. His arousal intensified to the point where his mind was awash with _bad_ ideas, things like biting down enough to _force_ Cullen to touch him, if only to hurt him and push him away and oh… what would Cullen do then?

Bad things. Bad ideas.

Cullen was close, Dorian felt it in the warning pulse at the base of that gorgeous cock. Dorian pulled off, his hand continuing to pump and stroke, gliding across the wet, swollen member. He looked up at Cullen from where he knelt.

‘Are you going to come all over my face, _Commander_?’

Cullen’s eyes had not been closed; he’d been watching Dorian the whole time. ‘Yes,’ he breathed, jaw slack.

‘So everyone will know, all night, how I was nothing but the _Commander__’s_ whore?’

Cullen made a strangled noise, a kind of breathy moan, so painfully close.

And with effort unlike anything he’d ever exerted, Dorian _stopped. _

He stopped, and let go and then he stood up.

Cullen Rutherford _whimpered, _eyes wide and dazed, cock bobbing helplessly in the cool night air with no one to hold it anymore. The sight was one Dorian would remember forever. Cullen swayed, starting towards Dorian before he remembered himself and then _betrayal_ sunk into the Commander’s eyes, clashed violently with renewed hatred and murderous anger.

‘While that sounds nice,’ Dorian said, hitting Cullen with his most patronising smile. ‘I actually have a better offer, so if you want to finish, you’ll have to do it yourself.’

Cullen had been moments from coming but that had never been Dorian’s plan.

The mage waited; arms crossed to see what Cullen would do even though he already knew. For Cullen to debase himself and bring himself to orgasm in front of Dorian would be nothing less than anathema to the fiercely proud Commander. Dorian smirked, eyes not leaving Cullen, as the man stuffed his straining, rock hard cock back into his smalls with difficulty.

‘I’m going to kill you,’ Cullen said, hands trembling, not looking at Dorian anymore. He stared out at the ground unseeingly.

Dorian chuckled and walked away.

‘For that, _Chantry Boy_,’ he called out, casually. ‘I think you’d have to touch me.’

*


	5. Other Words

Dorian had never actually witnessed Cullen fighting before. Turns out, he’d been dead on about that whole, _Cullen was lethal_, thing. The journey back from Halamshiral had begun splendidly. Dorian had been smug and relaxed, basking in his hard-earned victory as they made good time back to Skyhold. He’d avoided Lavellan’s curiosity about his good mood though it would only be a matter of time before she looked askance at Cullen’s thunderously _bad_ mood and came to an assumption.

_I just can__’t help but feel as though this will escalate,_ she’d said.

That first night they camped, Dorian planned on sauntering around, plenty of smug smirks in Cullen’s direction because there was no way of denying he was exceptionally eager to see how hard the Commander was going to hit back and _when_.

And then there were demons everywhere.

They’d burst out of the darkness in a worryingly abrupt manner. Dorian’s mana hadn’t even prickled, no taste of electricity in the air. Dozens of them, screaming and clawing, just _everywhere_.

The previously sleepy camp had burst into action. Dorian’s staff was in his hand before he even got to his feet, fists of chain lightning erupting skyward. Lavellan and Sera darted behind him while Bull stumbled out of his tent, stark naked, massive axe already swinging.

But it was Cullen that Dorian couldn’t wrench his eyes away from because Cullen… _Cullen_ was killing the vast majority of them. More than Lavellan, more than Bull. His sword and shield moved as though alive in their own right. He was fast and powerful, killing things with the ease born of familiarity.

The Commander cut through a dense cluster of rage demons while Dorian shook himself and focused on the ones sliding towards him. There was no rift to close and thankfully the demons weren’t endless. Dorian took down his three with a lightning cage and solid few fireballs for good measure before Bull sliced them in half. Lavellan yelled, ‘Clear!’ from the back area of camp. She and Sera had protected the others, Josephine amongst them.

Cullen wasn’t finished though. The Rage demon had managed to knock his sword out of his hand, snarling viciously. Dorian aimed his staff and fired off a few blasts, the best he could do for the next few seconds while his mana was so low. He felt a thread of something resembling concern tighten in his chest and he began to run forward, unsure of what he was even going to do. The demon advanced menacingly but Cullen didn’t back off, he didn’t even flinch as those massive claws arched back.

Armed with only a shield, he swung the rounded, wooden weapon up into the face of the demon with such force that the creature let out a wounded, furious scream. The demon staggered back and Cullen did not hesitate. His arm was like a battering ram, sending his shield colliding with the demon _over_ and _over_ until the thing fell, gurgling and scrabbling to regain stance. Cullen didn’t stop. He smashed the shield into its face repeatedly, holding it with two hands now, driving the edge of the shield down into the broken mess of bloody bone pieces. The demon was dead but Cullen _still_ kept on. Crunch, crunch, squelch. Dorian had never thought mindless gore could ever hold his attention in such a way.

‘Cullen, _Cullen!__’ _Lavellan bellowed. ‘That’s _enough!__’_

The shield broke in half. Cullen threw the pieces aside with disgust and turned away from everyone, back heaving as his lungs pulled in massive gouts of air. Trying to compose himself, Dorian realised, his own heart smashing against his ribs. When Cullen’s heavy breathing hitched, bloodied hands rushing to pressed somewhere on his sternum, Dorian knew something was wrong.

Lavellan gave her companions a quick once over. ‘Is everyone all right? Shit, where’s Leliana?’

In a ridiculously normal voice, Cullen said, ‘She was scouting the area.’

Bull nodded solemnly. ‘I’ll find her.’

‘Maybe get dressed first?’

The Qunari glanced down, like he’d forgotten. ‘Huh, good idea, Boss.’

Lavellan’s attention moved fully to Dorian. ‘Are you hurt?’

Dorian shook himself. ‘No, but I think Cullen is.’

Lavellan followed his line of sight to where Cullen was still facing away from everyone, the broken, blood spattered halves of his shield nearby.

‘Cullen,’ she said, approaching him quickly. He didn’t turn to face her which Dorian found mildly alarming. ‘Cullen are you—’

Lavellan’s eyes widened, fumbling to reach for a healing potion before she cursed and realised that she’d left them in the tent. ‘Dorian!’ she yelled. ‘Here, quickly!’

Cullen turned then and his expression was sufficient warning to make Dorian think twice but Lavellan wasn’t to be trifled with. Dorian forced himself to ignore the look of abject loathing he was receiving and rushed around to see how badly Cullen was hurt.

Blood was pouring over Cullen’s left hand which clutched at his lower stomach.

‘Shit,’ Dorian said, shaking himself. Lavellan yelled at Sera to find as many potions as she could, while unbuckling Cullen’s armour with nimble fingers.

Cullen stumbled before she could get the breastplate off and Dorian caught him on reflex, lowering him to the ground carefully. Cullen shoved Dorian away, snarling softly.

‘Grow _up_!’ Lavellan scolded hotly, yanking the final piece away to reveal his under shirt which was absolutely drenched in blood. ‘Dorian, come on.’

Dorian knelt down and shifted closer even as Cullen’s glare threatened legitimate murder. He peeled the shirt back and saw three long, very deep slices across Cullen’s abdomen. They were bleeding profusely.

‘This is _not_ good,’ Dorian said.

Irritable and frayed by pain, Cullen snapped, ‘Heal it, then!’

Dorian floundered, a horrible heat rising in his face. ‘I… I can’t.’

Cullen’s eyes locked with his own, widening slightly and Dorian couldn’t help but feel as though somehow, fucking _somehow_, he’d betrayed Cullen. Not because he was about to let the man die while Dorian knelt around uselessly gaping like a fish, but because Cullen had asked Dorian if he could perform healing magic a while ago and Dorian had _lied_.

‘Try something, anything!’ Lavellan insisted, ripping strips off her shirt and then from Cullen’s own clothing, wadding the material tightly over the gashes. _‘SERA_! WHERE ARE THE POTIONS?’

The blond elf came hurtling over, her arms brimming with the necessary potions, much to Dorian’s intense relief. She crashed to her knees on the grass, keeping the potions safe and Lavellan began furiously uncorking the tiny bottles, shoving them to Cullen’s lips and tipping them back for him.

Dorian moved back, no longer needed because he was… well, completely fucking useless, truth be told. As he retreated, Cullen’s eyes stayed riveted on him. It was worse than anything Dorian had ever received from Cullen and _Maker_, had Dorian had some looks before then. Cullen was disgusted with Dorian but this time, not because he was a mage or a tease.

Because he was a liar.

And Dorian understood it to an extent, as he wrenched himself away from the scene. Cullen had trusted Dorian to be able to take care of himself. He’d allowed something between them to happen based on an agreement that was faulty.

He didn’t know what to do with himself now there weren’t any demons around to resurrect or throw lightning at. He picked up the two halves of Cullen’s shield, as though that was somehow helpful, and walked away.

*

The rest of the journey back was miserable and tense. Cullen survived his wounds but he wasn’t exactly in peak health, unable to even ride his horse. His bad mood could be felt no matter how far ahead Dorian rode. Distance was meaningless. Even when they finally reached the glorious road that led to Skyhold, mammoth fortress of wonder that she was, Dorian could not shake the sickly film of _guilt_ coating his skin.

No amount of blissfully hot water seemed to scrub it away. The feeling was rather new to Dorian and he wasn’t sure how to go about remedying it.

‘He’s refused to let Solas heal the scars,’ Lavellan told him tiredly when she joined him for dinner late on the first night back. Dorian wasn’t hungry, already on his way to being slightly drunk.

‘He… what?’

Lavellan stole a potato from Dorian’s plate and chewed it morosely. ‘Stubborn bastard.’

‘Solas offered to heal the scars and he said no?’

She shrugged, chewing. ‘I suppose I’m not really surprised, just disappointed. I thought he was getting better. With _other_ mages, at least.’

‘You think he refused because it’s magic?’

She looked up at him, frowning. ‘Why else? He took the potions happily enough. He’s more or less healed now, but you know exceptionally how skilled Solas is. He could make it like nothing even happened.’

It was on the tip of Dorian’s tongue to point out that Cullen had _asked_ Dorian to heal him, but that way led to painful chest feelings and more revolting guilt.

‘Maybe,’ he said carefully, looking down at his meat stew with an expression of indifference. ‘He doesn’t _want_ it to be like nothing happened.’

Lavellan sighed and rubbed her forehead. ‘I don’t know. He’s not been right for a while now. His behaviour at Halamshiral was unbecoming to say the least.’

Dorian froze, heart lurching. ‘How so?’

‘Towards the end of the night,’ she explained. ‘He became very drunk and he… well, he punched someone.’

‘What? No, that can’t—’

‘He did,’ she said simply. ‘Luckily no one of real consequence or so Josephine assured me but people saw it.’ She trailed off, biting the inside of her cheek. ‘You weren’t there, Dorian. You didn’t see him.’

No, because Dorian had been _preoccupied_ with Tarlen in the pantry.

‘Well. It was a stressful night for everyone.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘Plus, there were several people there I would have _happily_ punched myself, truth be told.’

Lavellan took a few sips of Dorian’s wine. ‘Stop defending him, Dorian.’

The mage sat back, arms crossed. ‘Do I _need_ to defend him, then?’

Her gaze was sharp when it needed to be. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘But his conduct has worsened greatly over the last few weeks. And _no,__’_ she forestalled, raising a hand. ‘I am not blaming you. Ever since I met him, he’s been on the edge. I care about him, but if he becomes a liability then I’ll have to consider speaking with Cassandra.’ In a much lower tone, Lavellan said, ‘I can’t keep making excuses for him.’

‘Ellana,’ Dorian said, shaking his head, at a loss. ‘I… in Halamshiral, I provoked him, you know.’

She remained unconvinced. ‘To do what? Forget his rank and duty? He’s distracted by you and, yes, you’re teasing him; following him around and whatnot, but you are _not_ the cause of this.’ She shook her head and the protest died in Dorian’s throat. Lavellan thought a lot of him and her good opinion _meant_ something to Dorian. He couldn’t bring himself to shatter her illusion. ‘Anyway, I’m just thinking aloud, being stupid really. Overreacting due to the horrific bloody stress of travelling.’ She forced a brighter smile in place. ‘I’m sure he’s going to pull himself together.’

*

Cullen did not pull himself together.

It turned out that the Commander of the Inquisition’s forces had apparently been holding back on just how low his bad moods could truly sink. Comparatively, Cullen had been a merry ball of sunshine before all this and everyone, even his most loyal and staunch supporters within the military ranks, felt it. Some of them even came up with the singularly worst nickname Dorian had ever heard. Commander _Sullen_.

The man was in a downward spiral and no one seemed to understand that it was all Dorian’s fault. Worse still, no one _believed_ Dorian when he tried to explain, in admittedly redacted detail, that it was very much his fault.

It took a week for Cullen and Dorian to cross paths, mostly because Dorian was no longer actively stalking Cullen, instead taking care to avoid him. He no longer placed himself in Cullen’s commonly trod path, did not lurk around Leliana’s top section of the tower.

Dorian threw himself into reading and organising the small, limited library. He wrote letters to Maevaris, he even replied to his father. The letter was less than twenty words long, two of which were _fuck, _but still. He spent time with Sera, shadowing her in her brightly lit nook, reading on her comfy little couch. He avoided Bull because that blasted Qunari was far too observant for his own good and for the first time in Dorian life, he did not _want _to be observed. Sera was happy to ignore him while simultaneously offering company, the only person he’d ever known to be capable of such a thing.

So, when he and Cullen quite literally crashed into one another, each turning a corner at breakneck speed, Dorian’s little bubble of enforced seclusion burst rather abruptly.

The first thing, the _instinctive_ thing, that Cullen did, was catch him. His hands roughly caught at Dorian’s upper arms before Dorian went flying backwards and he stood him up, a perfunctory apology dying on those scarred lips the second he realised who it was he’d almost knocked down.

Cullen moved back abruptly, expression closing off.

‘Excuse me,’ he said tonelessly.

‘No, it was—’ Dorian coughed, throat deciding this was the perfect moment to catch on something dry and irritating. Truth be told, he hadn’t spoken much to anyone the last week. Lavellan was off roaming with Solas, Cassandra and Varric for a while. ‘Sorry,’ he said, clearing his throat, fully hating himself. ‘It was quite my fault.’

Dorian waited to see the reaction unfold, his nerves jangling like a dungeon master’s keys. Cullen didn’t look at him when he gave a brief nod and just… walked away. Dorian stayed where he was, staring at the space where Cullen had been. A runner dashed past Dorian after Cullen with an expression of utmost dread, her face pale and drawn.

From down the hall, Cullen absolutely roared, ‘WELL, **_FIND_** THE SENDER OR ARE YOU INCAPABLE OF SUCH A BASIC TASK!’ His impossibly loud voice rang in Dorian’s ears, tricking his body into thinking he was young and in trouble. He felt sick, his knees weak and shaky as he fled once more.

*

Without Lavellan, Dorian was apparently reduced to eating in his bedroom like some sort of rat. Bull was likely on the lookout for him and Sera had made plenty of offers to eat with him, albeit atop a roof. Yet as the days wore on, Cullen’s furious voice still echoing in his head, he found that he wanted to be alone.

There was a kind of _weight_ hanging around Dorian’s neck and now it wasn’t only the guilt of lying to Cullen, of seeing something like _trust_ simply evaporate in the Commander’s eyes.

It was Lavellan’s grim assessment of Cullen’s conduct and how displeased she would be when she returned to find that her Commander was, indeed, far worse than when she left.

_A conversation with Cassandra,_ so she’d put it, would be on the cards.

And no matter how much Dorian _wanted_ to believe what she’d said about how Cullen was already verging on such behaviour long before the Tevinter mage had swanned into the Inquisition, he knew he shared at least some of the blame.

Cullen had never done anything to him, not really. A few dirty looks, barely concealed glares, heated dislike and… yes, a_ll right_, seething hatred, but that had not warranted Dorian’s obsession. Dorian had pushed Cullen, poked and prodded and now that he’d turned and bitten, Lavellan saw only a lion with a bloody mouth.

Dorian wanted to help.

*

He mended and returned Cullen’s shield.

‘I’d like to help,’ he stupidly said. Cullen slammed the door in his face so hard a hinge flew off.

*

Leliana observed him with the kind of placid expression Dorian might expect from a snake, right before it struck. She sat with her fingers laced over her lap, listening to him babble. Dorian, yet again, cursed his luck. Apparently saving the world meant having to ask for help from helplessly smug people at least once a month.

‘Your concern is _touching,_’ she said blankly, evidence that she was really rather unhappy with Dorian in regards his treatment of Cullen. Dorian bristled, wondering what she would say if he pointed out that he had been on the receiving end of Cullen’s _hatred of mages_ more than once. No, he already knew how she would swerve. _Did you not wish for it then, Dorian_, she would ask, patronisingly rhetorical. ‘You are the last person I might expect to come to me for advice on how to help him, however.’

‘I have no ulterior motive.’

She smiled. ‘The Tevinter mage has _no ulterior motive?_’

‘Glad to see you’ve a firm grasp of the essentials.’

Leliana shrugged, blinking demurely. ‘What do you propose?’

Dorian bit down a frustrated tut. ‘As Cullen’s friend, I hoped you might have some suggestions.’

‘Why do you even care?’

This part Dorian was well prepared for. ‘The Commander is a valued and essential part of the Inquisition without which I believe we would struggle in our fight against The Elder One and his armies.’

‘How many times did you rehearse that?’

Dorian graciously ignored that. ‘Look,’ he said, exhaling impatiently. ‘Would it be better for him if I left Skyhold?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh. Well—’

‘But you should stay,’ she amended easily. ‘You mean much to Lavellan. She would be lost without you and your value here is no small thing, despite what you might believe. Even Cullen _himself_ would not have you leave simply for his own gratification and relief.’

Weakly, Dorian nodded.

‘I have a few suggestions, yes, but none of them are pleasant. Cullen is losing himself in a way I’ve not seen for many years.’ Leliana looked off to the side, a small frown knitting into her brow. ‘You are not _entirely_ to blame, though your nature hardly helps, to say nothing of your painfully obvious attraction to him.’ Dorian spluttered indignantly but before his heated, righteous denials could come spilling out, she spoke again. ‘Today, an agent of mine reported that Cullen has made a subtle request for a very small supply of Lyrium to be delivered to his quarters once a day.’

Dorian winced inwardly but this information galvanised his determination.

‘I really _do_ want to help him,’ he insisted. ‘No matter how much you might question it so please, tell me what you suggest. Oh, and spare me the formality of pretending you couldn’t possibly place me in any danger, will you?’

Leliana chuckled. ‘How refreshing. Very well.’ She sat up straighter. ‘I shall speak plainly. Go to Cullen and let him hurt you.’

Dorian gawked. ‘Right, well that was likely a little _too_ plain, actually.’

_‘_Do what you must to swivel his anger onto you. Draw his ire like poison from a wound. Keep him away from the Lyrium, whatever the cost. If Cullen takes it again, even once, he will never recover. He will resign, withdraw and become lost. I would not have that for Cullen. He is a good man; he can _be_ a good man.’ She gave Dorian a flat, hard kind of stare. ‘You are strong. You can take what he must inflict, I am confident.’

‘That almost seemed like a compliment,’ he mumbled.

‘It was. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve much to attend to. Oh, and Dorian,’ she said as he rose from the chair. ‘I took the liberty of having Solas stockpile several of his special healing potions. They must be brewed weeks in advance, using very rare ingredients. I assume from now on you’ll see to your own supply.’

Dorian forced a smile. ‘How _touching_.’

*

Because Dorian wasn’t completely suicidal, he didn’t go straight to Cullen after leaving the Spymaster’s tower. His journey down the spiral staircase took him past his own bedroom, the door slightly ajar. When he peered inside, he saw a small wooden chest on his bed. He didn’t open it, didn’t even go into the room. He knew what little vials sat inside, patiently waiting.

Head in a tangled spin, he went straight for the Herald’s rest. It was full of alcohol and people he liked. The best place to be while he delayed the inevitable.

Because Cullen, it seemed, was inevitable.

Dorian let Bull buy him a few drinks, relying on the noise of the Chargers to prevent the Qunari from asking any deep and personal questions along the lines of, _the fuck are you about to go and do, Vint_? Bull, to his credit, didn’t even try. He seemed to have gotten the message from Dorian’s week long avoidance of him and instead fell back on a casual brand of camaraderie. Sera came down from her sunny nook to partake in the festivities.

‘Whassal the yelling?’ Sera sniffed, hopping up onto the bar as she swept Dorian’s drink from his fingers effortlessly. Dorian glared but it was weak and he didn’t really mind. He watched as she swigged it happily, involving herself in the excitement despite not really knowing what was happening. Dorian wondered why nimble Elves kept stealing his food and drink.

The yelling wasn’t anything to do with Dorian, he just happened to be there during an especially rowdy, ‘_Horns Up!__’_ kind of evening. It was fun being around people like that and Dorian’s smile was only partially forced. He wondered what it would be like to be _truly_ involved in such a life.

He drank more than he intended. It was hard not to when Bull kept buying rounds and everyone was constantly toasting to entirely made up things. When Dorian slipped away, he half expected to be accosted by one of his companions, dragged into a corner and given a thorough talking to. Maybe they would demand to know where he was going, ask what had been wrong with him the last few weeks? At the door, he glanced back and saw Bull staring at him, a familiar tug of dread and hope in the mage’s chest. But the Qunari just smiled wryly and shook his head, turning back to his company. Dorian slipped away, _almost_ disappointed.

*

Cullen wasn’t in his quarters and that was… well, how dare he? Dorian felt distinctly put out for a moment before he reminded himself that they hadn’t arranged to meet, Cullen was likely to cut him in half on sight anyway and most prevalent of all, Cullen _was_ actually entitled to go anywhere he wanted.

Dorian was drunk enough to briefly consider sneaking up the ladder to get a glimpse of where the Commander slept, though thankfully something in the back of his mind warned strongly against it.

Still, Dorian couldn’t resist poking around a bit in the room where Commander Cullen often sat hunched over his desk, scribbling orders and approving missions or whatever he did that Dorian didn’t quite understand. He traced his fingers over book spines, taking in their titles and memorising each one because no matter how drunk he was, Dorian would never forget anything about _books_. He was surprised they weren’t all military histories and weapon cleaning manuals. A few genuinely surprised him, but one book caught his attention completely. _The Watchful Ambler _had been one of Dorian’s favourite books as a young boy. It was almost impossible to believe Cullen had the same book. He stared at the worn spine and fragmented lettering. It was a different colour than Dorian’s copy, which he’d been forced to leave behind in Tevinter. Cullen’s was a newer edition. Dorian longed to pull the book out and open it; observe the quality of the pages, see if the book fell open to any section in particular, indicating frequency of attention.

Then he caught himself. This was a violation and a dangerous one. Humanising Cullen to this extent was also _not_ a good idea. Having things in common with the man would likely start Dorian on a path he’d promised himself years ago he would never walk again.

Dorian’s hand dropped from the spine. He exhaled sharply. The books were most likely already there when Cullen took the room. He doubted the Commander had brought anything with him from Kirkwall. Soldiers travelled light, didn’t they?

It was a rare book, certainly, but a coincidence, nothing more.

The temptation to _take_ the book, however, was nigh overwhelming. Dorian wanted to steal it away, keep it with someone who would love and care for it, not leave it to grow musty on a shelf. It was only the fact that the bookshelf was full, meaning a missing book would be obvious, that stayed his hand.

‘Hmm, time to leave,’ he said aloud, hoping it would actually force his legs to move. He tore his gaze from the book that called out to him, begged to go with him back to his beautifully attended library and stumbled out of Cullen’s space, heart pounding.

*

The impression of that book followed Dorian out of Cullen’s quarters, the words of certain passages swimming around the mage’s head, taunting him. His blood was suddenly too hot, rushing too fast and not in a good way. He was off balance; dangerously wobbling with no way of knowing where he would fall.

Returning to the Tavern would have been a good idea. There was the distinct possibility of some friendly, casual sex with the Iron Bull, if Dorian begged. Bull would probably give in and it would be great. He wouldn’t hurt Dorian. He was safe and restrained, posed no risk. That _wasn__’t_ what Dorian needed.

Dorian knew he shouldn’t go looking for Cullen when he was so… _vulnerable_. He hated being vulnerable and without the protection of better people or the pleasant distraction of risk-free sex, the mage was likely to self-sabotage.

Dorian laughed bitterly. It was so _stupid_ that something so small could undo him in such a way. It was just a book, just a story he read as a child and then growing up, returning to it whenever he felt confused or lonely. He hated that Cullen had that book, even if the Commander didn’t know it existed. Why did it have to be there, why did Dorian have to go poking around where he didn’t belong?

The vulnerability turned sour as it always did. Became a vicious _need_ to inflict punishment upon himself; make him regret cutting himself open and bleeding for all the world to see like some silly, naive _boy_.

Dorian suddenly knew exactly where Cullen would be and found that he was already on his way there. If there _were_ any warnings going off, Dorian couldn’t hear them. The alcohol swirled with self-loathing, creating the perfect lubricant to enable backsliding into dangerous habits, damaging desires.

Commander Cullen was, of course, brooding on the ramparts and when Dorian finally locked eyes on him, it was clear he’d heard Dorian coming.

*

_Dorian was fifteen and he was in total disgrace. _

_His state of undress was painful, his father_ _’s eyes firmly averted as the young mage dressed himself with numb, clumsy fingers. The other boy, older and taller than Dorian, didn’t rush to dress. He was calm and relaxed. _

_Behind Halward, a servant stood facing down. Dorian realised she had most likely reported the incident, run to Dorian_ _’s father and told him all that she’d seen. If he wasn’t so dizzy with nausea and shame, Dorian might have said something awful to her. Cut her up with words and spite because she was little more than an animate object to him, something to be screamed at when what he really wanted was to scream at Halward. _

_Dorian couldn't guide his buttons through the designated holes. His fingers were shaking too hard, utterly useless. Halward gave a rough sigh of disgust and indicated with his hand towards his only son and the servant shot forward, immediately knowing what was required of her. She deftly dressed Dorian like he was a child, buttoning him up neatly. The older boy, Erisam, laughed softly. _

_Halward glared at him, but it was very subdued. Erisam_ _’s father was a powerful Magister and someone Dorian knew Halward considered an equal. Not someone he could crush and make an example of. _

_‘I apologise for my son’s conduct,’ he said to Erisam in a controlled manner. _

_Dorian froze, mouth slightly open. He was still sore, still hurting in what had been the most intense experience of his young life and his father was _apologising_ for him__… to the boy who’d taken his virginity. _

_‘Not at all,’ Erisam chimed, tightening his belt buckle with a slight flourish. Dorian stared at him. The boy was in fine form, excited even. He wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed that Halward had burst in on them while they’d been fucking. He was absolutely untouchable. Dorian would have given anything to feel like that. ‘His conduct was _quite _becoming_, _I assure you.__’_

_Halward looked as though he wanted to hit Erisam and not with any kind of magic. Hit him with his hands, the way a Magister would never stoop to. Instead, Dorian_ _’s father remained as neutral as he could. _

_‘Indeed.’_

_Erisam finished dressing and strode towards the door, throwing Dorian an unsubtle wink. He sauntered away, leaving Dorian alone, so fucking _alone_, in the wreckage of what two had started. _

_‘You disgrace me, Dorian,’ Halward said tonelessly, his eyes dead and distant. ‘You disgrace yourself.’_

_The pain was eating Dorian alive. It was like tumbling into a bottomless pit, falling deeper and deeper into darkness and shame. _

_Dorian was fifteen and he was a disgrace. _

_‘Clean yourself up and be ready for the party in an hour,’ Halward said, turning away. The servant hurried to his side. ‘Act your part well enough and I will say nothing of this to your mother.’_

_Dorian nodded and swallowed thickly. _ _‘Yes, father.’_

_At the door, Halward hesitated as though he was going to say something else, but he shook his head and left quickly, servant in tow. _

_When he was gone Dorian fell to his knees and threw up. _

*

‘Please don’t kill me,’ was the first thing Dorian said. Of all the things he could have gone with, fucking endless combinations of all the fancy, beautiful words he knew… those were the ones that fell out of his mouth. Dorian Pavus with no filter was a _bad, bad state_ to be in. He tried hard not to care that it sounded a little too desperate, closer to actual pleading than defensive banter.

Cullen had _definitely_ heard him coming which said less about the Commander’s preternatural senses and more about how clumsy Dorian was when drunk. Honey brown eyes were locked sharply on the mage, posture closely resembling the raised hackles of a predator. Cullen was in full armour, sword at his side, one hand resting on the pommel. Well, no, gripping the hilt actually. It was very gloomy atop the ramparts, moon obscured by thin clouds, and Dorian’s vision wasn’t swaying exactly, but it was hard to focus on tiny details when all he could think, feel and see was Cullen Stanton Rutherford.

Cullen didn’t speak. Dorian had the distinct impression there were dozens of replies flitting through the Commander’s mind but that he was silencing all of them. Dorian continued to move closer, slowly invading Cullen’s territory because he couldn’t stop himself.

_Cullen hates you, _he tried to remind himself. _Cullen has literally stated unequivocally that he__’s going to kill you. _

But he couldn’t stop, could not maintain safe distance. There was no such thing with Cullen, Dorian knew. His slow approach felt like running flat out through the woods, something furious and hungry snapping at his heels. Run faster, run _better_, run deeper into the darkness.

The air was frigid in his lungs, almost hurting to breathe when his body was so hot, lungs burning and heart straining to smash free from his chest. Dorian was a mess; an absolute wreck and he shouldn’t be anywhere near Cullen. Fuck Leliana, fuck _honour_, fuck Lavellan speaking with Cassandra, fuck Halward Pavus, fuck that book and fuck _Cullen_.

He should not be there. The cold air vibrated with a low warning hum that bristled his instincts, calling his magic to the surface. _Make ready,_ it whispered. _This man might kill you. _

When Dorian came into Cullen’s breathing space, the Commander’s hand shot out and collided hard right in the centre of Dorian’s chest, keeping him away.

_‘Stop_.’

Dorian tried to consider it. To shake the warring emotions away so that he could form a rational thought. Cullen was being clear, there wasn’t much to be interpreted from that single word.

But Cullen was unravelling. He needed this, didn’t he? Dorian knew he would have to push. He knew it was going to hurt and make the punishment that much worse, but to reach Cullen he would have to _invade_ him.

Dorian was not gentle when he batted Cullen’s hand away. ‘Make me stop.’

Without the Commander’s arm there to keep Dorian at bay, it was easy for the mage to stumble right into that most personal proximity reserved for those who shared love or intimacy or even sometimes, a killing blow. When Dorian pressed his mouth to Cullen’s, the drive behind it was simple, _what would most anger him? _

At least, that’s what Dorian told himself.

The second his lips touched Cullen’s, Dorian entire body came alive with heat and need and fucking _desire_ beyond the bounds of anything he’d ever felt. The feeling danced upon a razor’s edge, torn between tipping into devastation or delight.

And for a single second, Dorian was sure Cullen responded. Moved his lips against the mage’s, stifling a small, desperate moan before he caught himself.

But then Cullen tore his mouth away. He wrenched himself back and now he _was_ too angry to control himself. The mage had dared tread where he was unwelcome.

Dorian, despite his state, was ready for it.

Cullen didn’t backhand Dorian. It was a proper punch, the kind Dorian rarely encountered because life as a battlemage meant distance and control. The force of it was astonishing. His jaw felt broken, but _fuck_, the pain set him on fire. Before Dorian even had time to stumble, Cullen hit him again. Other fist, other direction. The ramparts _swayed_. Thedas swayed.

Blood blossomed in his mouth, bitter and metallic. It filled Dorian’s senses and he relished it; dark thoughts swirling and begging to be voiced because he needed to push Cullen even more, always more.

_Hit me harder, _he wanted to say. _Make me bleed. _

But Dorian didn’t speak those words because he knew what Cullen really needed. So, when Cullen raised his hand again, Dorian raised his too.

He hit Cullen with a lightning bolt, a relatively tame one compared to the kind Dorian was truly capable of casting. It was made to hurt Cullen; to crackle through his bones and prickle painfully through his skin. Cullen stepped back, grimacing before his eyes widened, jaw slack as he breathed hard.

He stared at Dorian and slowly shook his head, but it wasn’t in indignation. Cullen’s eyes were dark and his mouth curved into a cold, humourless smile, the kind someone might receive right before they died at his hands.

Then two began to fight in earnest. Cullen did not use his sword and that was the only thing keeping either of them alive because Dorian knew the second it came out, things would escalate beyond anything they could control.

Cullen didn’t need a sword to kill Dorian at any rate, but it was the last line of division. The Commander hit Dorian; he punched and elbowed him, used his knees, used every part of him to inflict pain and punishment. Drove fist and bone down hard with intent to break and harm and Dorian let his own nature loose in retaliation. The magic that resided within him burst free, hurting Cullen however it could. Dorian allowed it to remain formless, not casting anything specific as it poured from him instinctively, the way it had done as a child before he’d learned to channel it.

And despite how bloody, bruised and _in pain_ Dorian was, he could feel Cullen holding back enough to not entirely destroy him. There was an element of control, even in this monstrous outburst. Dorian resented it, couldn’t tolerate it.

He shaped his magic just enough to stun Cullen for a few seconds so he could crush his mouth to the Commander’s. He forced the kiss on Cullen, slid his tongue through closed lips, tasted the violent, jagged electricity pulsing through him and basked in the shared pain.

‘Open your mouth for me,’ Dorian muttered against the scarred lips. ‘Like a good little _Chantry Boy.__’_

Cullen snapped.

He fought through Dorian’s magic, pushed back against the storm violating his body and his hands went straight for Dorian’s neck, closing and throttling dangerously. He shoved Dorian hard against the edge of the ramparts, the wall not high enough to protect Dorian from going over if Cullen decided it. The hands around his throat were tight, digging in hard and expertly. He could kill Dorian this way, the mage knew.

Dorian, whose hands were free, slapped Cullen across the face as hard as he could. _Fuck you_, it said. _Fuck everything about you, I__’m not afraid. _

Cullen let go of Dorian’s throat long enough to hit him one more time; one incredibly hard punch right into the mage’s solar plexus. His whole body spasmed around the impact, lungs panicking, everything _tightening_ and seizing horribly. Maybe that was how Cullen felt while frozen by Dorian’s lightning. Dorian didn’t even have the chance to bend double like his body demanded because Cullen’s bloodied hands snatched at Dorian’s hair and yanked him viciously to the Commander’s face. His lips crashed with Dorian’s, teeth clacking painfully as he fucking _devoured_ him. He bit at the mage, he snarled and gave Dorian no quarter, no chance of moving away. Dorian was trapped, breathless as his body uselessly spasmed still in the painful effects of that last blow. Cullen wasn’t kissing him; he was claiming him, plundering him deeply and savagely, leaving nowhere for Dorian to run.

And even though Dorian couldn’t breathe, could barely keep himself upright, he responded to Cullen’s assault like he might die without it. His hands clawed at Cullen’s back, trying to tear through the metal, get underneath and find skin like that demon had. Cullen’s mouth on his was brutal. He bit and tore Dorian’s bottom lip and the mage nearly screamed when Cullen sucked on the injury, drinking in Dorian’s blood like it was a fine wine.

When Cullen pulled back, panting hard, Dorian's blood all around his mouth, Dorian knew he was lost. He’d been lost a while ago, but now he had no chance of finding his way back. It was going to happen here where anybody could see.

Cullen knew it too because the next thing he did was begin to tear at Dorian’s clothes. He didn’t go right for the trousers, he wanted to strip Dorian bare and Dorian was going to let him, but not for free.

The mage’s hands worked under Cullen’s armour and found the release points. He expected Cullen to fight him for it, to resist… but Cullen was _helpful_. He shrugged impatiently out of the heavy outwear, out of that fucking fur thing he lived and died in.

When Cullen’s whole chest was gloriously bare, Dorian was almost completely naked. The mage’s hand trailed reverently over the three deep, dark scars on Cullen’s lower abdomen. The wounds Dorian hadn’t been able to heal. Cullen swallowed and frowned, something in the tenderness of Dorian’s touch unacceptable to him. He smacked Dorian’s hand away and then plunged his teeth deep in the crux of Dorian’s neck, biting hard enough to draw blood. Cullen wrenched the last of the buckles on Dorian’s arm, freeing him of the pauldron, the last and trickiest thing to remove all while biting hard enough to break skin.

If the air was cold, Dorian couldn’t feel it. If they were atop a snowy mountain fortress in fucking _Ferelden_, Dorian was unaware. He and Cullen were generating a kind of heat that was going to melt the stones around them unless it was channelled where needed.

Cullen’s tongue lapped at the wound he created on Dorian’s neck before he drew back, taking Dorian's hand by the wrist and pressed it right into the centre of his scarred chest, staring him dead in the eyes.

‘Hurt me,’ he told the mage.

Dorian sent shock-waves of energy through Cullen’s body, twisted each fork of lightning and turned it jagged so it would hurt the man more than necessary. Cullen groaned loudly, head falling back as Dorian’s magic tore through him. Dorian could have come just from witnessing such a thing.

Cullen saved him from that, though. He smashed his mouth back to Dorian’s, tongue and teeth seeking that torn flesh once more to rip it anew and draw the blood he was apparently desperate for and while he did that, his hands fumbled gracelessly, shoving his own trousers down around his thighs, freeing that glorious cock Dorian remembered all too well.

Dorian tried to turn around but Cullen refused. He kept the mage’s naked body flush against him and front facing. ‘No,’ he panted, voice low and wrecked. ‘No pretending it’s someone else.’

It was almost enough to make Dorian laugh. As if he would ever be able to even _think_ of anyone else after this.

With one hand, Cullen palmed Dorian’s cock, so reminiscent of that first time but there was nothing teasing now. The sharp scratch of stone dragged across Dorian’s bare arse, his skin broken and swollen in all the places where Cullen had hit him. He was in so much pain, but the signals were crossed again. Pain twisted to pleasure, agony into need. When Cullen’s hand curled around the shaft and began to tug, the same thing happened. It was painful and rough but all Dorian felt was that deep, unbearable pull of rapture.

He was ruined.

Cullen guided Dorian’s hand to his own cock and breathed, ‘Make it ready.’

The magic was basic and oft used, a slick grease generating between Dorian’s fingers as easy as flames or sparks. He kept the magic coming while he coated Cullen’s thick, eager cock. Cullen made a bitten off noise, a choked kind of groan as he looked down and watched Dorian use magic to prepare him. They were touching each other in tandem; Cullen with violence, Dorian with magic.

Dorian was fucking ruined_ forever. _

When Cullen couldn’t take any more, he roughly reached down and lifted Dorian up under his thighs, dragging the mage’s skin roughly against the wall. Dorian’s legs were weak and shaky but he wrapped them around Cullen’s middle with every bit of strength he had left, hands scrabbling to clutch Cullen by the shoulders. Cullen held Dorian around the back with one strong arm. It was the only thing stopping Dorian from tumbling backwards into darkness and gravity.

Cullen’s mouth sought Dorian’s again as he aligned the head of his dripping member against Dorian’s entrance.

‘Hurt me again,’ Cullen begged, eyes tightly closed.

Dorian tangled his hands in Cullen’s hair and let his magic loose through his hands. The energy crackled and flared and Cullen cried out, slamming himself into Dorian as hard as he could, driving his cock all the way in without any preparation beside lubricant. The sensation was too much, _far_ too much. Dorian couldn’t take it, but Cullen’s tongue was deep in his mouth and any scream he might have let out was swallowed hungrily. His magic raged in response and there was no way Cullen wasn’t in agony from the crackling, furious energy, but it didn’t stop him. There was no time to adjust, no gentle restraint. Dorian’s own magic tore through his own body in turn, connected as they were.

Cullen began to fuck him with absolute abandon. His hips slammed into Dorian, the sound of their skin slapping barely audible over the grunting and groaning, ragged breaths and muffled cries from Dorian, whose entire being was beyond saving, beyond redemption.

Ruined.

‘Fuck yourself on me,’ Cullen murmured against Dorian’s split lip. _‘Harder_!’ There was no “_harder”_, but Dorian tried anyway. It felt like Cullen needed everything of him even though he’d already given it. His hand began to pump Dorian’s cock, adding to an already unbearable plethora of sensations. Dorian sobbed weakly, fingers digging into the skin of Cullen’s back as hard as he could, dragging his nails down and tearing the flesh. The noise Cullen made would stay with Dorian forever. Desperate and devastated and absolutely _enthralled_.

Cullen was going to come and Dorian would die if he didn’t come right along with him. His legs tightened around Cullen’s waist, balls of his feet digging into Cullen’s upper arse cheeks. Cullen’s grip on Dorian was bruising and mean, but he was the only thing keeping Dorian from free-fall. Cullen kissed him; it was the only word for it now. No pretending it wasn’t an actual _kiss_ because all his other violence was channelled elsewhere; fucking Dorian brutally, trapping him and _hurting_ him and driving him insane with an ecstasy that would never be replicated elsewhere. The kiss was desperate, it wrenched something in Dorian’s chest and made him want to cry.

Maybe Cullen knew it, maybe he felt it himself because with his one free hand he tangled his fingers in Dorian’s hair and pulled their mouths apart. He dragged his teeth over Dorian’s neck and bit down hard, growling.

Dorian’s orgasm hit him like a tidal wave, like a _punch_. Cullen’s rhythm faltered and slowed, hips slamming home into Dorian as a dangerous sound tore from his throat almost against his own will.

All the world darkened and tilted dangerously and Dorian clung to Cullen, enduring the _pleasure-pain _as it rolled over him. Cullen was still panting, words forming in short, whispered bursts. ‘Hate you, hate you so much,’ he was saying, but his lips were pressing sloppy, open mouthed kisses against Dorian’s neck, against the places he’d marked and bitten and made Dorian bleed. He hadn’t let go of Dorian, not even an inch. He kept them together by sheer force of strength, his arms trembling with the effort of it. ‘So much, _so_ much’ he swore, like it was a promise, a declaration of something.

If Dorian really, _really_ wanted to hurt himself, all he had to do was pretend that one other word replaced _hate _.

*


	6. Property

If Dorian had expectations after their encounter, Cullen surpassed them.

Did he expect Cullen to shut down and retreat once more? _Yes_. Did he think Cullen would likely go to great lengths to avoid Dorian from now on? _Certainly_. Awkwardness, anger, shame - Dorian was well prepared for all those things. They were second nature to him; he’d never been with a partner who _hadn’t_ experienced those things to a certain extent.

Did he expect Cullen to go to Lavellan the very next morning and demand that Dorian be fucking _removed_ from the Inquisition?

That, Dorian had _not_ expected.

And it hurt more than it should which made Dorian furious, not at Cullen but at himself. He had no one to blame _but_ himself, well perhaps Leliana. Even so, she hadn’t told him to go and engage in masochistic sex the likes of which had never been witnessed in all of Thedas. She hadn’t told him to hurt Cullen in return.

She definitely hadn’t told him to do it in public, either.

Apparently, it had been _very _public, too. And loud. Dorian’s memory of the incident was both foggy and yet crystal fucking clear.

Dorian wished the idea of Cullen taking him on the ramparts where everyone could, and apparently a few _did, _see_… _was a bad thing.

‘I’m not going to grant his request, obviously,’ Lavellan rushed to assure her friend, sitting opposite Dorian on his small, beautifully outfitted bed. The covers were silk, the quilts made with ring velvet. Lavellan had taken her boots off before climbing on it with him, sitting cross legged as she took a deep breath and relayed the whole thing to Dorian. He felt bad for her. She’d barely been back an hour before this chaos had descended into her purview. The small wooden chest sat closed on Dorian’s floor, one vial missing. ‘And there _are_ serious questions I need answered. I’m not partial to gossip like I said, but the main thing I need to ask is this; do you _want_ to leave?’

‘No,’ Dorian said before he even had a chance to really consider what she was asking, what she might have been offering. A way out of this madness, perhaps. Did Dorian want that? Leave Skyhold, go elsewhere? Where would he even go? Back to Tevinter? No, he wasn’t ready. There would come a time, but it was not then. ‘I don’t.’

She nodded understandingly, reaching across to pat his hand. ‘So, was all that accurate then? What everyone said about the… sex and lightning?’

What point was there in playing coy? ‘Yes, it’s all true.’

He watched as Ellana Lavellan tried very hard not to roll her eyes.

‘I see. Well, would you like to talk about it?’

He _burned_ to tell her every detail. Every step that had led to Dorian’s absolute _ruin_ atop the Inquisitor’s fortress. He needed her to hear it so that someone would know that it had been real. That Cullen had _kissed_ him, that Cullen had refused him to turn away and think of another. That Dorian was never going to be able to feel someone fucking him without Cullen’s imprint flaring up.

‘No,’ he chuckled, leaning back casually. ‘I’d rather not.’

The gaze she fixed him with was speculative. ‘Really?’

‘My dearest girl, you do yourself such credit, but I am truly at ease. If anyone is disturbed, it’s clearly our poor, confused Commander. Go and speak with him again if you harbour such concerns. I daresay he will confide in you of how the evil _Tevinter mage_ seduced him with magical wiles.’

‘That’s not what he said, Dorian.’

Dorian hated himself when he looked down, and said, ‘Oh?’

‘He said it was… oh look, I don’t want to get in the middle of whatever this is, I really don’t. His request to remove you from the Inquisition was denied and he accepted my decision fully.’

Dorian’s eyes narrowed. ‘He did? Just like that?’ Lavellan tapped her fingers on Dorian quilt, staring off to the side. She was hiding something from the mage and he _knew_ it. ‘, So _not_ just like that, then?’

‘As I said, I’ve no wish to mediate—’

‘Tell me, Ellana.’

She gave a hearty sigh and swung her legs off the side rather abruptly. _‘_You know what, Dorian? I’m _not_ going to play this game. If you want to know what Cullen said, go and ask him.’ At the door she sighed and added, ‘Sober and in broad daylight, for a change.’

*

The obvious thing to do would be to follow Lavellan’s advice directly. Go to Cullen, be a _man_. Talk to him in plain fashion and listen to whatever he had to say. Dorian could explain his intentions. They could clear the air. Get on with their lives

Except it was a fantasy. For so many reasons.

Going to Cullen would result in _anything_ but conversation, Dorian would see to it, even if he didn’t mean to. Cullen wouldn’t speak to Dorian, let alone _listen_ to him. The air would never be clear. It would be thick with sweat and heat and crackling energy; the kind Cullen had begged for.

Dorian knew to an extent that Cullen’s request came from somewhere in the middle of this list. That, regardless of intentions, things were impossibly and irreversibly awkward between them now. How were they supposed to work together after this? Be _near_ each other?

It hadn’t been awkward at first, not in the few minutes after Dorian’s body had been torn apart by the greatest orgasm of his entire life. In the fading aftershocks and the misty onslaught of afterglow, Cullen had not shoved Dorian away and run. It was strange and he tried very hard not to think about it, but… Cullen had _dressed_ Dorian. His ministrations had been gentle and firm, intuitive with all the buckles and straps he’d yanked apart previously. He didn’t look at Dorian much, but he didn’t avoid his gaze either. Dorian had realised after a moment that not only was he dressing Dorian, he was cataloguing all of his injuries. He dressed him from the feet up and the mage had been fairly thunderstruck by the whole thing, his heart betraying him terribly the whole time.

Neither of them had spoken throughout; Dorian wasn’t really _able_ to speak and anything he said, he would have regretted horribly later on anyway.

When Cullen had finally reached his shoulders, Dorian couldn’t suppress a shiver because he knew this was where all Cullen’s favourite injuries were. The two he’d given the most attention, the two he’d enjoyed inflicting the most. Cullen’s soft, honey brown eyes had lingered on Dorian’s neck in a heart stopping way. His index finger had lightly traced over the broken, sensitive skin.

But it was the torn lip that held Cullen’s fascination so. When Dorian was fully dressed, Cullen still mostly bare save for having pulled his trousers up perfunctorily, the Commander reached out slowly with steady fingers and lightly touched that torn flesh. That feather light touch hurt enough for Dorian to wince. Cullen’s eyes had flitted to Dorian’s and away again quickly, as though it was dangerous to look at him while touching him, while inflicting even a small amount of pain.

And then, and Dorian still wasn’t sure if he’d actually imagined this part, Cullen had closed his eyes and leaned in, both hands cupping either side of Dorian’s face and dragged his tongue over that bottom lip, quickly sealing the injury with his own mouth for a few, agonising, glorious moments. Dorian had the sense that Cullen couldn’t resist, that he was allowing himself one last _taste_ of the mage before he left and everything fell into disrepair.

It had been a fairly accurate sense, apparently.

When Cullen had forced himself away from Dorian, stooping low to gather his things, _then_ came all the striding off into darkness. It had taken Dorian a few minutes to feel confident he could walk without his legs giving out. The journey back to his room was a hazy thing. All he remembered was taking the potion before crashing into bed.

So… yes. Talking to Cullen was a terrible idea, though Dorian might have considered it had the Commander not immediately run to Lavellan upon her return the very next morning and requested that Dorian simply be _removed_ from his life.

It struck a cold, sharp dagger through everything. Made Dorian question and obsess over each part of the night previous when really, he should have been forgetting it and moving on.

Fuck Leliana and her potions; she would have to find another mildly suicidal mage to draw Cullen’s _ire_ from now on. There was only so much Dorian could take. Not the pain, of course. The pain he could take and take and _take_ and apparently, inflict in turn because that’s what Cullen had asked for, wasn’t it?

No. He couldn’t take what Cullen had done to his stupid, treacherous heart. Dorian knew his limits, even if he couldn’t abide them.

No more.

*

‘Tell me again?’ Sera asked, wrinkling her nose. ‘Not for details but cos like… what?’

Dorian sighed and stared out of her prettily coloured windows. A pleasant mishmash of colour and chaos, so like Sera herself. ‘Must I really?’

‘Well, no,’ she said, cocking her head. ‘S’pose not, but really… _what_?’

Dorian aimed for cocky and landed on petulant. ‘It is really so shocking to believe that the Commander apparently finds me irresistible?’

Sera snorted. ‘You wanna work on that one, I reckon. Not up to your usual standards. Nice pun, though. I hear the fireworks were impressive.’

Internally, Dorian died a little. ‘They were,’ he assured Sera, outwardly unfazed. ‘Anyway, I’m already done with the entire thing. It was a pleasant distraction, little else. How dull the lives of people in Skyhold must be, to circulate scurrilous gossip about something so common as _sex_.’

‘True,’ Sera said, stretching and yawning slightly. ‘But most of them probably haven’t heard of anything like what the soldiers saw. Y’know.’

Dorian forced himself not to look at her. ‘No, I don’t know.’

‘Retreating back into your pretty shell, eh? Smart, I reckon. Look, it’s gossip. It’ll die down in a few days. If you say you were gettin’ your rocks off with Cully-Wully, then all’s fine and dandy. Everyone’s got different tastes. Used to know a girl who was all about sex in the mud. Didn’t care for it myself, but it’s good to be open minded. Try new things.’

Dorian tried not to picture Sera rolling around in _mud_ with another woman, barely suppressing a grimace. ‘Hmm,’ he said, because he wasn’t sure what else to say.

‘Time to shoo now,’ Sera said. ‘I’ve got things to do.’

Dorian got up, somewhat put out. ‘Oh.’

Sera rolled her eyes. ‘Well there’s no need to sound _that_ pathetic. You can come, if you really want to. I’m on morale duty.’

Dorian found it hard to reconcile the words _Morale_ and _Duty_ with anything involving Sera. ‘Which entails?’

‘Pranks!’ she burst out with fiendish glee. ‘Gonna prank all the hoity toity advisors cos… well, they could use a good bit of pranking. Might try a few on some others too. Vivienne could use a weasel in her knickers, I reckon.’ She gave Dorian a speculative up and down. ‘You in?’

*

And thus, the origin of how Dorian Pavus came to steal Cullen Rutherford’s copy of _The Watchful Ambler_ was born. He followed Sera around Skyhold allowing her unstoppably good mood to infect him, despite himself, and he helped her suggest little harmless pranks here and there. He drew the line at Lavellan because she had enough on her plate as it was and anyway, she wasn’t remotely _hoity toity_ as Sera had put it.

Josephine got a bucket of water atop her door which Dorian couldn’t object to because it was so charmingly childish. Cassandra got a very fake love letter from Varric which Dorian and Sera could barely concoct without dissolving into fits of laughter. Bull got a small pebble beneath the inner sole of his boot because it would piss him off no end and mess with his ability to _charge_.

At some point, Cole became involved, trailing along with them, clutching some book he’d been reading, making dismally un-funny suggestions of what would truly inspire outrage from each of their chosen victims. Sera found Cole’s inability to understand the basis of _pranks_ rather hilarious while Dorian simply liked Cole’s enthusiasm and earnestness. The three of them made a very wonky team but by the time they reached Cullen’s quarters, at Dorian’s insistence, his heart was light and buoyed by his companions.

‘Control in the seams of his bones, aching to bite and tear, for blood to run free,’ Cole said, wasting no time the moment they were inside Cullen’s empty space. ‘Don’t look, don’t let him see you look, don’t let him see how much—’

‘Yes, _thank_ you,’ Dorian said, slanting an eyebrow as he and Sera looked around. Cole fell silent, pretending to look around too, mimicking their actions.

‘What’s it to be?’ Sera asked.

‘He would be very outraged if Dorian went into his bedroom,’ Cole suggested.

‘That’s just common knowledge, not a prank, Cole,’ Dorian said, but his heart wasn’t in the correction, because he had the perfect prank, even if wasn’t really a prank at all. ‘I know,’ he said, hurrying over to Cullen’s book shelf. ‘Cole, give me your book.’

‘Ah,’ Cole said, nodding sagely. ‘The thing your heart longs for, the pull of a riptide you should resist but cannot and beneath the pages, a sea monster circles.’

‘Yes, yes!’ Dorian hissed impatiently, heart beating too fast. He snatched Cole’s book, _A Compendium of Forgotten Ferelden Customs_, and withdrew _The Watchful Ambler_, swapping the two neatly. He pushed the replacement book in so that it perfectly aligned with the others. At a glance, it was almost impossible to see the difference and it wasn’t Cullen’s anyway, he would never know. ‘Perfect.’

Sera frowned. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘It’s…’ Dorian tried to think of a way to justify _stealing_ Cullen’s copy of a book he was desperate for in a way that would make sense to Sera. ‘Something will be different and he won’t know what, so it’ll annoy him.’

With a doubtful glance at the book in Dorian’s hands, she said, ‘_This_ will annoy him?’

‘Oh yes,’ Cole answered seriously. ‘He’ll be furious. Hidden things, between words and spaces, don’t look inside, Dorian.’

Dorian rolled his eyes at the severity of the boy’s statement. He had a flair for drama that almost outmatched Dorian’s own. ‘Come along. I know _precisely_ what will piss of our dear Warden Blackwall.’

*

By the time Dorian got back to his room late that afternoon, he was in a giddily good mood. The combination of amusing company, (mostly) harmless pranks and, best of all, a stolen copy of his favourite book in his possession made his heart light enough that the activities of the previous night were almost bearable.

He closed his door and locked it before he sat down in his plush, comfy chair and carefully opened the book with trembling fingers to the first page. The pages were thin and well worn, yellowed around the edges but Dorian noted it had been cared for.

The first sentence let loose a rush of warmth and comfort and Dorian couldn’t help but smile, snuggling deeper into the chair as he began to read.

After an hour, his stomach rumbled insistently and he knew he should go in search of food. He could find some, make a plate and bring it back to his room where he could spend the whole day reading, if he was lucky.

He stowed the book carefully under his pillow, fearfully protective of it, and then he checked himself in the mirror. He had more colour about him, at least. The pallor he’d awoken to had been startling but he knew it was a side effect of the potion, not just of his _exertions_ with Cullen. It was nice to have a little of that colour back after spending the morning dashing around with Cole and Sera while the _adults_ of Skyhold had been out training or working, building things or instructing others. Cullen, he knew, spent the morning rigorously training the soldiers of Skyhold.

He tweaked his moustache and checked his hair, both of which were obviously already perfect, and then he made his way down to the hall for some lunch.

To say that everyone stared at him was an understatement. They froze; silence falling over the cavernous room which was then immediately filled with hushed whispers and wide, trailing eyes. He was late to the meal and most of his companions had already left, though Varric and Cassandra remained, having a very heated conversation while Cassandra waved around a piece of paper as Varric laughed.

Dorian didn’t _hurry_ when piling his plate, but he didn’t exactly linger either. He was used to gossip and rumours, but actually confronting it had made him aware of how this would reflect on Cullen as well. Dorian’s reputation had been rock bottom right from the start, but Cullen… his reputation would be materially damaged by this in ways Dorian had not even considered.

He piled his plate high, not intending to return in the evening. As he passed them, a couple whispered loudly, ‘Must have built _quite _the appetite!’

‘Yes,’ Dorian drawled, not breaking his stride. ‘Being fucked within an inch of your life tends to have that effect.’

He was in Solas’s circular room when a voice called his name and ground him to a halt.

‘Dorian!’

The mage turned on instinct, nervous system flaring dangerously because Cullen was standing there behind him and he was _shaking_ with anger. Oh, it was a beautiful thing to behold really. He was head to toe _furious_. The tight line of his mouth, the barely controlled blaze about his eyes, muscles rigid, hands balled so hard they were white. He had to have heard Dorian’s comment. _Fuck_.

‘Commander?’ he managed, throat sticking slightly.

Cullen seemed to be trying to come up with words… and failing entirely. From his desk, Solas watched the interaction calmly, not caring to remove himself or comment.

When Cullen lifted his hand to gesture uselessly, fingers clawing at air, his eyes closed and mouth attempting to shape words, Dorian realised he might actually be in real trouble here.

‘Could I speak with you?’ Cullen managed to say after an intensely awkward moment of floundering. ‘In private?’

Dorian looked down at his ridiculously large plate of food and wavered.

‘Perhaps later.’

Cullen’s fingertips pressed to the bridge of his nose; eyes firmly closed. ‘I would… _greatly_ appreciate it if you would accompany me now, instead.’ When Dorian wavered still, glancing at the door that would lead to Cullen’s quarters and then at the staircase which led to safety, Cullen ground out the word, ‘_Please?__’_

For fuck’s sake. ‘Fine,’ Dorian sighed, not troubling to hide how put out he was.

He began to walk in the direction of Cullen’s quarters, when the Commander said, ‘No, your room.’

Something terrifying and cold slid down Dorian’s spine, but he nodded mutely and about turned, hurrying up the stairs as Cullen followed. His heart was doing crazy things, body having long forgotten that it was hungry.

Each step made his legs feel weak, something in the back of his mind insisting that he turn tail and flee because whatever this was, Cullen was on the ragged edge of it.

People stared at them as they walked and Dorian could only imagine the rumours now, but this was _not_ his fault. It was Cullen’s and the man could fucking well deal with the whispering if he was just going to show up like this and demand—

Cullen slammed Dorian’s door shut with a loud bang and immediately spun around hands shaking as they hovered in front of his face, fingers curled like they sought something to grab.

‘All right, look,’ Dorian said quickly, setting the ridiculously large platter of food down on his small bedside table. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, not in front of so many people, but—’

‘Where is it?’ Cullen all but snarled, eyes still closed like even _looking_ at Dorian posed too great a threat.

Dorian’s mouth closed with a snap, mind going blank. ‘Pardon me?’

_‘Where. Is. It?’_

A thread of comprehension and disbelief tugged hard at Dorian, making him instinctively want to glance over at the bed to his pillow, though he contained the urge. But surely not. Commander Cullen in a such tizzy about a _book_? Impossible.

Dorian fell back on years of well-trained blankness in the face of pressure and, for once, held his own. ‘Where is… what? The answer to killing Corypheus? Your sense of humour?’

Cullen started forward so suddenly that Dorian flinched but the Commander reigned himself in at the last moment. He exhaled slowly, forcing the breath out as far as it would go, before he said, ‘Give it back. I _know_ you took it.’

Fucking _hell_. So, it was his book then and he obviously cared enough about it to come storming over here in a jealous rage demanding it back.

Well. Tough luck. It was Dorian’s now.

The mage sneered softly. ‘Took what? Your virginity?’ Cullen _blushed; _oh, it was beautiful. ‘Is this a little game you’re playing, Commander? Should I pretend that your mythical missing object is hidden somewhere on my person, that you might search me?’

For a moment, Cullen’s certainty wavered. Dorian was an excellent liar when he needed to be, capable of misdirection. He seemed to be considering that Dorian might be telling the truth, perhaps even on the verge of _retreating. _

But then he simply said, ‘You’re lying.’

Dorian scoffed. ‘I am _not_.’

‘Yes, you are. You’re a good liar, I remember.’

Oh, right. The small matter of how Dorian had lied about his healing capabilities. ‘Yes, the evil, _lying_ Tevinter mage. That sounds about right. Well, sorry to disappoint you my dear Commander, but unless you tell me what it is that you’re missing, I can hardly be expected to help you find it.’

Dorian had absolutely no intention of giving the book back, but he wanted desperately to hear Cullen say it aloud. Admit that the book was his and that it meant something to him. Confirm aloud and breathe life into the theory that he and Dorian actually had something in common beyond causing each other pain.

Cullen beheld Dorian. He watched him closely and seemed to be taking his measure. ‘You took it,’ he stated flatly. ‘In what I can only assume was retaliation for my request to have you removed.’

The mage’s breath caught in his chest. ‘Retaliation? You must think very poorly of me, Commander.’

It was meant to be teasing and cocky, but it came out quiet and… sad. Fuck.

‘My request was made on impulse,’ Cullen said, looking around Dorian’s room with just an edge of fretful desperation. ‘It was beneath me to even make it, but this…’ he ground out. ‘_This_ is not a proportionate response!’

‘It is _no_ response at all because I’ve not taken whatever it is you have been careless enough to lose!’ Dorian spat.

Cullen shut his eyes and spoke in a pained whisper through gritted teeth. ‘What do you want?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘What do you want for it?’

Dorian couldn’t help himself. He laughed. ‘I’m afraid you’re becoming rather unhinged, Commander. Perhaps your _reunion_ with Lyrium isn’t such a good idea.’

The Commander’s eyes snapped open and his mouth twisted. ‘You think I would ever go _near_ Lyrium again? Oh, you must have thought yourself so very clever.’

‘What do you mean?’

The look Cullen gave Dorian was so plainly scathing it was hard to bear. ‘I made the request in absolute secrecy, _ensuring_ it would reach Leliana. I was curious as to whether or not she would send you.’ As he spoke, Cullen began to loosely rifle through a few of Dorian’s things as though he had any right to.

Dorian itched to slap his hands away. ‘You… _what_?’

Cullen opened the drawer in the bedside table. ‘I will not be bound by a mere substance. Addiction is slavery,’ he said rather wildly, closing the drawer with a snap when he couldn’t find the book. ‘At the time, I wanted to know her perception of you. If she thought enough of you to keep you from me instead of sending you off like a lamb to slaughter.’

But… that wasn’t quite right and Dorian could sense it. It was true enough, but there was an odd note. Something off key.

‘That’s not the only reason,’ he said, eyes narrowing as Cullen threw him a resentful glare. ‘You knew she’d send me. You… you _counted_ upon it.’

For a long moment, Cullen considered Dorian’s suggestion and it was clear he was deciding how to respond. When his shoulders squared, chin tipping slightly, Dorian gasped softly, shaking his head.

‘Yes,’ Cullen admitted. ‘Perhaps not so soon, but I knew she’d send you and I knew you would come.’

The air was thick with pent magics, with sweat and tension and dislike so sharp it cut the inside of their lungs.

‘So,’ Dorian said, crossing his arms. ‘You _called_ for me, did you?’

Cullen shrugged rather brazenly. ‘After a fashion.’

‘Brought me to you under the guise of obligation?’

‘As if you haven’t been trailing around after me for _months_?’

Dorian’s mind was whirling. ‘Leliana isn’t stupid, far from it. She likely knew what you were planning. So, she went along with it, knowing the outcome, knowing I would need an entire crate of healing potions.’ Dorian toed the wooden chest and Cullen looked down as the vials inside tinkled softly. ‘Quite the matchmaker, your Nightingale friend.’

‘Leliana understands.’

‘Understands what? The extent of your fucking madness? Your _need_ to not only inflict pain but writhe beneath it?’

Cullen’s nostrils flared. ‘Be quiet.’

Dorian laughed with malice. ‘Or _what_? Your threats have quite the opposite effect on me, or haven’t you noticed?’

A shudder wracked through the Commander and he made visible effort to control himself. ‘Dorian,’ he wrenched out, staring determinedly to the side. ‘I _know_ you took it. Please give it back now.’

The mage shook his head, sighing. ‘Your insistence that I alone have taken this thing, whatever it may be, is unwavering, Commander. May I ask in what this certainty is so rooted?’

‘Give it back or I will tear this room apart and find it.’

Dorian smirked like the idea pleased him. ‘Go ahead. I’ll even leave you to search in privacy, how’s that?’

He made for the door, hoping he wasn’t sweating so much that his bluff was obvious. Cullen grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him back.

‘So, it’s _not_ here then?’ then man said, eyes searching Dorian’s for any trace of usable information. Dorian wondered at how much this book seriously meant to Cullen for him to be in this state. ‘In your little nook, perhaps? Hidden in plain sight?’

‘Get your fucking hand off of me.’

Cullen sneered. ‘Or _what?__’_

Dorian slapped him hard across the face. The sound reverberated harshly, echoed in Dorian’s ears. He’d hit him hard enough that his hand stung. Cullen gasped; a quick intake of breath from the blow, but he did not release the mage. ‘_My_ threats aren’t idle,’ Dorian told him, proud that it came out steady. ‘Now, release me and leave!’

Cullen’s hand tightened around Dorian’s wrist, painful and unforgiving.

‘Not until you give it back.’

The pain was doing dangerous things to Dorian, splintering his focus and turning his blood hot and traitorous. ‘Andraste’s _arse_, I don’t have your fucking book, Cullen!’

The Commander’s jaw dropped, eyes glittering with bitter victory and for a moment, Dorian was sure it was because he’d said Cullen’s name. But then a slow, horrible sense of realisation crept up on him. He’d said _book_ when Cullen had not specified even once what it was he was searching for.

‘Such a talented liar, aren’t you?’ Cullen breathed. ‘If I hadn’t _known_ it was your favourite book, I might have even believed that someone else had taken it, mage.’

‘Oh, now I’m back to being _mage_, am I?’

‘You’ll always be a mage.’

‘And you’ll always be a Templar.’

Cullen was _almost_ smiling now, but it was too cold, much too furious. He walked Dorian into the wall by the door frame. ‘Give me back my book. _Now_.’

Cornered in every way, Dorian spat, ‘How do you know it’s my favourite? Been spying on me, Commander?’

‘Oh, back to being _Commander_, am I?’ Cullen parroted in as he moved into Dorian. ‘I know because your Father sent a letter to you months back, offering to have it delivered to Skyhold, hoping to gain your favour or _forgiveness, _more accurately.’

Indignation and disgust struck Dorian hard. ‘You read my letters?’

‘I read _all_ your letters,’ Cullen admitted without shame, eyes moving rapidly between Dorian’s as he pressed close, crowding into him almost painfully. He braced himself against the wall, palms flat on either side of Dorian’s head. ‘You’re dangerous.’

Dorian tried to look away. ‘Because I’m a mage?’

‘No,’ Cullen breathed, close enough to graze his nose over Dorian’s if either of them moved a fraction. ‘You’re danger _personified_, Dorian.’

Dorian’s knees threatened to buckle, but he held himself together by force of will. He would not be bowed, not this time.

‘Move away from me, Commander.’

Cullen hesitated and then he pushed away from the wall abruptly. Only when Dorian could _feel_ his absence, did he open his eyes and allow himself to breathe. Cullen ran a hand through his hair. Dorian could see it was shaking, his composure frayed around the edges.

Then Cullen blinked and looked at Dorian’s bed suddenly. He moved before Dorian even had a chance to reach forward and stop him. He threw the pillow back and grabbed the book. Cullen didn’t march off with it right away, instead he opened the book there and then, leafing urgently through the pages right to the back. Something fell out, a small folded piece of paper and… something else. A small, dark thing, flattened inside the book, but it was gone before Dorian could make out what it was. Cullen stowed the items away safely inside his inner folds, allowing himself a brief moment of visible relief and composure. Then he tossed the book abruptly at Dorian, who fumbled to catch it.

‘Keep it,’ Cullen said curtly. ‘If it holds such sway that you were forced to _steal_ it from me, then far be it from me to deny any pleasure of yours, _Ser Pavus_.’

Dorian held the book tight, staring down at scarlet cover ‘So, it means nothing to you then?’

Cullen froze by the door. ‘What?’

‘The book,’ Dorian clarified quickly, because _that_ would have been an embarrassing miscommunication, wouldn’t it? ‘The _book_ means nothing to you, does it? Probably never even read it, have you?’

Without looking back, Cullen yanked the door open and said, ‘Look inside,' as he strode out. 

With numb fingers, Dorian opened the book and parted the first page and cover with his thumb. He scanned the inner page, a deep shade of red to match to the exterior, heart racing painfully. At the bottom, in tall, looped handwriting were the faded words, _Property of_ _Cullen Stanton Rutherford. _

*


	7. Privacy, as Imagined by Cole

Finding Cole was a fucking nightmare. It took Dorian a solid hour to force himself to leave the safety of his room and then the boy was nowhere to be found. Dorian didn’t want to make it especially obvious that he was searching for the spirit or whatever the void Cole actually was, but it was tricky. In the end, he followed a series of confused expressions on the workers of Skyhold, muttering about plums and turnips.

The boy was lurking exactly where Dorian had been dreading and therefore studiously avoiding; the upper ramparts.

Steeling himself, Dorian’s stride did not falter. The young man sat perched on the sides rather precariously. This place was, at least, a different area of the ramparts where Dorian and Cullen had redefined the word _sex_ for all time.

‘Cole,’ Dorian half greeted, half called out. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

‘Yes,’ Cole agreed, nodding. ‘I hid. I like hiding. But now I’m tired and there isn’t enough pastry for five.’

‘Uh… yes indeed, Cole.’

‘Oh, but it’s all torn,’ Cole said suddenly, turning to look at Dorian with wide, fathomless eyes. ‘That won’t do at all! It should be healed with kindness, but the cat took the last of it from the mountain!’

Dorian did _not_ raise his eyes upwards, barely. ‘I had a question, if that’s all right?’

Cole returned his focus to the glorious view spread all before them. ‘I miss the mountain.’

‘There are mountains right there, Cole. Plenty of them.’

Dorian had the rather distinct feeling that meeting Cole’s observations with logic and reason was a pointless endeavour. He stood beside the strange boy, following his gaze.

_‘They _are just stone,’ Cole pointed out as though Dorian was very stupid. ‘The mountain was kind, once. But justice is iron; liquid when hot, it spread through the bones of compassion and then turned solid, unyielding. I won’t break your skin, not like the others.’ Cole blinked. ‘Sorry, you had a question?’

‘Yes, if you don’t mind?’

Cole swung around so fast that Dorian’s heart shot up into his throat, fearing for the boy’s stability on the edge of such a high wall, but he was lithe and graceful, catlike himself. ‘I like questions. You ask a lot of questions. It makes Cullen very angry. _Is this a little game you__’re playing, Commander? _His anger is white, did you know that? Yours is purple. It was very pretty watching them last night. They made the skies glow, like dawn at midnight. Hurt me so I remember, hurt me so I won’t forget.’

‘Please don’t do that,’ Dorian said as kindly as he could. ‘I actually have a _specific_ question, so there’s no need for you to cast about for a likely subject.’

Cole waited patiently, legs kicking against the wall in a childlike rhythm.

‘What was in that book, Cole?’

‘Which book? There are so many of them!’ the boy said brightly.

Dorian was determined to remain calm and friendly. ‘What was in the book we took from Cullen’s office this morning?’

‘Oh, for the _prank_! Yes, I liked that very much, though I still don’t understand why Cullen didn’t laugh. The others laughed. Varric laughs all the time, even when he’s sad, maybe that’s it. You laugh when you’re angry. Cullen only laughs when he’s screaming on the inside. It’s very black in there, hard to find the spark of laughter. Hard to light a candle underwater.’

Dorian was _very_ _determined_ to remain calm and friendly.

‘Yes, that’s quite interesting, but when you warned me not to read the book, what did you mean? Did you know what was inside it?’

‘Tea.’

‘Beg pardon?’

‘Maryden told me tea is soothing, good for when someone is in distress. Solas hates tea, but Ellana likes it. You like tea, but you prefer wine. I’ve never had any wine. Do you think I would like wine?’

‘Please don’t ever drink wine, Cole. Try to focus, yes? Cullen’s book.’

Cole frowned, shaking his head. ‘It is a lightless place, I don’t think you can start a fire there, Dorian.’

‘You told me not to look inside it. Is that because you knew there were things in there?’

Cole’s expression became weighty, his frown intensifying. ‘They say tea makes everything better, but not all things.’

‘Cole, I don’t give a shit about _tea! _Please_,_ I need to know about the things inside Cullen’s book! There was a piece of paper and something else!’

‘Pen to paper, shaking hand. Don’t leave it too long. Tell father it was a battle. A good fight. Tell him good fights exist, he’ll believe it if it comes from you, Cullen.’

Dorian had been about to give up entirely when the name Cole spoke caught his attention like a bolt of energy, practically rooted him to the spot. He bit down the instinctive urge to encourage Cole, instead giving the boy silence, hoping he would fill it.

‘A garden in a box is not a garden. You were the sun and the sun makes things blossom. Roots and stems always find a way. We were wrong.’ Cole stopped suddenly and looked at Dorian with an oddly clear expression. ‘Cullen would not want you knowing these things. Lavellan told me about privacy,’ he said with just a hint of accusation. ‘If he doesn’t laugh, it’s not a prank.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Dorian said, slightly reeling. ‘Are _you_ actually telling _me_ to respect the privacy of others? You, who walks around announcing innermost feelings and thoughts aloud for all the world to hear?’

Cole blinked owlishly. ‘Yes.’

Dorian nodded to himself. ‘Right, well. I suppose that’s where we are now, isn’t it?’

The strange boy hopped down off the ramparts and patted Dorian’s shoulder. He gave a gentle sigh.

‘Don’t make tea,’ he advised sagely. ‘It really won’t make anything better.’

*

They caught Dorian by surprise and really, that was unacceptable.

‘Scream and you’re _dead_!’ came a low snarl as three pairs of hands yanked him backwards into the shadowy corner beneath the high graduating entrance to the Great Hall. It was near pitch dark and quiet enough that the noises of merriment and raucous yelling coming from the Herald’s Rest echoed around the courtyard.

Dorian’s back hit the wall hard and immediately a grubby hand pressed over his mouth. His magic flared protectively, seeking an outlet but Dorian denied it, _restrained_ it. He didn’t make any sudden moves and that turned out to be a good decision because each of the three men had weapons. His attackers wore scarves around their faces with eyelets cut out roughly. It was too gloomy to make out their hair colour or any distinguishing features.

‘Piece of shit blood mage,’ another snarled, holding a gleaming dagger against Dorian’s throat. ‘All mages are poison, but you…’

For the first time in his life, Dorian was _thankful_ not to be drunk. Though he’d made an appearance in the tavern with his comrades, it had been in a _Yes-I__’m-Still-Alive-Please-Stop-Worrying_ kind of capacity. He felt every part of that cold blade against the skin of throat and when he swallowed, his cartilage passed painfully over the edge.

Another sharp blade, a sword he thought, was pressed into his upper thigh, pointy end first. His wrist got the same treatment.

‘_You_,’ the man went on, shaking his head. ‘Are the first I’ve ever despised.’

‘You’re gonna stay away from the Commander,’ the sword carrier said, voice almost shaking with anger. ‘If any of us see you even _look_ at him funny… you won’t have hands to cast with.’

‘Or legs to run on.’

‘Or a cock to fuck with.’

The main one, the one Dorian decided was the leader simply because he was in the middle, leaned in close, his mouth next to Dorian’s ear.

‘You might think this is an outside threat,’ the man breathed. ‘An isolated incident, maybe. Believe me when I tell you, _Tevinter_, that we represent the majority here. The Commander is off limits to you and your kind_. _Nod your head if you understand.’

The man withdrew, dark eyes locked on Dorian as he waited for him to agree. Dorian remained perfectly still. He didn’t even blink.

‘Nod your head or _lose_ your head!’ the man growled impatiently.

Dorian cocked his eyebrow slightly, but otherwise didn’t move. He waited as time went on, the tension spiralling horribly as the men were forced into a position of fight or flight.

Middle man jerked his head back, indicating that the other two to leave. The painful pressure points vanished, the hand over Dorian’s mouth left a nasty imprint but it began to fade quickly. The mage never moved his eyes from that man.

‘We’ll be watching, you fucking _whore.__’_

And Dorian, though he said nothing, couldn’t help but allow the corner of his mouth to curl ever so slightly. _I bet you will_, it said.

The man spat on Dorian’s face before he left.

*

Dorian was far too shaken to even consider sleeping, so he went straight to Lavellan’s private quarters. As he walked on unsteady legs, barely keeping a panic attack at bay, he tried to decide whether or not to outright lie and simply bask in the glow of Lavellan’s calming, pragmatic company or to tell her everything and allow himself to be comforted. He was almost at the door that would lead to her private stairway, Josephine working tirelessly far below, when he heard Cullen’s voice.

It was muffled and indistinct, but it was _Cullen. _

Dorian crept closer and pressed his ear to the crack in the door, straining to listen over the panicky rhythm of his breathing. Lavellan was speaking now.

‘…at length about it and she agrees with me, Cullen. I know what I said last time, but I was hoping for it to have the opposite effect on you, truth be told. I don’t _want_ you to resign, I won’t allow it.’

‘Cassandra is a great woman and I respect her eminently, but she is prone to outbursts of naive optimism when it comes to those she cares about!’ Cullen flung at Lavellan. Dorian was shocked to hear him speaking like this to the Inquisitor, to _anyone_, really. ‘My earlier request should be evidence enough of my state of mind.’

‘Your _request_ was a highly emotional outburst,’ Ellana said firmly. ‘Which I denied.’

‘And I _told_ you if you didn’t remove him that I would resign!’

‘You were upset. You still are. Cullen, I’m your friend; at least talk me through this decision.’

‘I have no wish to discuss this in any detail.’

Ellana huffed. Dorian could practically hear the eye-roll. ‘If it’s the Lyrium, I know I don’t have a great deal of expertise in that area, but I’m sure Solas could help you with the withdrawal symptoms, he’s—’

‘It’s not the Lyrium.’

There was a lengthy pause before Lavellan said, ‘Are you seriously telling me that Dorian is the sole reason you seek to resign your post, then? _Maker_, Cullen.’

In a thunderous voice, Cullen yelled, ‘He stole the book and he read the letter! There is no return path. I cannot abide his presence any longer.’

‘_Abide his presence? _You’re being ridiculous. He’s a good man and besides, you don’t even _know_ if he read it!’

‘I am certain he did,’ Cullen said roughly and from the faint rise and fall of his voice, Dorian sensed he was pacing. ‘At the time it didn’t even occur to me but now, when I consider how it was barely hidden and the extent of his _inquisitive_ nature, I can lend no credence to any possibility of him not finding it.’ When Cullen spoke again, Dorian was astonished to hear he was hyperventilating. ‘I cannot endure it; I _cannot_ live in dread of the day he decides to make some sly reference to it. It’s too much! I can’t, I—'

‘Cullen, calm down. Come on, look at me.’ There was shuffling before Lavellan spoke again. ‘Breathe for me, all right? Good. That’s good. Listen, I will talk to him and make sure—’

‘I have asked you not to interfere, Ellana.’

‘Well, it’s hard _not_ to when you’re both running around causing chaos, isn’t it? Dorian - despite what you think of him - would _never_ tell anyone something like that, if indeed he even knows anything at all.’

‘He will use it against me.’

‘No, that’s—’

‘He’ll use it to hurt me as I would use it to hurt him, were the tables turned.’

‘Cullen—’

‘I… I worry about my control.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I worry that when he comes to me with intent to provoke, I will not be able to control myself, not in _any_ measure.’

‘Your control wasn’t exactly in check last night, though, and Dorian came out of that intact.’

‘I will _not_ discuss—’

‘You’ll discuss it if I say you will, Cullen! I will not idly stand by while you make veiled threats tantamount to _ending his life_ because you think he read your letter!’

Dorian had never heard her so angry. In the silence that followed, Dorian’s heart was beating so hard that each thump resounded painfully in his head, his pulse hurting his wrists.

‘Then relieve me of duty or permit me to resign.’

‘Convince me of the necessity.’

Cullen made a noise of disgust.

‘What remains to convince you of? My conduct, as you have already pointed out, is nothing short of unbecoming. I cannot adequately perform my duties in a professional manner. My mind is fragmented, my _attention_ is elsewhere constantly. I am unable to focus.’

Quietly Lavellan said, ‘You have traded one addiction for another.’

‘I resent that implication. Addiction is slavery.’

‘Cullen, you’re _obsessed_ with him. Even you must recognise see that.’

‘If my focus is set upon him, the fault it his! His dogged pursuit of me has caused this!’

Lavellan spoke gently when she said, ‘He’s attracted to you, there’s no harm in that.’

But Cullen scoffed loudly. ‘He is _not_ attracted to me,’ he declared with obvious disgust. ‘He’s attracted to the risk I pose him, nothing more. You care for him greatly and I’ve made effort to reconcile that fact. I know you doubt my intent, but I _have_ been trying as you suggested. Dorian is…’

When Cullen couldn’t find the words to describe what exactly Dorian was, Lavellan chuckled. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘He defies expectations at every turn.’

‘It might have been manageable before but now… _now_ there is no way I can guarantee his safety as I could previously. He will bring it up, Ellana. I know he will. How could he help himself?’

‘You insult him, Cullen.’

‘It is weakness, _my_ weakness, spread across a page and he will not hesitate to expose and ridicule it because—’

‘Because that is what you’d do to him? I don’t believe that, Cullen. You will never convince me of _that_.’

Cullen sounded defeated. ‘I should not have kept it in there.’

Very softly, Lavellan asked, ‘Why keep it at all?’

Dorian was pressed so hard against the door, he feared tumbling through it, but Cullen’s response wasn’t too quiet to be heard, it simply never came.

Lavellan spoke hesitantly. ‘Are you not concerned about what _else_ was in the book?’

‘No,’ Cullen said flatly. ‘He would assume I kept it for sentimental purposes, nothing more.’

She sighed. ‘Very well. I cannot hold you here against your will when you are essentially telling me you run the risk of _murdering _Dorian if he so much as references the contents of your missive.’

The Commander sounded relieved. ‘Thank you, Inquisitor.’

‘I ask that you hold off for a week and help Cassandra field a replacement, ensuring the transition is seamless. We need to hit the ground running.’

‘Of course. I will see to it.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘I have not yet decided, though I…’

Dorian, despite feeling like he was about to pass out, didn’t stay to hear any more.

*

That night in bed, Dorian examined Cullen’s book. He went through every single page, checking for notes or clues or _anything_ to hint at what had been inside. The two objects remained a mystery, despite knowing that one of them had been a letter. A letter from who, stating what? What resided within this letter that had Cullen admitting he might kill Dorian simply for mentioning it?

The other object held much greater fascination, though. Dorian found the back pages close to the rear cover, where Cullen had been hiding both items. There was no outline of the letter, but imprinted in the pages was a strange kind of _dent _where the other item had resided. The shape was indistinguishable, roughly the size of Dorian’s thumb. What had been here that Cullen was fine with Dorian assuming was retained for _sentimental_ purposes? Whatever it was, it had been kept there for many years. There was no trace of a smell beyond the wholly familiar and pleasant scent of paper and leather bindings.

This, like everything about Cullen and the entire situation, was dangerous. Dorian was already prone to obsession and seeking risk. Now there was a secret he didn’t know and a trigger for Cullen that would possibly result in Dorian’s untimely murder.

And Cullen was resigning_. _

Well, Cullen _thought_ he was resigning. Dorian had a week to figure out a way to prevent it and if he failed, he himself would leave instead. Dorian wasn’t self-involved enough to allow someone of such greater value to abandon the Inquisition when it could be avoided by his own departure. Cullen was essential, Dorian was not.

One week to change his mind and prove that he had no idea what was in his stupid letter. It would have to be enough.

Dorian fell asleep holding Cullen’s book.

*

Ellana Lavellan really _was_ sneaky. Her request to delay Cullen’s departure happened to coincide most conveniently with the arrival of the Champion of Kirkwall the very next day.

Carver Hawke brought news and offered a meeting, but there wasn’t any particular rush to get there, or so Lavellan said. Dorian knew she was exploring her options, assessing his credibility as well as the offer but most of all, she was delaying Cullen. His input would be essential here. She didn’t know Hawke, Cullen did. The man’s reputation spoke for itself, of course. He was the _Champion_, but whispers of his personality and several troubling choices over the last few years gave her pause. Varric was clearly loathe to speak ill of his friend, despite seeming to have doubts himself. It was Cullen she would rely on.

So, after introducing him to everyone, Lavellan said she planned to wait a few days, maybe a week, before making her decision. Hawke said he was happy to wait.

‘Cullen!’ Hawke greeted the Commander like an old friend and Dorian supposed they might well be. Cullen was of Kirkwall. Knight-Captain of the Gallows. Dorian tried not to look up from his breakfast in the Great Hall, but Hawke’s booming voice had drawn the attention of everyone else and it would have been _more_ noticeable if he didn’t look. Cullen was with Lavellan, composed and untouchable as always, except Dorian noticed that Cullen seemed… not _fearful_ because Cullen was afraid of fuck all except secret letters, but he definitely seemed reserved in a way that suggested caution.

Dorian wondered if it was because Hawke was a mage.

The two had already greeted one another that morning when Lavellan had introduced Hawke to everyone in a very official capacity. Sera had whispered a suggestion that Hawke had actually been lurking around Skyhold for a while, but Cassandra had glared, offended by the mere idea that Lavellan would hide the Champion of Kirkwall away from them as Varric had done. Those introductions had been brief, perfunctory.

Now, in front of everyone, Hawke was making a big, noisy scene as he ambled towards Cullen with a face-splitting grin.

‘Come break fast with me,’ Hawke demanded, wrapping his arm around the Commander as he guided him directly to the table where Dorian sat with Sera and Cole. It wasn’t where Hawke had been sitting before and Dorian instantly knew something awkward or bad (likely _both)_ was about to happen.

But Cullen allowed himself to be guided and put up no resistance when Hawke pushed him into the chair opposite Dorian, Hawke dropping down into a vacant chair beside Cullen with a pleased grin.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked, glancing at Dorian, then Sera, then Cole. The expression could have been called friendly, but Dorian had grown up around that kind of _forced_ friendliness and wasn’t remotely convinced by it. ‘I was chatting with Blackwall but I think he’s already bored of me. Time to spread some of my _charm_ elsewhere, eh, Cullen?’

Cullen had managed to perfect this method of looking at the space _around_ Dorian as though he literally didn’t exist, like there was simply an empty chair between Sera and Cole. ‘Indeed, Hawke.’

Cole took a breath and Dorian cringed inwardly because here it came.

‘Pressure and pain are heavy, cracking the glass around the last laugh. Only a weapon now; blunt or sharp, there is no difference. Forged and cooled by necessity of the realm and here again, needed but never really wanted. If they seek a weapon, I will give them one.’

Lavellan sat down on the other side of Cullen and briefly caught Dorian’s eyes in a kind of apologetic wince. ‘Hmm, very poetic Cole,’ she said in a level voice. ‘More eggs?’

But Hawke was staring at Cole with a blank expression and parted lips, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard him properly. ‘What did you—?’

‘Have you had word of Fenris?’ Cullen cut across neatly, reaching for the pitcher of water as though it wasn’t near Dorian. ‘I haven’t heard from him for almost a year.’

Hawke’s attention returned to Cullen with a rather unpleasant snap.

_‘You_ write to Fenris?’

‘Occasionally,’ Cullen said, pouring the water. ‘Last I heard, he was in Tevinter.’

Dorian looked down at his food, willing himself to calm the fuck down immediately. There was no way that the _fabled_ letter would be from this person because if it was, Cullen would never mention it so casually in front of others. Unless he was provoking a reaction from Dorian, of course.

Hawke seemed resentful and prickly all of a sudden. ‘Well, I’m glad to see my hours of teaching him to write paid off. I’ve had no word of him for many years.’

‘By all accounts you’re very busy,’ Cullen said blandly.

‘White lines in the skin, the fade trapped in man-made veins. So pretty but painful under fingertips. They are not a path but a warning. _Do not think to touch me, Carver. Never again.__’_

This time, everyone stared. Cole peered up at Hawke beneath the rim of that ridiculous hat, oblivious to the tension he was creating with his uncanny ability to reach down into people and rip out the truth.

Dorian cleared his throat. ‘Cole is a kind of… spirit,’ he ventured to explain. ‘This is his party trick. Impressive, no? Cole, why not turn your attention elsewhere for the moment?’

Cole cocked his head like a bird, looking at Dorian.

‘But you don’t like it when I talk about _your_ feelings, Dorian,’ he said earnestly. ‘Cullen especially doesn’t like to hear about your feelings. I’ve tried telling him many times.’

‘Cole, no one really _likes it_ when you do that,’ Lavellan said kindly, with obvious strain. ‘And we’ve talked about privacy.’

‘You can do me, I don’t mind it,’ Sera shrugged, scoffing down her porridge with abandon. ‘Doesn’t make a lick of sense anyway. Never was any good at riddles.’

Hawke was extremely pale when Dorian chanced a look at the man.

‘But privacy is where things become muddled,’ Cole said in an almost sulky voice. _‘_Simplicity becomes _misunderstood_.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Dorian said, wishing they served wine with breakfast. ‘But maybe you could give our new guest a few days to adjust to your talents, eh?’

Cole sighed and dipped his finger into the communal porridge bowl, scooping a small amount for himself and eating it morosely. ‘Carver has been here for weeks, Dorian,’ he pointed out in a jarringly lucid tone. ‘He watched you and Cullen on the ramparts together last night.’ He turned his attention to Lavellan, whose face was now in her hands. ‘Was he disrespecting their privacy, Ellana?’ he asked curiously. ‘At first I thought he _was_ because you said intimacy like sexual intercourse is private but then I realised they were having the sexual intercourse outside where anyone could see, so I was confused.’

Oh no.

Dorian could feel it bubbling up inside and knew he wouldn’t be able to contain it. He ducked his face down, bit his lips into his mouth but to no avail.

He started laughing.

Maker’s dangly balls, what else was he supposed to do in a situation like this? Hawke was on the verge of reaching across the table and drowning Cole in the porridge he’d just ruined, Cullen was probably going to cut Dorian into quarters while Sera and Cole sat either side of him, one bored by all the drama, the other causing it.

And poor, _poor_ Lavellan. She gave Dorian a wretched kind of _must you really_ glare as his laughter picked up momentum, drawing the attention of many. He couldn’t stop, it was just too much. Everything was too much and well, fuck it. He had a nice laugh, had been told many times that it was rich and musical, so there.

‘Come on, Cole,’ he managed to get out between peals that brought tears to his eyes. ‘Let’s be elsewhere for a while.’

Cole hopped up eagerly. ‘I like being elsewhere!’

Dorian rose from the chair, wiping his eyes. Sera got to her feet, bringing her bowl and spoon with her. With the eyes of everyone upon them, the three left the Great Hall, Dorian’s laughter echoing after him.

*

Later it seemed much, _much_ less amusing.

Later, in fact, Dorian was seeing the reasonable side of Alexius’s doomed foray into time manipulation magics because he would have given a lot to go back in time and _not_ burst into uproarious, mildly hysterical laughter.

For the next two days, Hawke didn’t trouble to hide himself away while Lavellan stalled. The Champion of Kirkwall was a good-looking man. He walked around Skyhold like he owned it; a cocky, haughty stride that Dorian might ordinarily have found himself drawn to. Men like that made for _interesting_ partners in bed, the mage knew. He flirted with everyone he came in contact with, at least initially. Dorian never thought he’d see the day when someone could out-flirt him, but Carver Hawke had it perfected to the point of being weaponised. There was nothing light or playful in it, more a way of evaluating people and their reactions.

Hawke avoided Cole after the breakfast disaster and really, Dorian didn’t blame him. Lavellan and her advisors spent much time in the war room while everyone else speculated about upcoming missions and Hawke wove himself in between conversations, unsettling who he could.

He took a shine to Dorian which wasn’t surprising.

‘I just wanted to clear the air,’ the Champion told Dorian as they sat together in Skyhold’s forge, either side of the storage chest, legs dangling over the side of the slope as they waited for Harritt to finish upgrades on their staffs. There was something very soothing about the underforge; the rushing water, the smell of molten metal and fire, the rhythmic clanging of Harritt’s hammer. Dagna was busily applying her talents on a project for Lavellan otherwise her sweet chatter would be contributing to the relaxing atmosphere.

Dorian wasn’t relaxed though. Hawke was the kind of person he knew not to relax around.

‘There’s no need,’ Dorian said, waving a dismissive hand.

‘The kid was right,’ Hawke admitted after a beat. ‘I _did_ see you and Cullen but it wasn’t intentional. I’ve been sort of lurking around the upper ramparts for a while now, keeping an eye on things from a distance at Lavellan’s behest.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ It mattered a whole fucking lot, actually.

‘I uh, couldn’t believe it at first, you know? Cullen with a _mage_? I thought at first you might have had him under your thrall.’

Dorian bristled. ‘Because I’m a monstrous blood mage or just because I’m from Tevinter?’

Hawke pretended to grimace. ‘I shouldn’t listen to rumours.’

‘It’s fine,’ Dorian lied pleasantly. ‘And the Cullen thing is… very complicated.’

‘I thought as much. But like I said, I want to clear the air, especially with you.’

‘Especially me?’

The attractive man gave Dorian a sidelong grin. ‘Yeah, _especially_ you.’

‘Does that imply that you actually tried discussing this with Cullen?’

Hawke gave a barking laugh that echoed around the back end of the forge. ‘It didn’t go down well, as you might imagine. He’s not improved much since Kirkwall that’s for sure.’

The offer to discuss Cullen was obvious and tempting. ‘Hmm,’ Dorian went with, selecting the lesser walked high road. ‘So, who’s Fenris?’

Hawke’s good mood fractured ever so slightly. He shrugged and stared at the waterfall.

‘An elf.’

‘Just an elf?’

‘He is now.’

‘I see.’

‘He was… special once. He’s _still_ special, I suppose, just not to me.’

Dorian frowned. ‘Why is the name familiar to me?’

Hawke watched him rather slyly. ‘Did you know him from _before?__’ _he asked in a low voice. ‘Oh, he wouldn’t like you, Dorian.’

‘I don’t know if I knew him from _before_, that’s rather the point of my asking why his name is familiar and in case you hadn’t noticed, most people don’t like me.’

Hawke grinned. ‘I like you.’

‘You’re just trying to fuck me.’

‘Doesn’t mean I can’t like you at the same time.’

‘That’s exactly what it means.’

The Champion let it go and sighed. ‘Fenris is the Lyrium Ghost. Kills slavers, ran with the Fog Warriors for a bit?’ He paused, lending dramatic tension to the last part of his reveal. ‘Danarius’s little wolf, back in the day.’

Oh. There it was. ‘Yes,’ Dorian said slowly. ‘I remember now.’

The memories, now jogged, were awful and Dorian regretted pursuing it.

‘Like I said,’ Hawke chuckled. ‘He really wouldn’t like you.’

‘I never…’ Dorian trailed off. ‘I only saw him a couple of times.’

‘Of course,’ Hawke agreed easily. ‘Slavery is the norm in Tevinter. You wouldn’t have paid much attention to him or his plight, would you?’

‘No,’ Dorian said, looking down. ‘I wouldn’t have.’

But the memories, one in particular, were painful to behold and not only in hindsight. Dorian remembered feeling pity for the elf. Pity but also… curiosity about his Lyrium lines. He’d almost admired Danarius for achieving something so incredible. 

‘Were he and Cullen close?’ he fell back on, desperate to change the subject.

Hawke’s grin faded. ‘Not that I knew of. Plenty in common though, I suppose.’

He left it there, baiting Dorian, who couldn’t help but bite. ‘Oh?’

‘Never known two men to despise mages so much. Not sure who hated them more, actually. Maybe Fenris.’

Dorian nodded. ‘It’s hard to blame him, after Danarius.’

Hawke seemed uncharacteristically uncertain for a moment when he said, ‘I did something bad to Fenris,’ he said quietly. ‘I tried to play both sides of a deal between him and his old master. I wasn’t going to let Danarius _actually_ have him, I planned to intercept him later but Fenris … reacted badly.’ He laughed humourlessly, staring at the forge unseeingly. ‘Before that, I think he was actually beginning to trust me. To let his guard down and realise that not all mages are bad. I should have told him, let him be in on it but I wanted his reaction to be convincing for Danarius. He…’ Hawke swallowed and glanced at Dorian. ‘Fenris killed everyone who’d come to take him and then he just left me there, covered in the blood of others. He came back for the showdown a year later, helped us immeasurably.’ Hawke let out a shaky sigh. ‘You’ve never seen anything fight like Fenris, believe me.’ Dorian definitely remembered the elf now. Hawke cleared his throat. ‘When it was done, he said a brief farewell to Varric and a few others, Cullen included, and then he was gone. Didn’t even look at me. Haven’t seen him since.’

It was impossible not to wonder at Hawke’s intentions for revealing so much and Dorian might have felt bad for the man if he wasn’t so certain of Hawke’s ability to play people.

‘You didn’t pursue him.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘What could I have said?’

With a snort, Dorian said, ‘Oh I don’t know, maybe something along the lines of, _“Terribly sorry for making you think I was returning you to a life of abuse and slavery there, Fenris.” _That might have been the decent thing to do.’ Harritt looked up from the forge, giving Dorian a small nod to indicate he was done. Dorian hopped down. ‘Then again, _decent_ isn’t really your colour is it?’

Hawke followed Dorian. ‘Not many people speak to me that way,’ he pointed out calmly, taking the vastly improved staff from Harritt. Dorian could already feel the increase in harnessed power within his weapon, attributed to the addition of a masterwork.

Dorian gave an exquisite shrug. ‘Decent isn’t my thing either. Doesn’t make me any less splendid or you any less _Championy_.’

Hawke examined his staff. ‘Good,’ he told Harritt with an approving nod before his eyes slid back to Dorian. ‘You _are_ splendid, no way to deny that and I am rather Championy, as you say. Maybe I’ll have Varric write that about me. _Hawke, for his lack of decency, was no less Championy_.’

‘Nice ring to it,’ Dorian said easily. This kind of back and forth was second nature to him; banal banter in the wake of Hawke’s unsettling confession.

As the two men left the underforge, Hawke’s hand rested atop Dorian’s just before they stepped out near Lavellan’s throne, though she insisted it be called her _seat of judgement_.

‘Regardless of whether we fuck or not,’ Hawke said when Dorian looked at him questioningly. ‘I like talking to you. We can talk more if you like, while I’m here.’

_We can talk about Cullen_, was what Dorian heard. _I know things about him and I am willing to tell you those things._

‘Time permitting,’ Dorian said evenly. ‘That sounds nice.’

Nice. The universal term of dismissal. Except Hawke didn’t seem to realise Dorian was dismissing his offer at all. He smiled widely and it was a gorgeous smile, Dorian had to admit.

‘Brilliant,’ he said. His hand slipped away and he walked past Dorian, dropping a wink. ‘See you around then, _Splendid_.’

*


	8. Losing, Lost

Dorian was really not in a good place and it was starting to show.

‘Were they good friends?’ Dorian asked Varric on Hawke’s third day in Skyhold. Varric looked up from his writing, sat by the fireplace in the Great Hall.

‘Who? Curly and Hawke?’ he chuckled, somewhat distracted. ‘Don’t be jealous now, Sparkler. They weren’t really friends at all. Allies, sure - not much else. Hawke can have that effect on people.’

‘I see.’ Dorian emphatically did _not_ see at all, but Varric went back to his scribblings, rather rudely leaving him to wonder.

The mage’s plan to demonstrate to Cullen that he had _not_ read his precious letter wasn’t going especially well. For one thing, Cullen was hardly ever around lately and whenever Dorian _did_ see him, he was with Lavellan or Leliana or even sometimes, Hawke.

Even if Dorian _could_ theoretically get Cullen alone, he was uncertain of how to actually convince the Commander that he hadn’t read the thing. The more he thought about the casual mention of Fenris and writing to him, the more Dorian was convinced Cullen _had_ brought it up on purpose, hoping to get a reaction from Dorian that proved to Lavellan just what the Commander suspected. Cullen was intelligent and manipulative when he wanted to be.

He could go to him and beg to know what was in the letter, but that would likely be laying it on too thick.

He could be honest with Cullen and explain how he’d heard everything between him and Lavellan the other night, plaster Cullen with heartfelt assurances that he did _not_ have a fucking clue what secrets that piece of paper held, henceforth, no need to resign.

That one might actually work, but it would have the unpleasant side effect of revealing that Dorian had been spying and had heard everything else Cullen had said.

How Cullen had said all but admitted he was obsessed with Dorian.

Not a viable option.

In the quieter moments between frantic planning and purposefully keeping himself busy, Dorian could feel something painful and dangerous growing. It bloomed within, grown in a dark, earthy place of stress and anger. He could still feel the spit on his face from the unknown soldier. Cullen’s book sat by his bedside every night, even though he hated himself for keeping it.

When alone, Dorian _hurt_ and not in the good kind of way. The quiet, slow ache of terrible things sinking into his psyche. He was fragile and he fucking _hated_ to be fragile, but things with Cullen had taken one wrong turn too many and he’d allowed himself to become slightly exposed. Sometimes he touched his bottom lip and pretended to feel Cullen’s mouth pressing against it. Sometimes he bit it hard enough to draw blood.

On the fourth day, Lavellan told the Inquisition that she and Leliana had verified Hawke’s information and that she would be going to Crestwood for the meeting once preparations were made.

Vivienne’s hand went halfway up, posing a question. ‘Is it true, my dear, that Commander Cullen is leaving us?’

Cullen, Josephine and Leliana were not involved in the briefing and that meant everyone’s attention swivelling onto Dorian instead of the true, absent recipient.

‘That remains to be seen,’ Lavellan hedged like a born professional. For an elf, that woman had incredible command of vagueness sometimes. ‘And in the meantime, I want everyone on alert around Hawke. Yes, Varric, I know he’s your friend but better safe than sorry. My instincts are rarely wrong about people.’

‘I agree,’ Blackwall piped up. ‘There’s something not right about him. Stay on your guard.’

‘The man has been through ordeals you would dread to dream of,’ Cassandra said, rather testily. ‘His abrupt nature does _not_ insist upon such heavy suspicion. Not everyone is perpetually pleasant.’

Varric smirked. ‘Like you, eh Seeker?’

‘If you’re so concerned for Hawke’s intentions,’ Vivienne said, speaking to Lavellan. ‘Then perhaps send Dorian to him. The Champion is clearly rather taken with our resident Tevinter.’

Dorian didn’t even bother trying to contain his disgust. ‘_Send Dorian to him?_ I’m not a fucking bunch of flowers, Madame de Fer.’

‘No, because unlike a bunch of flowers, you are actually _wanted. _He’s made repeated attempts to know you better, Dorian,’ Vivienne went on, her voice dripping poise and sweetness. ‘Why not make the most of these _attempts_ if the Inquisitor has doubts as to his nature?’

Lavellan was watching Vivienne with a frown. ‘That’s not a good idea.’

Vivienne’s mouth curled. ‘You think the Commander incapable of sharing, do you?’

The atmosphere shifted abruptly. Sera made a loud noise of disgust while Bull threw Dorian a mildly evaluative glance. The others looked uncertainly between the two mages. Cole, bless his meddling heart, actually seemed rather indignant.

‘Privacy,’ the boy said in a tremulous tone. ‘Is to be respected at all times, even when two people have sexual intercourse somewhere that doesn’t seem very private! You seek to hurt and push and _show_ Ellana the fragility of mages and how easy rage splinters through skin. That is not nice at all.’

Lavellan sighed. ‘Cole.’

‘What would you know of it?’ Vivienne demanded sharply. ‘Then again, I suppose a fair amount, being a demon and all.’

‘Cole is not a demon,’ Solas insisted gently as his eyes slid over to Dorian. ‘And Dorian is not a commodity, Vivienne. With all your charms, why not put _yourself_ to the task?’

Vivienne laughed; her expression cold. ‘I am _hardly_ his type and even if I were, my opinions about the Circles are well known. Dorian is just his kind of man.’ Dorian waited for it. ‘Morally bankrupt and highly unstable. Much like his lost pet.’

‘That’s _enough.__’ _Lavellan stated flatly just as Dorian opened his mouth to say something highly unpleasant in retaliation. ‘Vivienne, you are well entitled to your opinion but this is counterproductive to the point of pettiness. I’m certain you have many wonderful talents; please feel free to apply them instead of causing unnecessary friction. In the meantime, as Blackwall suggested, everyone keep your guard up around Hawke. I’d very much like to be proven wrong, but in this instance, better safe than sorry.’

As everyone began the slow shuffle to leave, Vivienne sauntered over to Dorian with a perfect smile. ‘My apologies if you were offended, darling. I merely sought to state my opinion that your _talents_ should not be limited or wasted.’

‘My talents,’ Dorian echoed hollowly, fingertips dancing against the side of his thigh.

Her smiled widened. ‘Yes. And you are _very_ talented, from what I hear. Who knew that when the Inquisitor recruited you, we were getting much more than a mere Tevinter mage with delusions of style?’

Dorian narrowed his eyes and peered at her. ‘Do you honestly think this will work?’ he asked in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Which scenario do you aspire to? That I’ll run away crying? That I’ll give in to the lure of a despair demon, become an abomination just to prove right your rantings about _the dangers of unchecked mages?_ I imagine the Circles here in Southern Thedas might breed the kind of weakness you’re used to encountering.’ He stepped closer and straightened. ‘Unlike you, I hail from the land where mages _rule_. Who I fuck and where are decisions I alone make, despite how advantageous it might be to pass me around like an _hors d'oeuvre.__’ _As he moved past her towards the door, he looked back and said, ‘Oh and style is a spectrum, _darling_. Might want to consider broadening yours now and then.’

*

‘She had no right to say that.’

‘She had every right and more than enough gall, unfortunately.’

‘Well, she _shouldn__’t_ have said it,’ Lavellan pressed as she and Dorian sat in her quarters later that night. He liked her place; it was spacious and she had decent taste for an elf.

‘She’s a bitch,’ Dorian sighed. ‘That doesn’t make her wrong.’

‘She was very wrong.’

‘Was she?’

Lavellan kicked Dorian. ‘Stop being so morose.’

‘Ouch!’ he yelped, mildly indignant. ‘There was no need for that!’

‘She’s just sore that she’s not my favourite mage,’ she said with a small grin. ‘Maybe I should take her out with me more.’

‘Under-utilising the skills of a Knight Enchanter just to bask in my presence is likely a high crime in her eyes.’

There was a small lull and Dorian wondered if she would ask him anything about the letter, the one wasn’t supposed to know she knew about. She remained silent. It was one of those nights where she wanted him to know _he_ could talk if need be.

‘Who _are_ you taking to meet the Warden?’ he asked eventually.

Lavellan sighed. ‘I’m not sure. Blackwall, definitely. His experience with the Wardens will be most valuable. Do you want to come?’

Dorian laughed. ‘What about the Knight Enchanter?’

‘If you want a change of scene, she can wait.’

It meant a lot. Dorian didn’t let it show. ‘Actually, I think I’d rather sit this one out if it’s all the same to you.’

‘Hmm,’ she commented, looking down at her bedspread.

‘What does that mean?’

‘What does _what_ mean? I said _hmm_. A non-committal noise in place of a response.’

‘Ellana.’

‘I’m not getting in the middle of anything.’

Dorian bit down the laughter that threatened to tumble out. The poor woman was _constantly _in the middle of everything, especially what she was subtly referring to.

‘I’m not staying behind because of Cullen.’

‘And if Cullen were coming with us?’

Dorian shrugged elegantly as was his way. ‘It would make no difference.’

‘Well good, because he _is_ coming.’

Dorian blinked. ‘Hmm.’

‘Yes,’ she went on nonchalantly. ‘There are several aspects of our potential meeting that require the attention of our Commander and honestly, I don’t utilise _his_ talents enough either. I should start taking more than three people with me at a time. Four would easily be doable, maybe even five.’

‘Yes, five would be wonderful. Then you could take Sera with you every time and not have to feel guilty.’

‘How dare you, Ser Pavus!’

‘I dare because it’s obvious.’

She made no return comment about how _obvious_ Dorian’s situation was and for that, he adored her.

‘Well, it’s good you’re staying. A chance to get some perspective without any distractions.’

*

What Dorian needed was a distraction.

The issue was that all the really good distractions were leaving the following day, trekking to Crestwood. Lavellan was taking Bull, Blackwall and Vivienne, Cullen and Hawke too which left Dorian precious little in the way of the kind of _distractions_ he was really after.

So, he did something really stupid, as was his wont.

Hawke was already lurking nearby his room as though able to sense Dorian’s weakness from afar. It was too easy and part of Dorian knew this was a bad idea simply _because _the man was pursuing him to this extent, but he was losing the ability to care.

The things inside of him that hurt in all the wrong ways, he just wanted to silence them for once. To have something be simple, to _feel_ something simple.

Dorian didn’t care that Hawke likely had ulterior motives and in the coming weeks, he would look back and realise that was the precise moment his stupidity had crossed the threshold between _ill-advised _all the way to _you-brought-this-on-yourself. _But in that moment, the night before Hawke and the others were leaving, it seemed precisely the best thing to do.

‘Oh, Champion,’ he sighed, on the way back from Lavellan’s. Hawke had some nerve, that was for sure, lurking brazenly outside Dorian’s quarters. ‘Were you concerned for my safety, hiding nearby in case I might have need for one such as yourself?’

It was quiet and Dorian spoke softly, lest his voice carry too far and shatter the illusion that they were alone in the tower. Hawke was leaning insolently on the opposite wall, basked in shadows with one leg raised, foot flat against the stones. He watched Dorian like a wolf; predatory yet toying all the same. He smirked and pushed away, approaching like he had all the time in the world.

‘Perhaps I’m here to protect people _from_ you,’ he suggested in the kind of voice Dorian recognised immediately. It meant good things for his plan to be distracted and terrible things for his sense of worth the next day.

‘Well,’ he said, opening his door. ‘You’d better make haste. I can’t be held responsible for all the _bad_ things I might do if left to my own devices.’

He walked inside without looking back to see if Hawke would follow.

*

Sex was great, really. It was wonderful and Dorian was oh so good at it that he never worried his partner hadn’t enjoyed themselves. Sex with Hawke _was_ great but it was just… sex. Normal, routine sex, the kind Dorian had experienced hundreds of times before. Not boring, dull or bad by any standard.

But there was a new standard now and for all Hawke’s efforts, it didn’t even come close.

Dorian couldn’t help but notice that Hawke had clearly been very interested in what he and Cullen had done together because the man had tried to imitate several aspects of it. It was rough, but not sufficient for Dorian to justify the use of Solas’s potion in the morning. Rough sex was nothing new. No, the mage knew what was missing, as he lay in bed alone after Hawke had naturally taken his leave.

There hadn’t been any risk.

_He_ _’s attracted to the risk I pose him, nothing more. _

That’s what Cullen had said of him to Lavellan. The words echoed over and over. Dorian didn’t even bother trying to sleep for the rest of the night, even though fatigue clawed at his consciousness. He quickly washed and dressed in fresh clothes, tracing his fingers over Cullen’s book as he left by way of farewell and headed to his library.

*

Dorian didn’t go to see off Lavellan and the others on their journey. It wasn’t really something that happened with any measure of frequency anyway; Inquisition members generally didn’t wave tearfully farewell to one another. Sometimes, though, Dorian would give Lavellan something to take with her. A small piece of honey encrusted lemon, dusted with sugar. A whetstone he’d found that was easier for her small hands to hold. A pair of socks he’d had made for her that helped keep out more water than regular socks. Her face would turn soft with gratitude and she would clutch whatever he’d given her before hugging him tightly.

Not that day, though. That day it was better to simply get on with the awful business of being alone.

When a runner interrupted his successfully lonely morning as he pored over research volumes, seeking lost crumbs of information about Corypheus, he could barely keep his countenance. He was hungry and tired, hands aching from all his meticulous note-taking.

‘Ser Pavus,’ the man prompted politely, holding out the small scroll expectantly. Dorian glared mildly at him before taking the paper with a huff.

‘I assume this came straight from the sender, yes?’ Dorian said, glancing at the seal and biting back a scowl. Crest of House Pavus, oh yes, how wonderful. His day hadn’t been quite bad enough. ‘Or has our good Commander already perused it to his heart’s content?’

The runner had the audacity to simply turn away, now that his job was completed. Dorian narrowed his eyes but didn’t fling any choice comments after the man, focusing instead on the missive.

The first few lines were perfunctorily polite but Dorian instantly knew something was wrong. As he read further, his blood turned to water, his fragility gave out under pressure and the structure that was Dorian Pavus simply _shattered_.

*

_Dorian was sixteen and he was reading his favourite book in the world. He sat in the parlour on his mother_ _’s chaise, stretched out with one hand behind his head, the other holding the book. It was still early, barely noon and he intended to stay there all day reading if he could get away with it. _

_Expertly, he turned the page with his thumb and sighed contentedly. _

_‘Dorian!’_

_His mother_ _’s beautiful, chiming voice rang through the spacious and immaculate house and though mildly irked, Dorian smiled and tipped his head, replying, ‘Here, Mother dearest.’_

_Aquinea Pavus lightly stroked his hair as she passed him, settling at the bottom of the chaise. __‘Do not _sass_ your Mother, son of mine.__’_

_He sat up, closing the book without need to fold the corners. He knew where he_ _’d left off, knew precisely the page and passage. ‘But sass is one of the three languages I intend to learn this summer.’_

_‘You are more than fluent,’ she said, knocking his booted feet off the material. She squinted at the book and smiled bemusedly. ‘Again? Dorian, how many times can you read that book? Your Father says it contains no doctrinal or educational import.’_

_Dorian wanted to say that what lay within his book was of great _emotional_ import, but he didn__’t. Instead he carefully placed the book aside and gave his mother his full attention, waiting for her to speak. _

_‘I love you very much, Dorian.’_

_‘Oh Maker, here it comes.’_

_‘There is no need to grimace. I simply wanted to tell you that I love you very much.’_

_‘…and?’_

‘And_ your Father and I have found a prospective match for you with Alandris Purcellania.__’ Before Dorian could roll his eyes and reel off the list of reasons of why that wasn’t going to happen, all but the primary one, Aquinea spoke over him. ‘She is fierce and talented, highly intelligent and independent. My impression of her is that she will not fawn over you and together, you would make a formidable match. I know you value your privacy and your time alone. She is very much the same.’ There was something intent in his mother’s expression. Dorian realised she was trying very hard to make him see that he was understood. _

_If only. _

_‘Mother, you barely know her.’_

_‘Actually, I’ve been getting to know her for the last two months.’_

_Dorian frowned. _ _‘That’s… a long time.’_

_‘Yes. I know you think your Father and I are determined to marry you off to the first advantageous prospect we come across, but we _care_ about you, my love. Marriage does not have to be such a hardship when effort is put into the selection. I want you to have a true partner, someone to carve out your own brilliance by your side and invoke the best of you to help bring out hers.__’_

_Irritation sparked and flared. __‘Mother, what you _want_ is for me to get on with the business of making an heir.__’_

_‘At sixteen, certainly not; we’re not _Fereldens_! You would not even wed her for a year, should you find her compatible of course,__’ she hastened to add. ‘Eighteen or perhaps nineteen would be far more suitable. She is but one year your junior.’_

_Dorian stared off to the side of his mother, eyes fixed on the flowers brought in by the servants each morning. They were his mother__’s favourite. Halward occasionally had the servants bring the flowers to _him _instead that he could then take them to her, presented as a gift. She always pretended to be surprised and grateful, dropping the expression once his back was turned. _

_‘I don’t want to get married,’ he said quietly. _

_His mother watched him closely. _ _‘I know you don’t, darling.’_

_‘Maybe…’ he said, forcing his gaze away from the flowers. ‘Maybe I could travel a little first. See some of Thedas before I’m forever shackled to someone who meets four of my five acceptable standards.’_

_‘Travelling is dangerous,’ she said quickly, a small frown forming. ‘What is the fifth standard?’_

_Something inside Dorian wanted desperately to tell her. He longed to simply blurt it out and reveal who he was. _See, mother? This is me, your son, right here. You’ve raised me all this time imagining I would choose to be with a woman but that’s not accurate. I’m not attracted to women, no matter how incredible they are.

_He forced a laugh from a deep reserve of humour and deflection. _ _‘Whether or not she’s pretty, of course.’_

_‘Oh, Dorian!’ his mother exclaimed, clearly a little relieved. ‘She is very handsome. I would not say traditionally pretty but you are glorious enough to create a singularly beautiful child, no matter who you pair with, my love.’_

_‘Well, _obviously_,__’ he smirked. When she leaned in and kissed him on the forehead, petting his hair for just a brief moment, Dorian wondered if this was how it felt to be normal. To be the son who wanted to marry a girl just like every parent envisaged. To be content with their path in life. _

_Then she moved away and got to her feet, brushing off her robes. _

_‘So, you’ll meet with her?’_

_Dorian winced. _ _‘Ugh, Mother!’_

_‘It would please your Father and I to no end if you would only take a simple lunch with her.’_

_His mother__’s eyes, _his_ eyes so he__’d been told repeatedly, implored him expertly. He sighed and leaned back, feeling for the book once more; an anchor to a place of safety and secrecy. _

_‘Very well,’ he grumbled in a teasing manner that made her smile. ‘Though you should know by now you’re the only woman in my life.’_

_‘Silly boy,’ she said affectionately slapping the side of his head as she walked past him. He felt loved and accepted, even though it was a lie. He let himself bask in the feeling as the sound of her clacking heels faded away and then he retreated inward, hiding away until he could devise the best way to make a terrible first impression on Alandris Purcellania. _

_*_

Dorian read the letter a few more times, trying to let the information sink into comprehension, but his mind had apparently decided that _nothing_ was sinking in for a while. He carefully folded the paper and placed a couple of heavy books atop it as if somehow that contained the fallout and the message itself.

It felt like he was existing outside of his own body. His hand looked much further away than it really was. He flexed it, calling a small spark of magic to the surface and watching from a great distance as the magic sputtered and faltered. He was not connected to his mana or to the world.

Back in his room, he tried to remember what he was supposed to be doing. Situations like this, what did they call for? Was he supposed to _do_ something specific? No, he realised slowly. His father would likely take care of those… arrangements. He’d alluded to such things in his letter, after all. Arrangements Dorian would not be able to attend due to time constraints, even if he left that very moment.

A wave of cold, prickly faintness came over Dorian and he realised he was physically off kilter, slowly overbalancing. He caught himself and quickly sat down. Slow breaths, in and out. The room spun for a few seconds but the breathing helped and soon, he felt almost normal again.

Normal, that was what he wanted. He wanted to go on like everything _was_ normal. Like he was just stalking around Skyhold in a bad mood because he was currently lacking Cullen Rutherford to obsess over. Like he was just lonely and petulant and self-destructive. Nice and _normal_.

It was a shaky thing, actually going about the rest of the day with that intent. People gave him funny looks and not just the bitchy, gossipy ones. These were people who usually gave him a polite smile or didn’t even bother to look at him at all. They frowned and stared after him as though he had something on his face. Dorian had several translation tasks to be getting on with and then he’d promised himself that he would actually go and do some training in the yard at night when the soldiers were mostly asleep and wouldn’t peg him for a Maleficar when they caught sight of his Necromancy at work.

All the while, he felt like he was in a dream. Like this reality was nothing but a slipshod production at the hands of rookie Fade demons, desperate to prove their worth by tricking Dorian Pavus.

But no. His mother was dead. That was all there was to it.

Come nightfall, he’d remained in his tower, not eating anything and literally hiding around the corner when he heard Leliana descend. That wasn’t his proudest moment, but he was positive that she somehow _knew_ about what had happened and the last thing he wanted was for her to offer some sort of serpentine sympathy.

The day had been bearable for one reason; Cullen was miles away. Dorian knew himself. If Cullen had been there, Dorian would have gone to him and done something even _more_ stupid than sleeping with Hawke, likely provoked the Commander beyond his self-stated limits. It was a rusty, rotting coping mechanism and Dorian hated it about himself, so for the first time, he was _glad_ Cullen was absent.

In that vein of thinking, Dorian decided on a vicious whim that he was going to return Cullen’s book.

*

Dorian kept well to the shadows, taking the slightly longer path to avoid soldiers on the wall. He clutched the book, thumb rubbing over the spine. It was the right thing to do, he knew that. This was _not_ his book, it had Cullen’s fucking name inside of it, for Maker’s sake. It was just a book.

Time to let go of it now. Give it back and move the fuck on because…

Because that’s what adults did. They moved on, they did the difficult things and they got on with their lives.

Cullen’s office was lightless and silent. Dorian had knocked anyway because the Maker had a funny sense of humour sometimes about these things and anyway, there might have been an errant runner or solider lurking within trying to catch up on Cullen’s paperwork while he was off gallivanting with the other heroes.

The room was silent and absolutely freezing. There was no difference in temperature, outside or in. How Cullen didn’t permanently have a cold, Dorian would never know. Then again, maybe it was the fur monstrosity that kept him warm.

All business, Dorian marched straight to the book case. Cullen had removed Cole’s book and left the gap there, perfectly preserved. He hadn’t simply spaced the other books out. Dorian shook himself and pushed the book into the pre-destined slot, forcing himself not to do something foolish like _say goodbye to it. _The book fit neatly where it belonged and Dorian closed his eyes, exhaling slowly.

‘There you are, _Commander_,’ he said aloud. His voice rebounded softly off of the walls and for a moment, he half expected Cullen to come slinking out of the shadows, fury personified. The silence persisted and Dorian remained alone. Good. That was how it needed to be.

When he turned away, trying to ignore the pain of actually leaving the book behind, he stared at that ridiculous ladder in the middle of the room and felt a curl of something reckless awaken in his lower stomach.

Cullen was away; he would _never_ know if Dorian had peeked upstairs.

Quickly, Dorian scolded himself. There was no need whatsoever to go up there. What was he likely to see anyway? A room with a bed and some other furniture? How _scandalous_!

Only Dorian wasn’t leaving. He moved closer to the ladder, thinking of that time he’d burst in and found Cullen about to climb up, shirtless and angry enough to make Dorian’s skin pebble.

He was literally never going to get this opportunity again so… why not? Sate his pathetic curiosity and then begin the very adult process of all this _moving on_ he’d promised himself. He climbed the ladder nimbly, hands gripping the dry, splinter-inducing wood as he moved up each rung until his head popped into the next level.

It was bathed in light from the full moon and it only took Dorian a highly indignant second to see _why_. There was a fucking hole in the roof. Not a small, cup sized hole either. A hole big enough for Dorian to fall through should the world ever turn upside down.

He got to his feet, staring up at the hole, shaking his head. The cold made Dorian’s teeth chatter but the way the moonlight touched everything was, he had to admit, quite beautiful. Cullen’s bedroom, if it could even be called that, was predictably spartan. A bed and a chest, very little else. The bed was all rucked and messy. Not what Dorian had been expecting from the great military _Commander_, soldier through and through. Dorian had the mad urge to _make_ the bed, but he wasn’t detached from reality quite that much.

He walked around the room, realising calmly that it was _just_ a room. There was nothing remarkable in there. This was where Cullen slept, likely tossed and turned some nights while he weaned himself from Lyrium, but he just slept here. Dorian looked up at the hole again, wondering if Cullen had kept it like that on purpose. Lyrium withdrawal was capable of inducing the most blistering fever. Maybe he liked the cold air.

Dorian was on the verge of leaving, pleasantly bored, when something next to Cullen’s bed caught his eye in a worrying manner. The mage froze, gaze zeroing in on the small lock-box sat against the wall on the floor beside the messy bed. It was only even visible because of the metal lock which glinted in the moonlight whenever Dorian moved.

He stared at it, warning bells going off but he couldn’t look away.

_You know what__’s in there_, his mind whispered.

Outside, the wind picked up. It whistled over the hole, a few loose boards creaking. A kind of vicious desperation overcame him, twining with the bone-deep despair he’d felt for… well, longer than a day.

Cullen already thought he’d read it, so why _shouldn__’t_ he read it? There was no way of convincing Cullen of the truth. Dorian knew, deep down, that at the end of Cullen’s week, Dorian would be the one leaving anyway. His plans were terrible. They were always fucking terrible.

So what did it matter if he opened the box and read the letter, discovered what the small, dark item was?

He crouched down and extended his hand, fingers trembling. The box was just a small thing, but it was secure. The kind of thing someone might keep to hold coins or gems. Cullen didn’t care about coin and he certainly didn’t care about gems. Cullen Rutherford cared about secrets.

Distantly, Dorian was aware that he was now _holding_ the box very carefully. Turning it over in his hands, listening to what fell about inside. Nothing heavy, nothing that rattled but he heard a soft, feather light impact.

He could use his magic to open it, he was certain. Open it, read it, examine what he could and then leave forever, never to wonder again.

If he was leaving the Inquisition soon anyway, didn’t he at least deserve to have _committed_ the crime he was being accused of? Yes, it was just a simple thing. Open the box and _discover_. Dorian loved discovering things.

But his fingertips stilled mere inches from the lock, magic at the ready. Something raw and insistent pleaded with him not to do it. This was a gross violation and Dorian was better than that. Lavellan, at least, _thought_ Dorian was better than that.

Maker, even Cole understood the basic concept of privacy.

Feeling suddenly and abruptly disgusted with himself for how badly he wanted to intrude upon this frontier of secrecy, Vivienne’s descriptor of him rang clearly in his memory.

_Morally bankrupt,_ that’s what she’d called him, among other things. And yes, maybe Dorian’s moral compass swung wide and free sometimes but this… he was better than this.

He lowered the box, taking care to put it back precisely where it was before and stood up slowly, body shaking in a way that had little to do with the cold. He felt incredibly dizzy from righting himself much too quickly but he didn’t care, he just had to—

_Oh. _

_Fucking. _

_Void. _

Commander Cullen was right there, half in half out of his stupid ladder way, staring at the mage with an expression that was so empty, it was literally terrifying. He didn’t even look angry. Just_… blank_.

‘Dorian.’

Something resembling laughter made it out of the mage’s throat before the world lost its balance and light gave into soothing, forgiving darkness.

*

Dorian didn’t dream or if he did, he didn’t remember it. When he opened his eyes, the first thing that hit him wasn’t his unfamiliar surroundings or how cold the tip of his nose was. He awoke to a sledgehammer of abject _grief_.

Even before he opened his eyes, he felt it. His mother was dead. He hadn’t spoken to her properly in years and now he never would again.

The secondary knowledge came right afterwards and it was almost a comfort to the first. It meant Dorian didn’t have to worry much longer about grieving for his mother as he too would soon be dead.

Because he woke up in Cullen’s bed, in Cullen’s room with Cullen _himself_ sitting nearby on the wooden clothes chest, watching Dorian with a terrifyingly inscrutable expression.

Dorian almost wanted to laugh again but then he remembered that was the last thing he’d done right before he _fainted_ in Cullen’s bedroom. He sat up slowly. Cullen wore a black undershirt and soft leather trousers, all his armour removed. His sword was resting upright against the wall nearby. The Commander was hunched over, leaning on his knees, gaze fixed upon the mage in his bed. Dorian realised distantly that he was wedged tightly under the covers which was likely the reason he hadn’t frozen to death.

All manner of witty deflections and comments sprang to the surface but each of them was woefully deficient for the situation. Dorian felt wrung out, so hollow it hurt to even breathe. Slowly, details returned and Dorian couldn’t help but glance down as he sat up, noticing the small lock-box was now gone.

Cullen may as well have been a statue. He barely moved except to breathe, nothing in his countenance shifted and he remained silent. Dorian wondered if he should just leave but he forced himself to speak after he swallowed thickly, mouth dry and skin aflutter with nerves.

‘You’re here. Why… are you here?’

Cullen seemed to understand that Dorian wasn’t asking why Cullen was in his own room. He answered so softly that Dorian struggled to hear it at first.

‘I declined to join Hawke and Lavellan.’

Nodding slightly, Dorian glanced around, eyes catching on the hole in the roof. It was still dark out; a little sunlight streaking through the sky in red brush strokes. That was good. He hadn’t been asleep for long, at least.

Cullen followed the mage’s gaze, leaning back. ‘I thought you would have been gone by sun down.’

Ah, the _nostalgia. _How many times had Dorian heard some variant of that sentiment? It didn’t matter, didn’t even rank in the fucking scheme of things. All told, Dorian should be grateful that Cullen hadn’t killed him while he slept.

He wasn’t grateful, though. Not at all.

Drawing back the warm cocoon of covers, the cold hit his lower body as though being submerged into icy waters. He swung his legs over the side, resisting the urge to wrap his arms around himself. It was better just to leave and not speak, yes, that was absolutely the way forward.

But something in Cullen’s statement niggled at him. He frowned and looked up at the former Templar.

‘Sun _down_? How long have I been asleep?’

‘You slept through the day.’

Dorian’s lips parted, mind jarring. ‘Sorry?’

Cullen sighed through his nose, watching Dorian without blinking. The man never blinked when he looked at Dorian. ‘You passed out last night and have slept through the entirety of today.’

‘And you put me in your bed, did you?’ Dorian questioned; voice somewhat nasal with disbelief. ‘Tucked me in all sweet?’

‘I would not go that far.’

But he had. Dorian had been _literally_ tucked in. A hot, sickly feeling welled up inside him, fingers clutching the bed covers tightly.

‘Were you showing me _kindness_ because of what you and your Nightingale friend doubtlessly ascertained from my letter?’ he asked in a harsh whisper, every muscle in his body rigid with dread. It was the one thing he couldn’t cope with. _Pity_. Dorian Pavus did not accept pity or charity.

‘No.’

‘Why didn’t you go with Lavellan?’

‘I didn’t want to.’

Cullen’s answers were so simple, offering nothing whatsoever in the way of understanding but Dorian couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t being cut in half just yet. Deciding to press his luck, he said, ‘So, you’re not going to kill me?’

Cullen’s gaze never wavered. ‘Why would I kill you?’

Dorian could feel himself being circled, only Cullen wasn’t moving.

‘Maybe because I was snooping around your bedroom?’

One eyebrow slanted, voice cold, he said, ‘You’re inquisitive, it’s who you are.’

Oh, it was enough to make Dorian want to laugh, to push harder and make Cullen snap out of whatever stasis this was that kept him so far away, so in control. Dorian couldn’t help but feel that this _treatment_ was indeed born of sympathy or the closest approximation that Cullen was capable of, at least.

‘Can we just cut all the fucking shit, please?’ Dorian snapped, tense and edgy and desperate for something that he knew he absolutely should _not_ pursue. ‘Are you going to pretend you’re not angry?’

At last Cullen looked away, staring unseeingly at the wall. ‘I was going to kill you, I think,’ he said quietly. ‘No, I _knew_ I was going to kill you this time.’ Dorian didn’t dare speak, utterly caught in the hypnotic free-fall that Cullen’s words were causing. ‘And then you just… fainted.’ Dorian’s breath unfurled, visible in the biting cold, and he waited. ‘I didn’t know what to do. It seemed wrong to kill you while you were unconscious and… I don’t know. Everything felt different seeing you that way.’

‘Well I’m awake now,’ Dorian managed to say, eyes flicking to the sword and away again. ‘Much better to kill me while I’m staring at you, no?’

‘Perhaps it would be,’ Cullen said, his gaze sliding back to the mage. ‘But I’m not going to kill you.’

It was mercy, but it cut like rejection. Cold, steely _rejection_ of the highest degree. Dorian’s insides tightened.

‘How generous.’

This was the part where Cullen should have told him to leave. Count his blessings, thank the Maker and be on his merry fucking way.

‘It’s not generosity.’

‘What is it then?’

Something flashed behind Cullen’s eyes before it was chased away. ‘I don’t know.’

Dorian scoffed, pushing himself to his feet. ‘What _do_ you know, Commander?’

‘I know you’re hurting.’

Lips in a thin line, Dorian fought to control his magic. His emotions were wild and raw, cut to pieces and held together only by some small part of him that _didn__’t_ want to self-destruct. He felt incredibly alone, despite the present company and every second he breathed the icy mountain air, he remembered that his mother was not breathing any more.

Eyes narrow, he sneered, ‘How _sweet_, Commander. Are you going soft on me?’

Cullen stood swiftly. His whole body could move like that when it wanted to; utterly still one moment and then gracefully in motion the next. He faced Dorian down with a level of control that made Dorian’s pancreas twitch. He wanted all that control _decimated. _He would decimate it however he had to.

‘You returned my book,’ Cullen said, moving further into Dorian’s space, although the mage knew he had no space, not in this room. This was Cullen’s territory; Dorian was a trespasser. ‘Why did you come up here?’

_Tread carefully_, Dorian told himself. _Don__’t let him know how utterly pathetic you truly are. _

‘Should I _not_ be up here then?’ he quipped, insolent and careless.

Dorian realised with a flinch that Cullen was actually armed. The sword lay glinting and motionless by the far wall, but when Cullen brushed against Dorian, bringing them into that deliciously lethal space of intimacy once more, the mage felt the unmistakable pressure of something very sharp pressing against the palm of his hand.

It was a dagger, the tip of which dug insistently into his skin. Dorian didn’t flinch back; he raised his hand slowly and Cullen’s dagger followed, keeping the metal pressed against the soft flesh. Dorian rotated his hand so the palm was facing the Commander. Cullen’s eyes never left his. Dorian noted that his breathing had picked up a little now and _something_ was growing between them, stealing all the air from the room.

‘What are you going to do with that?’

‘What do you _think_ I’m going to do with it?’

Dorian pushed his hand forward slightly, the razor tip piercing his skin. The small point of pain was both glorious and terrible.

‘I think… you’re making me bleed.’

Cullen’s eyes darkened. ‘Because you need it.’

‘Do I?’

Whipcord fast, Cullen’s hand came up and gripped Dorian’s wrist, holding his hand in place, though it was absolutely not necessary. He removed the dagger leaving Dorian strangely bereft without it and he rubbed his thumb over the small cut, smearing the blood messily around the fleshy centre of Dorian’s palm.

‘Is there magic in your blood?’ he asked, barely above a whisper.

Heart beating too fast, Dorian breathed, ‘You know there is.’

Cullen stared down at the mess he’d made, his thumb still moving slightly, brushing over the cut and irritating the torn skin like he couldn’t bear to let it alone. Then he brought Dorian’s hand to his mouth and dragged his tongue over the cut.

And Dorian was _lost_.

Cullen made a noise, a kind of low moan. His mouth felt so hot that Dorian wanted to flinch. The Commander’s eyes fluttered slightly as he swallowed Dorian’s blood. He looked back at the mage, the weight of his gaze and his desire and something else Dorian didn’t dare name was utterly intoxicating.

‘I can taste your pain.’

Dorian swallowed hard. ‘How does it taste?’

His blood was smudged over Cullen’s lips when the man said, ‘Beautiful.’

He couldn’t take it anymore. He crashed his mouth to Cullen’s in an absolute crescendo of desperation and need. If Cullen was going to kill him for it then that was fine, but Cullen returned the kiss furiously, viciously. It felt like Cullen was trying to crawl into Dorian, the force of the kiss was staggering and yet not enough, never enough. Dorian tasted his own blood on Cullen’s tongue. The Commander’s fingers were winding through Dorian’s hair pulling and grasping, sending tendrils of pain twining with pleasure and desire. Dorian’s hands were either side of Cullen’s neck, painting one side red. He wanted him deeper in his mouth, deeper inside him in every fucking way that existed.

Cullen wrenched his mouth away, breathing raggedly. ‘You want me to hurt you?’

Dorian nearly sobbed. ‘Please.’

Eyes moving between Dorian’s, _reading_ him, Cullen said, ‘Tell me what you want, say it so that I know.’

‘You already know.’ Dorian slid his thumb into the side of Cullen’s mouth, offering him his sticky blood, trying to tempt him away from words and speech and _reason_. Cullen’s expression glazed, like the mere taste of Dorian on his tongue was enough to lure him away from sensibility, but not quite. He jerked his face to the side, removing Dorian’s thumb and pulled Dorian closer, holding him by the hair.

‘Be clear with me,’ he warned. ‘Before I _lose_ all clarity.’

Dorian felt relief that Cullen only wanted to clarify boundaries rather than ask what the fuck was actually wrong with him. He wanted to close his eyes but he knew Cullen wouldn’t allow that.

‘I want you to hurt me,’ he confessed in a desperate whisper, fingers digging into the skin of Cullen’s neck. ‘Make me beg and plead for you to stop, but don’t ever stop. Make me _sorry_, make me cry.’

Cullen let out a staccato breath, bloodied lips parting as he surveyed Dorian with something akin to wonder. ‘Yes,’ he gasped, hand curling around the base of Dorian’s throat, applying pressure lightly. ‘That’s what you need isn’t it, mage?’

Dorian’s body began to feel far away again, but it was all right. Cullen would keep him there; Cullen would anchor him down. ‘That’s what I need.’

The Commander brought his mouth back to his, but not to kiss that time. His teeth took Dorian’s bottom lip and bit down hard, tearing the skin. It _felt _like a kiss, though. It felt like the most perfect, love-struck kiss Dorian had ever been gifted.

And when Cullen sighed the word _beautiful_ again, it didn’t matter that he was talking about Dorian’s blood and pain, not Dorian himself.

The mage was lost and he never wanted to be found.

*


	9. The High Crime of Innocence

When Dorian’s back hit the wall, it knocked all the air from his lungs. Cullen shoved him into the stone, crowding him mercilessly. He had nowhere to turn, there was no escape.

Cullen didn’t leave his mouth alone, wouldn’t release it long enough to get anything really useful done, like undressing or inflicting any more cuts with that small dagger he’d dropped somewhere behind him. He seemed to be obsessed with kissing the mage, biting and breaking skin and getting his tongue all over that blood. Dorian could only imagine the sheer fucking mess between the two of them, they must look like animals.

The incline of his desires was steep, though, and Dorian needed so much more than kissing, more than blood and pain and whatever dark, twisted thrill Cullen got from knowing he was taking a part of the mage into himself, magic and all. Cullen had made promises and Dorian would hold him to them no matter the cost.

He was literally crushed against the wall by Cullen’s entire body. The man’s weight held him there as he kissed the life out of him, pinned but not quite helpless. Dorian’s fingers conjured forth a sharp, bright bolt of lightning and he jabbed it into Cullen’s upper arm. The Commander jerked suddenly. Dorian could see the precise moment Cullen _realised_ he’d been off-guard. That was a strange thing to witness. Cullen’s anger turned inward for once, his eyes narrowing like he was disappointed with himself instead of disgusted by Dorian. He’d been lost in the mage for a moment and Dorian had reminded him not to be.

_Mages were dangerous_, Dorian could practically see the words running through Cullen’s mind.

With a snarl, Cullen regained himself and turned his focus back where it belonged. The burst of pain through Dorian’s jaw was _bliss_. Cullen knew how to punch and Dorian simply languished in the hot, jarring agony, wondering how many years it had taken Cullen to learn to do that. How old had he been when he’d perfected it, or had it always come naturally?

‘Stay here,’ Cullen insisted, fingers gripping Dorian’s injured jaw painfully and bringing the mage back to the present moment. He forced Dorian to look at him, thumb helplessly smudging the blood from his torn lip just a little. ‘You understand me?’

_‘Keep_ me here, then,’ Dorian breathed.

Cullen’s anger hitched and there was something holding him back from the next action, the next part of this dance. Dorian stared, trying very hard _not_ to realise where the hesitation stemmed from because fucking void, he did not want to humanise Cullen at all for this.

But he knew anyway, could read Cullen like a book in this state. Cullen needed Dorian to _fight_ him, to hurt him right back. Only Dorian couldn’t do that. Wasn’t capable of fighting anymore, had nothing to offer, even in the service of furthering his own interests. His magic was so very disconnected from his own self, he was _weak_ and he just… fuck, he just needed Cullen to take him apart.

Dorian fell back on his greatest weapon, the one he’d honed and perfected long before his magic.

‘Or are you incapable of holding my attention?’ he sneered, derision colouring his words, despite the trembling breaths they were built on. ‘Maybe I should look elsewh—’

Cullen yanked him forward, spun him viciously and slammed him into the wall so hard Dorian saw beautiful, purple stars for a few seconds. Cullen wrenched his arm high up his back, bones screaming in protest and he couldn’t move, held there by Cullen’s anger and lethality.

‘You wouldn’t _dare_,’ Cullen growled, lips against Dorian’s ear. Dorian struggled and the Commander wrenched higher, using that clever grip to both trap the mage and cause him pain.

Not _enough_ pain, though.

‘Wouldn’t I?’

Cullen began to work his buckles open, not pulling on them like last time. He worked them cleverly with his free hand, pinning Dorian like a butterfly under glass with the other. ‘You’d try,’ Cullen said, slowly divesting him of what pieces of clothing he could remove in this way. ‘Your _nature_ dictates that you try everything you shouldn’t, but I would stop you.’

‘You could never stop me.’

His arm was going to snap in half if Cullen forced it even a fraction higher. The man behind him stilled, teeth dragging teasingly over the skin of Dorian’s neck, journeying low to that place Dorian associated with explosive pleasure. He didn’t want Cullen to bite him there yet, not when he needed so much more.

Cullen stopped just shy of that place. His breath over Dorian skin caused gooseflesh when he said in a low, dangerous voice, ‘I _will_ stop you, though. Do you know why?’

Dorian shook his head, eyes closed. His shoulder was seconds away from dislocating, the agony tearing through him had his cock hard and weeping, trapped against the cold stone wall.

Cullen said, ‘Yes you do.’

He released Dorian’s arm abruptly. Before the mage could do anything besides whimper at the loss, Cullen pulled him back face to face, sliding off the clothes he’d loosened, leaving Dorian’s chest bare.

‘Get on your knees.’

‘Fuck you!’

Expertly, Cullen swept Dorian’s leg out from under him, sending him crashing painfully onto his hands and knees, dangerously close to the ladder hole.

‘So wild, aren’t you?’ Cullen purred, fingers latching in Dorian’s hair again as he stepped into his space. ‘A wild, magical little slut.’ Holding Dorian’s head with one hand, he delivered a stinging, brutal backhanded slap with the other. It hurt more than the punch, it resonated deeper and _yes_, this was what Dorian needed. Before Cullen could hesitate again, seek out resistance in the mage to assure himself of _whatever the fuck _he needed assurance of, Dorian looked up at Cullen with utmost loathing and spat at him.

It didn’t reach his face; there was barely any spit in Dorian’s mouth, he was panting so hard, vision swimming, blood on fire. But it did what it needed to do.

Cullen smacked his face again and then shoved his own trousers down only enough to free his cock. He forced Dorian’s mouth open, irritating that torn bottom lip again before making Dorian take all of his hot, hard flesh. He gave Dorian no time to adjust and it sent his body into a minor panic. The panic was good, _so_ good that Dorian could have cried. Cullen’s cock was thick and heavy and when he began to fuck Dorian’s mouth with abandon, hands un-forgivingly tangled in his hair, tears streamed from Dorian’s eyes. He had to force himself to calm down enough to breathe through his nose because no matter how much he might have wanted it, passing out _(again)_ was _not_ a good idea.

The wooden floor was cold and hard on his knees and every time he tried to brace himself by holding Cullen’s legs, the Commander slapped his hands away, insistent on holding and controlling Dorian completely.

When it happened again though, Cullen’s temper flared. He withdrew from the depths of the mage’s throat, leaving Dorian gasping and struggling to breathe. He dragged Dorian up by the arm and pulled him across the room, stumbling on weak legs, knees protesting. He pushed the mage down onto his bed and went to his clothes chest, withdrawing a belt.

In the few seconds of Cullen’s absence, Dorian’s body had tried to gain a kind of equilibrium and Dorian fought against it with everything he had. Cullen held the belt tightly and yanked off his undershirt, cock still free and glistening with Dorian saliva.

‘Strip off.’ When Dorian refused, that belt unfurled and cut through the air, whipping into the skin of his lower thigh. ‘I _said_, strip off.’

Caught between wanting much more of that kind of pain and _needing_ Cullen to do what he truly intended with that belt, Dorian decided on the latter. Cullen didn’t need a belt to inflict suffering, but he needed it to tie Dorian up and that was what he wanted.

Dorian kicked out of his trousers, flinging them away. The cold air bit at his skin, particularly the stinging welt on his leg. Cullen descended on him, bringing their mouths together painfully as he wrenched Dorian’s hands above his head, pinning the wrists together. He wrapped the belt around them and then secured it tightly over the low wooden ridge of his headboard. Dorian struggled against the binding and was pleased when it didn’t budge. Cullen had done an impressive job, but it would still be easy to free himself with his magic.

The one last thing he could use to get away, if he truly wanted to. With his magic, this was all just pretend, it wasn’t _real_ unless…

‘Do you really think these will hold me?’ he said, wincing as Cullen’s hand clawed down his chest, fingernails catching sharply over his nipples.

‘You can’t get away.’

Dorian wriggled a little desperately beneath Cullen as the man sat atop his bare erection. ‘We both know I can and I _will_. I’ll get free and run from you, run into the arms of the first man I see!’ Cullen’s lip curled; he didn’t like that, but there was that _fucking_ hesitation again, although considering what Dorian was skirting around asking for, it was at least deserved.

Almost absently, Cullen’s hand ran back up Dorian’s chest, circling his throat and squeezing. ‘Are you telling me you’re a risk?’

‘I’m _danger personified_, aren’t I, Commander!’

Cullen leaned over Dorian, studying him. ‘Yes, you are,’ he said, his own desire clearly battling with some remaining shred of reason. ‘You… you need to be subdued.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian breathed, a thick rush of anticipation pouring into relief that Cullen understood and was possibly going to grant what he needed. He closed his eyes, tears leaking from the side and spilling down his face in a ticklish caress he despised. He kept them shut now, feeling Cullen’s residual borrowed magic stir. Lyrium took years to fully leave the body and although not once what they were, Cullen still retained his most basic Templar abilities. It was strange, Cullen’s magic. A rasping, grinding thing like dragging a sword over a rock to create sparks. Not _his_, not natural. Cullen would never even consider it magic. A weapon, a trick, little else. ‘I’m dangerous, Commander. So _very_ fucking dangerous. A threat to all the world and if you don’t subdue me, I’ll use this blood you’ve drawn to rain down horror unlike anything you—!’

The Silence hit incredibly hard. It completely disoriented the mage, viciously cutting him off from his mana, severing him from the Fade. It was terrifying and monstrous but _finally_, Dorian was helpless.

His eyes rolled, body weak and shaking from the absence of his magic and the effects of the Silence that Cullen had wrought upon him.

‘Look at you now,’ Cullen said, slapping Dorian’s face a few times almost teasingly. ‘What will you do to stop me?’

‘Nothing,’ Dorian rasped, quite honestly.

‘That’s right. And _why_ can you do nothing? Why are you spread out like a wanton whore on my bed?’ Dorian didn’t want to say it, he was weak and split open, so fucking defenceless. Cullen leaned closer, lips hovering over Dorian’s. The intensity of his next words bordered on violence. ‘Say it! _Say it_ or I will!’

‘Because I’m yours!’ Dorian sobbed, not daring to look and see the extent to which he was destroying the world. _‘Yours_.’

‘Yes,’ Cullen growled, holding Dorian’s face in both hands as he kissed him. Maker, he knew how to kiss. It was hot and possessive, brutally plundering and taking everything Dorian had to give and everything he didn’t. Tongue delving deep, lips messily claiming Dorian as surely as his words had. ‘You’re _mine_, Dorian, do you understand me?’

Dorian shook his head, openly crying in the sensory and emotional overload.

‘_Yes_, you do,’ Cullen said, reaching down and taking his cock in hand, slowly grasping the desperate, needy flesh and stroking it. ‘Look at you, _owned_ by a Templar, stripped of magic and pride.’ Dorian’s eyes rolled back, the blissful pressure of Cullen’s hand around his cock was coiling in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to tell Cullen to stop, but the man would not stop. Why would he do anything Dorian said?

Dorian was _powerless_.

Cullen shoved his trousers down and all the way off, fully naked for the first time though Dorian couldn’t see it. He spread Dorian’s legs wide and spat on his hand, coating his cock and pressing the head against Dorian’s entrance.

‘You’re going to take me dry,’ Cullen told him, voice trembling. ‘Because your magic is gone and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

Dorian bit down on his lip, eyes still closed and when Cullen pressed into him, slower than the last time, the pain reached a point where he couldn’t contain a full-throated scream from tearing out. Cullen’s hand slapped down over his mouth, silencing him _physically_ as well as magically. Cullen pressed his forehead against the hand that kept Dorian’s screams contained. Dorian screamed and _screamed_ and it hurt so much he was going to die. The burn and stretch were too much, beyond his ability to cope.

Cullen stopped moving when he was fully, impossibly buried inside Dorian. Carefully, he removed his hand from Dorian’s mouth and replaced it quickly with his own, kissing the mage deeply again. His hands ran through Dorian’s hair, scalp aching from where it had been so viciously yanked, but there was no spite in his actions now. He slowly inched out and then drove back inside, groaning gutturally into Dorian’s mouth. The sensation was like being torn apart and every part of Dorian was burning, caught in the wildfire of discomfort and intensity that finally overwhelmed his own impressive ability to manage such things.

When Cullen started to fuck him, it was slow and unbearable. Dorian felt something easing the slide after a while and realised it was probably his own blood. He was utterly claimed, in every way.

The manner in which Cullen kissed him had become something else entirely, something worrying and foreign. Panic frayed at the mage’s pleasure, wishing he could do something to turn Cullen’s attention sharp and angry once more. But his hands were bound, his magic severed and depleted, he had no way of _hurting_ Cullen to remind the man that he was a mage, the thing Cullen hated most in the world.

Even his mouth, the best way Dorian knew to make someone despise him, was trapped. Cullen’s lips devoured his, slanted perfectly over the mage’s, tongue deep and curling, seeking to claim and taste. Cullen’s breath came in ragged pants, almost sobbing into Dorian’s mouth.

Dorian was helpless while Cullen forced him to feel things he couldn’t bear, things he wouldn’t survive when this was finished and _of course_ it would be finished because the world waiting for them was full of expectations and prejudices.

‘Please stop,’ Dorian mumbled, trying to turn away from Cullen, but the man followed his mouth like it was it was the centre of all gravity. ‘Please.’

‘No.’

Cullen began to fuck him faster, _harder._ Everything in Dorian’s pain worn body screamed for release but that feeling would combine with what _other_ things Cullen was doing and that… Dorian could not endure.

‘Hurt me,’ he begged.

Cullen shook his head, _refusing_, and kissed him again, fingers stroking down Dorian’s face, tracing his tears.

Dorian struggled hard then, genuinely trying to get free so he could inflict some measure of spite upon Cullen. He needed to stir that furious lion and cause him to lash out in familiar, _safe_ violence born of hatred but the mage was helpless and restrained.

Cullen was touching him, gripping his cock and moving his hand up and down in the most perfect, gorgeous rhythm.

‘I can’t… don’t make me feel—’

‘Don’t make you feel _what_?’ Cullen licked a stripe up Dorian’s neck and it was all far too intimate, striking beneath the skin-deep boundaries Dorian usually associated with sex.

Dorian’s heart was betraying him, whole body following suit. The physical relief in the absence of agony, replaced by only pleasure and intimacy was making him light-headed and weightless. He felt safe. He felt… _precious_.

And he wasn’t any of those things, not in the real world.

‘Cullen,’ he pleaded, tears spilling freshly as the pleasure began to heighten and build. ‘_Please.__’_

‘You’re mine,’ Cullen said, lips against Dorian’s again, kissing him like it was the only punishment he was capable of inflicting anymore. His cock plunged deeper and deeper, harder and faster but _Maker_ now it didn’t even feel painful, there was only abject bliss, like all the magic in the world was pooling between them, born of their bodies and hatred and _need_.

Dorian clung to that word, hatred. _Cullen hates you,_ he told himself. _Hates you so much. _

‘Say you hate me,’ he cried out desperately.

Cullen’s fingers dragged over Dorian’s bottom lip. He panted hard, mouth slack and stared down at the mage, eyes glassy and so very lost. ‘I…’

But the words Dorian needed to survive did not come. Cullen’s orgasm tore through him; his expression crumpled, fucking fell apart unlike anything Dorian had ever seen. Just the sight of it triggered something in Dorian, something _ruinous_ and when Cullen’s thumb slipped over the wet head of Dorian’s cock, his own orgasm struck him like an earthquake, taking him down with the Commander.

Cullen kissed Dorian all the way through it, drawing out every sound Dorian made and drinking them for himself. Dorian’s vision whited out, the world ceased to be and he felt suspended mid-air. A kind of electricity had him in its grip, crashing over him in thundering waves that made his body arch, made him believe in things he didn’t believe in.

The feeling crystallised and then… it set. Dorian knew he was changed. Forever altered by this man and it felt like…

No, _please_. Not that, anything but that.

Cullen wiped away his tears with trembling fingertips. Dorian opened his eyes and saw the man staring down at him, expression so full of feeling it was painful to behold, pulling and twisting his chest, making it difficult to exist in the same space as him.

The feelings were fading slowly, all except the _one_ that Dorian had dreaded and yet somehow courted, suicidally stupid as he was. Cullen’s whole body was shaking as he eased out of Dorian, taking care in a way that made Dorian swallow nervously, wishing he wouldn’t bother.

The mage stayed where he was, not daring to move and even if he wanted to, he was still bound, his magic only now returning in a slow trickle. Cullen leaned back, sitting upright on Dorian’s thighs, giving Dorian full view of the man’s chest. He was flushed in places, but pale in others. Distantly, Dorian wondered how much it had taken out of the former Templar to perform the Silence, but couldn’t bring himself to truly contemplate it.

He felt… too much.

They were both naked and Cullen did not rush away. He stayed where he was, looking down at Dorian. The mage noticed Cullen’s gaze slowly meandered over his body, taking in his injuries, one at a time, much as he’d done before. While he examined Dorian, taking his bloody time, Cullen’s fingertips absently traced circles on Dorian’s hip.

‘Untie me,’ he said, wishing it sounded stronger.

Cullen didn’t seem to hear him, fingertips continuing their gentle, affectionate ministrations on Dorian’s skin. He raised his eyes to Dorian and _fuck_, what was that expression? What was _any_ of this?

Dorian swallowed hard and tried to find his centre. ‘I _said_ untie me.’

‘Was that…?’ Cullen asked hoarsely, clearing his throat. ‘Was that all right?’

It was right on the tip of Dorian’s tongue to scream _no_, of course that wasn’t _all right _and how could Cullen possibly be so stupid as to think it ever could be?

Except… except that was what he’d asked for, wasn’t it?

_Make me beg and plead for you to stop, but don_ _’t ever stop. _

_Make me sorry, make me cry._

Cullen had made Dorian beg and plead. Made him cry, made him so very fucking sorry. Just for all the wrong reasons.

Determinedly not looking at the Commander, Dorian used what little magic he had to split the thick leather strap of the belt and free himself. He nudged Cullen off of him none too carefully and went about collecting his clothes, a high-pitched ringing in his ears, stomach clenched like the moments before it would purge. Moonlight was creeping in again, bathing the room in silvery white light.

‘Dorian,’ Cullen said and the mage heard padding footsteps, cringing internally at whatever this was going to be. Kindness or cruelty, either was insufferable. ‘I thought—’

‘What _did_ you think?’ Dorian yelled, spinning around and flinging his clothes aside where they landed with a highly unsatisfying _flump _near the ladder hole. ‘What the fuck did you think I wanted from you?’

‘I know what you wanted,’ Cullen said, voice maddening calmly, though there was a small frown permeating his expression. ‘But it wasn’t what you needed.’

Dorian’s jaw dropped, eyes widening. ‘How _dare_ you decide what I need? Who do you think you are? Maker, I knew Southern Templars were arrogant, but _this_!’ He laughed bitterly, thunderstruck. ‘This is… it’s…’

Cullen interrupted Dorian’s spluttering, catching his wildly gesturing hands mid-air. ‘It’s what?’

Dorian tried to wrench them back. ‘You had no right.’

‘You _told _me—’

‘You had no right to _violate me like that!_’

Cullen released him quickly, stepping away. ‘What?’

‘You heard me,’ Dorian snarled, voice unsteady. He kicked the rest of his clothes down the ladder hole. His boots were lined neatly along the wall beside Cullen’s and somehow, that hurt more than anything else in the last two days. He grabbed them and threw them down the hole too. ‘I underestimated you, Commander,’ he said flatly, though he was practically vibrating. ‘You win, completely and utterly. I’m leaving and I won’t be coming back.’

‘Leaving?’

‘You ask a lot of questions, _Templar! _Yes, leaving!’

‘Why?’ When Dorian tried to leave, tried to turn and arrange himself so he could descend that stupid fucking ladder, it was too easy for Cullen to haul him back up. ‘Why are you leaving?’

‘As if you care!’ Dorian spat.

Cullen was about to say something but he swallowed the words quickly and Dorian itched to slap him, _hurt_ him, make him regret all this… this _humanity_ because it was wrong, so wrong. Cullen wasn’t anything but a monster; a vicious monster capable of dealing the kind of cruelty and pain that Dorian needed and deserved and desired, nothing more!

‘You can’t leave,’ the Commander said and that time, he sounded a little more like himself, almost strong enough for it to be a directive.

Dorian shoved him hard, both hands smacking against Cullen’s bare chest. Cullen stumbled, almost fell. Dorian wanted to push again, knock him to the ground but he wasn’t strong enough.

‘I can do whatever the fuck I want, actually! I’m not some pathetic, homegrown farm-boy with delusions of grandeur, forever shackled to the Chantry! I can go _anywhere_, do _anything_!’

Something fractured in Cullen then; a splinter in the marble.

‘I won’t be shackled forever.’

‘No, you’ll just find a new leash,’ Dorian flung spitefully, unable to stop himself. ‘A new _cause_ to offer up your wasted life in service of, if you already haven’t! Lavellan will make for a far kinder _master, _I’ve no doubt!’

The scene might have been laughable to a casual observer. They were both completely naked, painted with blood and bruises, claw marks and come.

‘Why are you leaving?’

‘To get away from _you_, why else?’

‘Lavellan needs you.’

‘She really doesn’t.’

‘Dorian, just _stop_ for a moment!’

Dorian hit Cullen around the face, breathing so hard he was on the verge of hyperventilating. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded, shaking his head. ‘Who _are you?_’

Cullen put his hand to the place Dorian had hit him. ‘You know who I am,’ he said quietly, dropping his gaze down. ‘You read the letter.’

Mouth open, vile, stinging _truth _at the ready, Dorian faltered completely. His mind scrambled to catch up with what was happening, the implications of what Cullen had just said. It was like running flat out into a wall.

‘W-what?’

‘My letter,’ Cullen went on, determinedly not looking at the mage now. He let go of his face, revealing a perfect outline of Dorian’s hand, the same one Cullen had cut with a lethal weapon barely half an hour ago. ‘I know you read it.’

Dorian’s anger, that absolute fever pitch of betrayal and abasement, had not remotely faded but it was stuck now, caught in his throat behind something else, something far more pressing.

Cullen shook his head and turned away, every line of him taut. ‘You know the worst of me. I thought…_’_

‘You thought what?’

It took a good few seconds before Cullen was able to force himself to say, ‘That you came here regardless of what you read. That maybe it didn’t matter to you.’

Dorian had never been very good at this kind of thing and now, if possible, he was even more the antithesis of a _decent person. _He wanted to rip Cullen apart, tear him open and plunge his hand right into his chest the way Cullen had done to him and here was the opportunity. To sneer at Cullen and coldly point out he had no clue what the Commander was talking about. Tease him vindictively, make him regret this weakness because weakness was despicable.

Instead, what came out was, ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

Cullen’s head turned slightly though he still kept his back to Dorian. In the pale moonlight, the mage could see every scar that had ever been inflicted upon the Commander, each injury that had marred his pale expanse of skin. ‘Are you?’

Dorian forced himself to tread carefully, despite _wanting_ to kick and traipse. ‘It’s nothing to do with the letter,’ he ground out, hoping Cullen wasn’t going to ask for specifics. ‘It’s… I heard _you__’re_ leaving in a few days.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Vivienne,’ Dorian replied without a trace of regret.

There was a long painful pause, shattered only when Cullen swallowed loudly and said, ‘You were leaving to prevent me from doing so?’

‘You’re far more important to the Inquisition than I am.’

‘I’m not leaving. I was _going_ to leave, it’s why I stayed behind. To find a replacement for myself, but…’ he said with a tentative hesitance that made Dorian’s skin crawl in warning. ‘I don’t think it’s necessary now.’

When Cullen finally looked at him, Dorian knew he’d made a mistake.

The knowledge of that mistake hit him right in his already wounded chest, added another deep cut to his heart and yes, why not? He was dying anyway, wasn’t he?

‘I was so furious that you’d read it,’ Cullen admitted, moving closer to the mage, each word thick and uneasy. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of you knowing everything but now I… it’s different now.’

‘Because—’

‘Because you were here,’ Cullen said, plainly uncomfortable. He wasn’t much better at this than Dorian, in truth, he was just _stronger_. ‘I saw you holding the box. You still came here even knowing everything.’ Cullen exhaled forcefully, looking mildly disgusted. ‘I got rid of it this morning.’

‘The letter?’

‘That too.’ It sounded like a _promise_. He was close enough for Dorian to feel the heat radiating from him, see the light sheen of sweat over his skin that had nothing to do with their previous exertions. ‘I burned them both. I should have burned them many years ago, but perhaps I was waiting for someone to find it and _know_ so that I… I could… _Maker_, this is fucking torture!’ he hissed quietly through clenched teeth.

Dorian wanted to tell Cullen to stop, to shut the fuck up because he was just a snarky, broken Tevinter mage, not capable of keeping secrets or respecting the gravity of them when shared. But he was caught in the hypnotic glare of Cullen’s bewildering, inelegant honesty and he didn’t say any of that.

‘I see.’

When the awkwardness between them began to reach unbearable heights, Cullen rolled his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck.

‘I still despise you and everything about you.’

‘Well good,’ Dorian said, folding his arms to hide his treacherous hands. ‘I’d hate for anything to come between us like civility or tolerance.’

‘I shouldn’t have done that to you,’ Cullen said almost dispassionately. ‘It’s not what you wanted from me.’

Dorian knew right away what he was referring to.

‘No, you shouldn’t,’ he agreed tersely, but mostly the fight had left him. He was still angry, but now it was aimed neatly at himself for not making it a priority to tell Cullen he hadn’t read his letter before… before _this_. How could he tell him now? ‘Don’t do it again,’ Dorian added after a beat.

_There won__’t be an _again_, mage. _He waited, was so ready to hear it.

‘I won’t.’

_Well, fuck_.

‘And I,’ Dorian went on, deciding to really get into the spirit of the thing. ‘Won’t reveal what’s in the uh, the letter.’

The Commander gave Dorian a narrow, semi-suspicious squint. ‘Well _obviously_.’

‘Yes, very obvious. Well,’ he cleared his throat. ‘I’ll just… leave, then.’

Cullen fell silent as Dorian managed to get a few rungs down and then he said, ‘Dorian,’ and the mage halted, not daring to look back up. ‘Take the book back if you want.’

Why was this happening to him? What had he ever done to deserve _this_?

Mouth pressed firmly in a line; Dorian stared unseeingly at the gloomy space in front of him. He managed a curt nod and continued his slow, naked descent into the cold, lonely darkness.

*

In the days that followed, while Cullen’s now redundant deadline expired, Dorian tried to gather the pieces of his shattered life. Repair what he would, toss what he could not. He wrote his father, that was difficult. It took him a full day to find a balance between what he really wanted to say and what would bring his father some degree of comfort. When he sent the letter, he felt slightly better about the whole thing but even a small allowance of relief resonated like betrayal.

Moving on already, _forgetting_ her already.

When he wasn’t working, he spent time with Sera. She had this wonderful absence of pity about her, equivalent to a bracing pat on the head. She declared herself in charge in Lavellan’s absence, which everyone but Cole ignored, and went about seeing to the most ridiculous, wonderfully small issues within Skyhold. _The little people_, as she called them. Dorian didn’t really understand, had never been much interested in servants and _little people_, per se, but she offered a level of comfort he didn’t know he needed until it became difficult to part from.

Companionship, he knew. _Friendship_, he sometimes dared to think.

Sera was stability, she was the real world. No nonsense, no moping, no wallowing and especially no forgetting to eat. She took him under her wing like a stern, headstrong sister and Dorian let her. He needed stability; he really did.

Because Cullen wasn’t ignoring him. Cullen _wasn__’t_ sweeping around silent and broody, pretending that Dorian was thin air.

In his more rational moments, Dorian scolded himself for the extent to which he was romanticising Cullen’s _lack of open hostility_ towards the mage in public, but really, it had been shocking at first. The morning after the… _incident_, Dorian had been a stowaway aboard the Sera Ship, trailing after her like a lost puppy. Cullen, who Dorian supposed was _legitimately_ in charge in Lavellan’s absence, had obviously decided to be more present than usual, lest Skyhold devolve without leadership. He ate breakfast at the _same table_ as Dorian, Cole, Sera and Varric. There were other places to eat, other seats and tables, other people to be with.

But that was where he sat. Every day.

He rarely, if ever, actually spoke to Dorian, but he looked at him. Cullen was rather masterful in terms of controlling his expressions and yes, it could simply have been that he was brilliantly masking all his absolute revulsion for the mage to present a united front for the Inquisition. But Dorian didn’t believe that was it, couldn’t rely on such hopeful musings.

All the world was fucking backwards now and Dorian cursed himself, his stupidity and hesitation that had created this awful state of play.

Because it was a lie. All Cullen’s newfound tentative treatment of Dorian was based completely upon a lie.

Dorian had no clue what was in that sodding, Maker damned letter but Cullen thought he did. He _trusted_ that Dorian knew, he was mollified by Dorian’s acceptance of him despite whatever he thought Dorian knew of him. That alone was apparently enough for Cullen to restrain his absolute hatred of Dorian and go about his day without glaring at the mage as though he singlehandedly caused the Fifth Blight.

There was more to it than that, but Dorian didn’t allow himself to acknowledge such things, not openly. To recognise that Cullen sometimes looked too long at Dorian, even in front of others, and that look still held as much heat as before, only now Dorian knew the flavour of it. Hatred that tasted like _need. _

Dorian pretended it wasn’t real. It was all part of his newest and best plan ever; Not Losing His Mind.

Dorian didn’t go near his quarters, actively tried to avoid anywhere remotely Cullen-prone, truth be told but Cullen was not following suit.

The first time, it was so absurd that Dorian still couldn’t quite believe it had even happened. Skyhold was a labyrinth of hallways and staircases and if one was going back and forth, a good portion of the journey was made in shadowy corridors. Dorian had not been wandering aimlessly that night, he’d been heading back to his room intent on (not) sleeping and maybe reading another chapter of Cullen’s book that he was ashamed to admit he _had_ actually taken.

And Cullen had just sort of… magically appeared, stepping out from the shadows behind a door. Dorian might have had words to say, witty comments to make but never got the chance. Cullen shoved Dorian back against the wall, capturing the mage’s lips with his own, tongue sliding into his mouth as he made short, _short_ work of pinning Dorian’s hands on either side of his face. Cullen kissed him with the kind of intensity that might have been a prelude to actual sex and fuck, Dorian hadn’t known if they were actually _going_ to have sex, Cullen seemed so immersed in him, so enraptured. Body pressed into Dorian’s, the mage felt the Commander’s hardness, his own steadily building with every low growl and groan Cullen made.

Then Cullen pushed away, releasing Dorian entirely and had the temerity to turn and go. He just left Dorian there, rucked and roused and speechless, lips tingling, body pulsing despite how his mind objected.

It happened again the next night and that was when Dorian realised what was happening.

Cullen was _stalking him. _

_Commander fucking Rutherford _was putting himself in Dorian’s likely path, waiting for him to be alone and then…

Then what? Pouncing on him, that was what. Grabbing and pulling, pushing him into hard surfaces and chasing all Dorian’s breath away with the kind of kisses that did terrible things to the mage, left him shaky and wanting.

He always left before anything could happen and he never spoke.

If Cassandra hadn’t happened upon them once, Dorian might have tricked himself into thinking he was imagining it. That had been quite the experience, though. Cassandra clearing her throat politely, the poor woman actually _unable_ to get past in the narrow walkway leading up to the tower.

Cullen parted from Dorian, glancing back at Cassandra, breathless but somehow quite composed. ‘Apologies,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, slowly, reluctantly releasing Dorian’s wrist with the other. ‘Did you receive the crafting materials requisitioned by Blackwall yet?’

Cassandra, to her pristine credit, was not flustered as she and Cullen shared a brief conversation about a minor delay of requisitions while Dorian stood there, trying to get his breath back and control the burning heat flooding his cheeks. Cassandra seemed to be exerting purposeful patience, giving Dorian a quick once before bidding them both a good night and moving on.

Dorian had spoken to Cullen then. ‘What are you doing? What is this?’

Cullen answered with a kiss, much rougher than the ones that had preceded it. When he bit Dorian’s bottom lip, he only drew the smallest amount of blood but he held Dorian’s face, flicking his tongue over the split skin and gifting the mage a deep frisson of perfect, delicious pain. It felt like an offering.

_I_ _’m sorry, let me make it better by hurting you, just the way you like._

And when he drew back amid shadows and gloom, Dorian could clearly see his own blood painting the man’s lips as Cullen _smirked_ at him. It was playful, teasing.

_Come find me_, it said. _I dare you. _

Only Dorian did not. Could not bear to be in the instigator of this thing when it was built upon a foundation likely to crumble at the first hint of pressure. The sense of equilibrium between them was false and Dorian was the only one who knew it.

He _let_ it happen though. Allowed Cullen to seek him out each night and pin him down where successful, stealing his breath and resistance, turning him dizzy and hot. That much he allowed, even secretly welcomed, because he was so very weak.

It couldn’t hold, good things never did.

*

When Lavellan returned, Sera kissed her. Dorian couldn’t help but smile softly to witness it. Those two dainty elves sharing a brief, wholly passionate kiss were the strongest and best women he knew in all of Thedas. He was happy for them, genuinely so.

Lavellan’s cheeks were flushed when they parted and she quickly sought Dorian out among the small crowd gathered to welcome them back. Welcoming home gatherings _were_ a thing within the Inquisition. Congratulations for not dying out there, and all that. Sera was speaking to her rapidly, the pair slightly obscured by Bull, Blackwall and Hawke, Solas bringing up the rear.

Sera held her hand as the pair headed towards Dorian who was surprised to be swept into a warm hug which involved Sera too as she refused to let go of Lavellan. Dorian gave into it, allowed himself to be held.

‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ Lavellan wasted no time in telling him while Sera nodded, literally patting him on the shoulder.

Dorian didn’t even glare at Sera. It was better than Dorian having to come up with words to explain it, at any rate.

‘I’m fine,’ he lied so blatantly that he knew Lavellan wouldn’t even consider it a lie, just a standard turn of phrase she knew to ignore. ‘How was Crestwood?’

‘Rainy,’ she answered, grasping his hand briefly and winking. ‘You would have hated it.’

‘I kept everyone alive,’ Sera proudly informed her. ‘Well, all the people that mattered anyway.’

Lavellan chuckled, but she didn’t really look away from Dorian. She was reading him, likely realising that things were worse than she expected.

‘So I see. Well, I have to debrief my advisor’s fully,’ she said, parting from Sera with the same reluctance Cullen exhibited when Cassandra found them in the stairwell that night. ‘But then we can eat together and catch up.’

‘Solid plan,’ Sera said, nodding sagely just as the Iron Bull crept up on her and picked her up around the middle, hoisting her high. ‘Argh, gerrof!’

‘Ahh, missed you, you crazy elf!’ he boomed, laughing as she kicked him until he set her down. His eye moved over to Dorian. ‘Hey there, Vint. Looking kinda tired.’

Dorian just kind of shrugged and Bull’s concern solidified. Dorian was already exhausted from the grilling he would no doubt receive later.

‘Anyway,’ Dorian said, walking backwards, suddenly feeling more than a little overwhelmed at the way they were all staring at him. ‘I’ve got a lot of—’

He must have been walking faster than he realised because when he backed into a wall, he stumbled; disorientated and surprised, though not _quite_ as surprised as when the wall, also known as Cullen Rutherford, caught him (why was he always catching him, for Maker’s sake?) and held him steadfastly by the arms.

‘Careful,’ Cullen said smoothly, righting Dorian with ease, hands lingering just a shade too long before he withdrew them. ‘Wouldn’t want you to fall.’

Dorian’s mouth was slightly open, or at least he hoped it was only _slightly_. He laughed nervously, wondering if he might actually be in the Fade and this was a particularly preposterous dream.

‘Commander,’ he said, fighting the urge to rub the back of his sodding neck the way Cullen would have. ‘Ever the hero.’

There wasn’t anything to read on Cullen’s face, the man was a study in neutrality except maybe… _maybe _there was something playful there again. In full view of everyone, Lavellan included.

Or, the more likely explanation, that Dorian was simply losing his mind.

‘A hero to be sure,’ came Hawke’s deep, strong voice, causing Dorian to turn on instinct and see the man, watching them both the way everyone else was. ‘But is he _Championy_? I just don’t know.’

‘Hawke,’ Cullen greeted in a clipped tone, something glacial in his usually honey warmed eyes. ‘Good to see you back with everyone.’

‘Yes, it was quite the trip,’ Hawke said, sauntering over, turning his gaze onto Dorian. ‘Though sadly lacking the _allure_ of such things left behind in Skyhold.’

‘Finally flirting with someone else, eh, Hawke?’ Bull interrupted loudly, giving the Champion a playful shove. ‘Thought poor Blackwall was gonna faint from blushing so hard!’

‘Hardly,’ Blackwall grumbled, heading back to his place near the stables or maybe just away from all the fucking drama that Dorian was currently standing in the middle of.

Hawke chuckled like he found it funny. ‘Easy prey,’ he said, glittering eyes fixed on Dorian. ‘Fancy getting a drink, Splendid?’

All the hairs on the back of Dorian’s neck went up as something strong and lethal stirred within the Commander before him. He didn’t dare look, but he could feel Cullen’s odd brand of Templar magic waking, coming alive in anticipation of something really, truly terrible.

Before Dorian had a chance to contemplate all manner of madness that was about to break loose, Lavellan slid her arm around his waist and deftly guided him away.

‘Sorry boys!’ she called back. ‘You’ll have to get in line, I need to speak to Dorian first. Bull, can you start the debrief in the war room for me? I’ll be along shortly.’

‘You got it, Boss.’

The mage allowed himself to be led firmly away. She took him into the Herald’s Rest, guided him up and up and all the way into Cole’s quiet dark corner. The spirit was absent, though he doubted it would have stopped Lavellan even if he wasn’t.

‘Right,’ she said, rounding on him with evident restraint. ‘Care to fill me in?’

*


	10. Interior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incredibly beautiful fanart by the astonishingly talented VoidTaken.

[](https://ibb.co/Xz8dQ0D)

The silence began to spread horribly and the longer it went on, the less Dorian could actually think of what to say that wouldn’t result in the leader of the Inquisition realising what a walking disaster Dorian truly was.

What was he meant to tell her?

_While you were gone, I collapsed mentally, engaged in even more emotionally destructive sex with Cullen and let him think I read his secret letter. Also, if you_ _’re not too busy would you mind filling me in on whatever intimate details that letter contained because I’ll need to maintain the act for as long as possible?_

He played it through in his mind, many different ways, many different versions. The outcome was identical; her disappointment would win out over anger and that… that Dorian could _not_ bear.

‘Dorian?’ Lavellan prompted, a picture of expectance.

‘Yes,’ he said, stalling slightly. ‘I… there’s not much to say, really.’ Arms crossed, she waited for him to explain. He knew she wasn’t likely to relent unless he gave her _something_. ‘All right, I maybe slept with Hawke.’

‘What? _When_? We only just got back!’

‘Last week,’ he explained. ‘I know it wasn’t _necessarily_ the best thing to do in the situation, but that’s what occurred.’

She watched him shrewdly. ‘What happened between you and Cullen while I was away? Something is different.’

Dorian adopted a thoughtful expression. ‘He _does_ seem to be a little less inclined to murder me, doesn’t he? Thankfully, he’s relinquished his quest to flee Skyhold, for whatever reason he was leaving in the first place.’

Lavellan had never explicitly told Dorian why Cullen was _officially _leaving and Dorian was careful not to slip up, at least that time.

‘Hmm.’

Dorian laughed slightly to detract from her scrutiny. ‘My beauty and charm does tend to leave chaos in its wake, no?’

He could tell she wasn’t remotely satisfied, but before there was time for her to further pry, Cole’s voice materialised from the dark corner behind Dorian.

‘A non-committal noise in place of a response,’ he said, whispering like they were sharing secrets. ‘Kindness and comfort taste like milk, best when fresh. Keep him close, keep him safe from himself and maybe he’ll shine as brightly as his magic.’

‘Cole,’ Lavellan greeted warmly and the boy smiled, leaning forward and gracefully extending his legs. ‘I actually missed you. Next time I think I’ll take you with me. You’ll certainly keep Hawke quiet at any rate.’

‘I would tell you all about the painful, terrible things Dorian has been feeling while you were away, but I’m respecting his privacy,’ Cole told her proudly. ‘A loss struck deep unto a well without water and a terrible deluge inside a book, one could fill the other, if only there wasn’t a dam.’

‘Now, see,’ Lavellan explained calmly and not without fondness. ‘That’s not _quite_ respecting his privacy.’

Cole looked confused. ‘But why? I was _vague_, you said it’s good to be vague! I like being vague; it cuts less, a blunt knife only meant to spread butter not draw blood, easier to say aloud.’

‘Yes, it’s just that the _saying aloud_ part quite negates the privacy,’ she told him. ‘But you were _very _vague that time so I didn’t understand much.’

Cole looked at Dorian sadly and sighed. ‘Secrets are so difficult, aren’t they?’

Dorian did not care for when Cole did this to him, at least not while he was trying so very hard to lie to his dearest friend. ‘Quite.’

‘Why don’t you go and make us some tea, Cole?’ Lavellan suggested, glancing at Dorian in a way that let him know she wasn’t done with him at all.

Cole looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. ‘Oh, Ellana,’ he sighed. ‘Tea won’t help anything. All that mercy is long past gone, to find it anew would require a box and we don’t keep them here.’ He looked back down very suddenly; eyes wide. ‘We don’t, do we?’

Dorian frowned, watching the boy go from theatrically omniscient spirit to panicky, shrill child in the blink of an eye.

‘Don’t what, Cole?’

‘The boxes are a _bad_ idea, Jassen said so! Boxes and cages and circles, built to be picked apart, weaknesses are easy to find when they’re home grown.’

‘For Maker’s _sake_,’ Dorian grumbled, crossing his arms, though secretly he was rather grateful. Cole was neatly saving him the trouble of lying to Lavellan’s face, or delaying it, at the very least.

‘Cole, there are no boxes here,’ Lavellan said, taking his hand in hers.

‘No,’ the boy said, shaking his head. ‘No, Solas wouldn’t allow them, I suppose. He would see and tell me, warn me because he doesn’t like tea either. Dorian, have you seen any boxes?’

When those wide, fathomless eyes turned onto Dorian, the mage balked slightly. ‘Um, no, Cole. No boxes.’

Cole exhaled, shuddering with relief as he patted Ellana’s hand. ‘Good. I will keep a stern vigil. You can never be too careful, so many mages around here. It’s a bad idea, Cullen. Gratitude will not beget servitude.’

Dorian’s eyes narrowed. ‘What?’ he asked sharply. ‘What does that mean? What’s a bad idea?’

Quite deadpan, Cole said, ‘The _boxes_, Dorian. The boxes.’

And he vanished, just like that. Dorian had blinked and the damnable boy was simply gone.

‘Well,’ Lavellan said, pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘That’s a lovely headache on the way.’

‘Did you understand any of what he was talking about?’

She lowered her hand, something hesitant in her movements. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘Possibly. Cole can be… well, you heard it for yourself. A little vague.’

‘Will you tell me what he meant?’

‘Will _you_ tell me what has transpired between you and Cullen?’

Oh, it was going to be that way, was it?

Dorian crossed his arms.

‘I thought as much,’ she said, with a tired chuckle. ‘I’m not going to push you, Dorian. You’ll tell me if and when you want to. Maker knows you’ve been through a lot the last week and I… I shouldn’t demand such things of you. You’re an adult, I trust you to _be_ an adult.’ She moved closer, placing her delicate hand on his shoulder, seeking out his gaze. ‘You’re my best friend,’ she added in a whisper. ‘That comes before duty as far as I’m concerned.’

Dorian nodded, not trusting himself to speak lest he blurt the whole thing out to her and paint an ugly, if realistic, portrait of himself.

‘I really do have to go to the briefing,’ she said, almost apologetically. ‘But drop by my quarters later, we can catch up.’

*

Though he’d agreed by virtue of yet more nodding, Dorian didn’t go to Ellana’s quarters. There were several reasons, chief among them was that Dorian didn’t know what he was actually going to say to her if he couldn’t tell her the whole truth. He’d become stupidly accustomed to being honest with her, at least in all things major. He would figure something out, he just needed time.

Instead, Dorian took Cullen’s book and a bottle of Lavellan’s stolen wine and hid out in the mage’s tower. The plan was not to be found and it turned out to be a successful one. Dorian couldn’t imagine a more _Cullen-Proof_ place to hole up for the evening and that was the main draw. He just needed one night without Cullen finding him and kissing all the sense out of him. One night without complications or having to think on his feet.

The older mages were evidently not pleased to see Dorian invading their space, but the younger ones didn’t seem to mind him being there. He asked if he could hide out in their dormitory, not bothering to lie about his reasons for being there, and they agreed overall, if perhaps a little bemused.

There was a spare bed and when Dorian asserted his intent to sit there, on the bare straw mattress, no one objected. The top of the tower was cramped and overly warm, due to all the bodies, but there was hustle and bustle and for a while, Dorian was content to read and drink.

Some of them whispered things about him that weren’t especially flattering, but Dorian was surprised to hear that it _wasn__’t_ about him being a filthy Tevinter blood mage; instead it was about him and Cullen. Cavorting with the ex-Templar was apparently rather shocking given that he was a mage and, in the South, the two were archetypal nemeses. In Tevinter, Templars were soft and malleable, friendly to those who paid well (which was everyone) and only seeking to make examples of those who no longer held sway with the Magisters. They were given _permission_ to uphold the shaky Tevinter laws; a stark and stunning contrast to the state of things here.

After a while sitting on a very lumpy bed, Dorian closed the book and wished he was more drunk. ‘You can talk _to_ me if you’d like,’ he said to no one in particular. Everyone fell silent, looking at him apprehensively.

‘Fiona said we shouldn’t—’

‘Well, Fiona’s not here, is she?’ Dorian countered easily, taking a swig of wine straight from the bottle like some kind of Ferelden brute. He then offered the bottle to the nearest mage one bed over, a young man with blue eyes and black hair. When he took it slowly, the eyes of all other young mages riveted on him, Dorian smirked. ‘It’s not poisoned,’ he assured the boy and felt inexplicably pleased when the mage took an inexperienced sip, wincing at the taste.

‘Urgh,’ he complained, passing the bottle back. _‘Ack_!’

‘Yes,’ Dorian sympathised. ‘It _is_ rather like Druffalo piss, isn’t it? One of the many things I miss about Tevinter. Decent wine, beds _not_ made from hay_, _less people spitting on me.’

‘Is it true mages rule in Tevinter?’ a slightly older boy asked from somewhere near the back. Dorian could barely make him out, it was so crowded. He was clearly older than the rest, though; nearing twenty.

‘Well,’ Dorian tried to parse his answer and failed completely, wanting to be a little bit impressive to fucking _someone_. ‘Yes.’

A wave of whispers and excitement swept the cramped room and a few other mages came nearer.

‘What’s it like there?’ a girl with sheet of jet black hair asked.

So, Dorian told them. He spoke warmly of his beautiful, temperate, glorious homeland. The place he’d learned to cultivate and nurture his magic, the place he walked freely and with undeniable swagger down the streets, his whole life ahead of him for the taking. He left out the grimy parts because well, they were young and they deserved some kind of fairy tale, didn’t they?

‘Why would you ever leave?’ the same girl asked wistfully, shaking her head. ‘Our life here… they despise us.’

Dorian drank more wine. ‘Darling girl,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘They _fear_ us. Never forget that. Each person who sneers at us or says something hurtful, they’re afraid of the power we wield. Probably a little jealous too. Imagine how inconvenient it must be to heat up water without magic!’

Some of the mages laughed nervously. Blue eyes, who had introduced himself as Landon, sat on the end of the spare bed with Dorian, burning with barely contained curiosity.

‘Why aren’t there Circles in Tevinter?’

‘There are, but from what little I know, they are nothing like Southern Circles,’ Dorian said. 

More whispers, a few more people moved closer, some even sitting on the floor.

‘What were your Circles like?' the girl asked.

'Well, I was shunted from Circle to Circle for a long time when I was younger, but each one was relatively the same. A grand building, boring structured lessons, dull tutors. We could come and go as we pleased. There was no security beyond the professors.' The girl nodded, listening intently. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Saffy.’

‘Well, Saffy, would you tell me of Southern Circles?’

So, Saffy and the other mages told him. They spoke bitterly of the living conditions, of the food and the beds. The people who taught them magic and how to control it. They spoke of the Templars. Of rules, punishments and cruelty, of terrible, _awful_ things that made Dorian sick to hear. The lack of nature, the monotony and stale air. Of how they missed the trees and plants, their families, the very _idea_ of freedom. Of Harrowings. Of Tranquility.

Dorian didn’t know what to say, but he didn’t let that stop him.

‘I’m… you’re all so much stronger than I am,’ he said quietly. ‘I hate that this is the way things are here. I wish I could change it.’

Saffy, _darling girl_, said in a rush, ‘Take us with you to Tevinter.’

‘Take you… oh, I… I couldn’t—’

She shuffled closer. ‘Why not? We’d do whatever you said, work anywhere. To be only given the _opportunity_ for a better life would be worth suffering anything!’

The other mages nodded, looking to Dorian with wide, earnest eyes.

_Tell them no, be honest and admit there_ _’s no chance you’ll ever actually take them anywhere because you’re selfish and unable to lead your own life, let alone guide others anywhere remotely good. _

‘I… let me think on it.’

It was almost worth it, seeing the faint glow of _hope_ in their faces.

Emboldened by the prospect of an ally, one mage asked, ‘Is it true about blood magic? Is it really all that powerful?’

‘Powerful and absolutely corrupting,’ Dorian said sternly. Really, who was teaching these mages? ‘And I don’t mean corrupting in the sense of crumbling morals, I mean it will literally corrupt your magic and your body. You’ll never be able to draw on the natural aspect of your mana again. You’ll need to use blood constantly and eventually, it will leech your life force from your _own_ blood, even if un-spilled. There is no denying the power of blood magic - tenfold the force and fuel of ordinary magic - but it always comes at a price.’

‘Have you ever seen someone use it?’

‘Many times. The _last _time was rather the more memorable occasion, though.’ _His father’s white, drawn face as the blood slave obediently dropped to her knees beside Dorian, who was bound and gagged…_ ‘But anyway,’ he went, shaking away the memory. ‘Even in Tevinter, blood magic is technically illegal. Stay well away from it, is my advice. You’re also far more likely to erupt into an abomination if you even so much as dabble with it.’ A heavy silence fell over the group, some of them glancing nervously at each other. ‘What?’ Dorian asked, leaning forward with a worried frown. ‘Maker, no one is dabbling with blood magic, are they?’

‘No,’ Saffy said quickly. ‘No, of course not. It was—’

_‘Saffy_!’ the oldest boy in the dorm snapped suddenly. He was still at the back, sitting on his own bed with a face like thunder. ‘Shut it!’

Saffy glared in return. ‘We can trust him, Keenan! He’s a mage, isn’t he?’

Dorian waved a hand. ‘It’s fine, you don’t have to—’

‘He’s a mage, yeah, _but_ he’s also bedding a Templar!’

Arriving full circle back to the whole reason Dorian had put down his book, he sighed. ‘Commander Cullen is actually no longer a Templar.’

Landon gave Dorian a mildly doubtful look. ‘You really believe that?’

Dorian thought of Cullen’s strength, his revulsion of the leash around his neck, his struggles to be free of Lyrium. ‘I absolutely do.’

‘_Of course _you do,’ Keenan sneered, a sharp glint of derision in his eyes. ‘You grew up in the land of plenty, no need to worry which Templar was going to rape you that night because only two of them actually make good on their promises of extra food for the youngest.’

Dorian mouth turned very dry. ‘I—’

‘Whereas if you grew up _here_, you’d have been shoved in a Circle at the first sign of magic. Ostwick if you were lucky, Kirkwall if you were cursed.’ Keenan slid off his bed and drew himself to full height. ‘Maybe if you _were_ Southern, you wouldn’t be quite so quick to let that monster fuck you. Not for free, anyway.’

‘Commander Cullen is—’

‘A Templar, and he’ll _always_ be a Templar. For a smug, know-it-all Tevinter mage, you don’t actually know a whole lot, do you?’ At the door, Keenan paused and looked back. ‘Maybe ask your _lover_ to tell you about Kinloch Hold one day, see if you still find him so alluring after that!’

‘Kinloch Hold, the fallen Circle Tower? The ruin?’ Dorian asked, after Keenan stormed out, slamming the door behind him in grand fashion.

Landon picked at his covers, frowning. ‘Yes. His father was held there, that’s why it’s difficult for him. Although, Keenan tends to get uppity around men like you anyway.’

‘Men like me?’

‘Arrogant, swaggering types,’ Saffy spoke quietly. ‘Men who act like they’re in charge.’

Feeling suddenly sick, Dorian blinked hard. ‘I’m not in charge of _anything_, believe me.’

He stayed with the young mages for another hour, speaking of other, more pleasant things. They all had so many questions for him. They wanted to know more about Tevinter, about Minrathous, the Magisterium. About the Qun, the Fog Warriors. They asked him about learning a specialised class of magic, wanted demonstrations of his necromancy which Dorian was thankfully sober enough to refuse, though he did promise another day.

It was all rather nice, right up until Fiona burst inside. The woman looked positively frazzled; gasping as though she’d been running. The younger mages darted away quickly from Dorian, back to their own beds, a few of them bidding Dorian hurried farewells.

‘S-Ser Pavus,’ she gasped, hands on her hips. ‘What…?’

Dorian rose from the bed as gracefully as possible, taking the empty bottle of wine with him. ‘Ah, apologies,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘I didn’t realise the hour was quite so late.’

‘To bed, now!’ Fiona snapped at the whispering mages and followed Dorian outside, closing the door firmly behind here.

‘Ser Pavus—’

‘Dorian, please.’

‘Very well, _Dorian_, I mean no offence whatsoever, but may I ask why you were in the children’s dormitory?’

‘They’re not children,’ Dorian said, feeling offended on their behalf. ‘The youngest is sixteen and I was hardly recruiting for a blood magic cult.’

Fiona took a deep breath and her expression turned masterfully neutral. ‘You are part of the Inquisition, Dorian, I was not implying anything of the sort. Young mages are simply less able to master their emotions, as you are aware. We cannot have anyone losing control of themselves. Certain people are frequently looking to impose stricter rule upon us, despite Lavellan’s offer of a true alliance.’

Dorian snorted. ‘Yes, Vivienne is _so_ pleasant, isn’t she?’

Fiona managed a strained, polite smile, wringing her hands. ‘All the mages here are my responsibility, Dorian. You understand that there is a world of scrutiny upon them and myself, by extension? I cannot risk anything that might aggravate or rile them, do you understand?’

It was one of those things that Dorian _didn__’t_ really understand, truth be told. He didn’t see any harm in speaking with younger mages, in telling them tales of a better life, answering questions. But Fiona’s gaze was imploring, so he nodded and tried to seem wise.

‘Yes, of course,’ he lied. ‘Of course.’

‘Good. You’ll understand, then, why I ask you not to return here?’

Dorian’s attempt to seem very wise and grown up faltered slightly. ‘Pardon?’

‘It is nothing personal at all,’ she rushed to assure him, guiding him away from the dorm by the elbow, leading him down. ‘But the children, in this case, would do better to remain out of sight _and_ out of mind. Many have forgotten that so many mages actually reside in Skyhold at all and for their safety, I intend to keep it that way.’

‘Isn’t that… rather like a Circle?’

Fiona laughed tightly, gesturing to the staircase that stretched out below. ‘Our choices rarely stray far from one another, good or bad. Take care, Dorian.’

*

It really was the perfect end to the perfect day when Dorian entered his own bedroom, headache positively blooming in the base of his skull and he sensed the presence of another. It was on the very tip of his tongue to say Cullen’s name and tell him to _fuck_ very much _off_, when his senses rubbed the wrong way and he knew somehow, maybe by _scent_ (lyrium, magic, leather) that it wasn’t Cullen at all.

‘Hawke,’ he said, turning to see the man sat on his bed like an old friend. ‘This is not a good time.’

Carver fucking Hawke laughed like Dorian had told a great, worthy joke.

‘Now where have you _been_ all evening, eh, Splendid? You weren’t in the Herald’s Rest and I _know_ you weren’t with Cullen.’

Dorian knuckled his forehead, the headache intensifying. ‘Oh really? How would you know that?’

‘Because I was _with _Cullen,’ he said casually, but he was watching Dorian so very carefully. ‘Drinking, chatting. Y’know.’

Dorian chuckled bitterly. ‘_Chatting_ with Cullen Rutherford? No, I really don’t. What did he have to say for himself?’

Usually, Dorian would strip off and bathe after a day such as this, even though the baths were cramped and horribly public; a weirdly communal area in the lower parts of Skyhold. He hated going to bed dirty, his sheets were silk, after all. With Hawke there, he would have to wait it out. He was in no mood for mediocre sex.

So, he crossed his arms and stood around awkwardly.

‘More than you’d think,’ Hawke teased. ‘But don’t worry, none of it was about you.’

Dorian rolled his eyes, fiddling with an arm buckle. ‘How _shall_ I live with my crushing disappointment?’

Hawke began to approach. ‘You’ve got him all tangled up though,’ he added softly. ‘Anyone can see it.’

‘Anyone but me.’

‘Oh, come on now,’ Hawke said, stalking closer and closer, eyes turning dark and hooded. ‘You must have felt him when I called you _Splendid_, no? It’s funny, I didn’t think he had much power left in him.’

‘Well, the man isn’t exactly at his most _stable_ right now.’

The room was small. Hawke didn’t have far to go in closing the gap between them. ‘I’m certainly not arguing that. The look he gave me, I thought he might murder me on the spot. He tracked me down to formally apologise, though it was clearly on Lavellan’s order. We got to talking, about the old days and that.’

‘About Fenris?’

Hawke’s eyes narrowed a touch. ‘No.’

‘Well, what then? Regaling one another with the Tales of the Champion or was it just an exceptionally small circle jerk?’

The man laughed suddenly, the sound ringing in Dorian’s ears. He wanted Hawke to leave, but this kind of situation could be precarious. Men like this were dangerous sometimes and that was all well and good when Dorian _wanted_ to be manhandled, treated terribly and have his pleas for it to stop go ignored, but when he felt like this… well, he knew to tread carefully. ‘I jest of course,’ he added, voice taking on a crackly quality. ‘I actually think I’m coming down with some kind of illness. I was speaking with the younger mages earlier and they all have quite a rotten cold.’

_Please let it work_, Dorian thought, rubbing his eyes and sniffling for good measure. Hawke bit his lip, making no effort to mask his internal debate.

‘Well, I’ll leave you be then,’ Hawke said somewhat reluctantly. ‘Don’t need to be sneezing my way to the Approach with Lavellan and Stroud. Sleep well, Splendid,’ he bade, dropping Dorian a wink and letting himself out.

Dorian waited until his footsteps had faded entirely before he locked the door.

*

The _In__ner Circle _meeting was relatively interesting or at least it would have been if Dorian had been able to control himself enough to listen to three or more words Lavellan was saying without his eyes sliding over to the advisors’ corner of the War Room. The mage cursed himself for his inability to focus on important things like _defeating Corypheus_ but this was the first time he’d been in a room with everyone in a while.

Cullen seemed, to the casual observer, completely normal. If anything, Dorian reasoned, a casual observer might actually stop and think that Cullen looked a little better than he usually did. The Ferelden was ordinarily extremely pale, eyes swimming in dark circles as though constantly verging upon illness, much like Dorian’s faked one last night. Today though, Cullen had a little colour about his cheeks and it made him seem younger. His eyes were brighter. It was… more than a little distracting.

_Fucking void, pull yourself together._

As though sensing he wasn’t quite paying enough attention, Sera stamped on Dorian’s foot subtly. Cullen didn’t _quite_ look at him, but the motion had drawn the Commander’s peripheral gaze and Dorian could feel the attention as though Cullen had called his name aloud in front of everyone.

Dorian tried not to imagine Cullen doing just that. How would it feel for him to say the mage’s name, loud and clear and have everyone hear it?

The War Room was actually rather cramped when everyone was shoved inside it like this. Bull took up at least a quarter of the chamber just by existing and then there was Hawke leaning insolently off to the side like the rebellious student in class. Dorian avoided looking directly at Hawke who no doubt realised that the mage had lied about coming down with imaginary illnesses.

‘Sorry, that was a lot to get through,’ Lavellan said, laughing. ‘Does everyone understand everything I laid out?’ Dorian nodded and added it to his ever-growing list of _Thing Dorian Pavus Lied About. _‘Excellent. Any questions?’

They all had questions; they’d been paying attention to the fucking _war plans_ Lavellan had likely been laying out while Dorian had been half fantasising, half panicking about the man standing with Leliana.

_Leliana_.

She knew Cullen, possibly better than anyone. She had to know what was in the letter, but how could Dorian ask her? The obvious answer was that he _couldn__’t_ ask her; either she and Cullen were close enough that he had told her of his belief that Dorian read the letter or (more likely) she simply already knew because she knew most everything.

But Dorian was relatively good at getting information out of people. It could be worth attempting to elicit a general _direction_ to then pursue. He had to find out, fucking somehow.

‘Dorian?’

Lavellan’s voice brought him back to the present with a snap. Everyone was staring at him; wonderful. ‘Sorry?’

‘I was thinking it would be good for you to accompany us,’ she said, eternally patient as ever, Maker bless her. ‘You’re our resident Venatori expert after all and this is an area in which we could likely use your expertise.’

‘I agree.’ Dorian looked at Hawke as the man spoke. He addressed Lavellan in a way that could be deemed casual, but Dorian knew it was anything but. ‘I’d feel better with a fellow mage at my back, too.’

Vivienne made a noise that could have been a cough or a laugh. Lavellan gave Hawke an uncharacteristically frosty sideways glance. When she turned her attention to Dorian, mouth open, likely poised to ask him for an answer, Cullen stepped forward.

‘Inquisitor,’ the Commander said in a low-pitched voice. ‘There is still the matter we discussed.’

Hawke pushed off the wall, gaze swivelling to Cullen, but he didn’t say anything.

What _the fuck_ was this, now? Dorian’s chest felt like it might cave in as a crushing weight of anxiety materialised.

Lavellan didn’t seem surprised, she nodded as though Cullen was simply reminding her of something. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said and looked back at everyone. ‘I need to speak with Dorian, Vivienne and Solas alone please. Thank you everyone. We’ll have a drink later.’

As the others filtered out, Sera whispered to Dorian, ‘You need me to stay? I’m small; I could hide under the table.’

Dorian managed a reassuring smile and shook his head. She squeezed his hand before she leapfrogged onto Bull’s back, riding the Qunari out like a packhorse. Varric lingered a moment, waiting for Hawke, but the man didn’t seem to be going anywhere so the dwarf shrugged and walked away.

Solas and Vivienne did Dorian the courtesy of not staring while Cassandra closed the door behind her, last to leave. Cullen and Leliana had remained, standing close to Lavellan who was watching Hawke.

‘Carver.’

‘I think it’s better I stay here,’ Hawke said, forestalling any objections Lavellan could raise. ‘I know what this is about and believe me, I’ve seen my share of abominations to be of service.’

‘Abominations?’ Dorian echoed, frowning. Cullen’s gaze lingered a fraction too long on the mage before he cleared his throat and spoke.

‘We received a report this morning from Fiona that a younger mage died last week.’

Solas crossed his arms. ‘Last week?’

‘Fiona claims to have only just discovered it herself,’ Lavellan said heavily. ‘She said a younger mage told her; that the boy was under the impression discovery was inevitable after Dorian’s visit there yesterday.’

Vivienne gave Dorian an unpleasant smile. ‘Visiting with the _younger_ mages, we were? How off-brand for you.’

‘What was the discovery?’ Solas pressed before Dorian could say something he would likely regret.

Leliana uncrossed her arms and leaned the tips of her fingers on the war table. ‘Last week, a young mage by the name of Bayren was lured by a desire demon in a dream. He succumbed to possession and become an abomination.’

Dorian reeled back slightly. _‘What_? No, we would have known.’

With a deadly calm, Cullen countered, ‘Apparently, the younger mages killed him themselves and covered it up.’

‘Can you blame them?’ Hawke said moodily. ‘With _this_ one here clawing for the return of Circles and an ex-Templar in charge of the army, I’d be pretty fucking terrified to remind anyone of the fallibility mages face, especially at their age.’

‘The Circles exist to _protect_ fallible mages,’ Vivienne retorted, as though by wrote. ‘And to prevent circumstances such as these. It is sad to be proven right time and again.’

‘Yes, you positively radiate _sadness_,’ Dorian muttered.

‘Fiona must have known,’ Solas said, frowning pensively. ‘A mage in her care missing for a week would not go unnoticed.’

‘I agree,’ Lavellan said, her mouth in a grim line. ‘This… failure of leadership is not the first for Fiona. There have been other issues before that she has attempted to hide from us.’

‘Such as what?’

‘There has been a worrying degree of harassment from our own soldiers,’ Leliana said. ‘Towards the mages, but in particular the younger ones. One of them attempted to speak with us a while ago, but Fiona interceded and assured us that the girl in question was simply speaking out of turn and missed her family, nothing more.’

Dorian thought of the three men who had pressed daggers and swords into his skin, threatened terrible things. The men who had spat on him.

‘There was also an injury a while back,’ Cullen said, face a barely controlled mask of disgust. ‘Someone was hurt, but we don’t even know the mage in question because once again, Fiona worked to conceal the truth of it. The woman is deceptive and misleading, incapable of outright honesty.’

Dorian could almost hear the part Cullen left out; _like so many mages._

Lavellan sighed. ‘And now with this latest revelation, we are gravely concerned.’

‘She should be removed,’ Leliana stated curtly. ‘She represents the needs of the mages well enough and speaks true in her efforts to negotiate their rights but, this is one transgression too many regarding her care of the younger ones.’

‘Her failure is unacceptable,’ Cullen agreed with a hint of fervency that shocked Dorian, truly stunned him. There was something so very familiar in the kind of disgust he was concealing. Dorian had seen it before, a while ago, but he couldn’t place it.

Hawke scoffed. ‘Sad for the little mages are we, Cullen?’

Cullen didn’t look at Hawke when he spoke. He stared right at Dorian.

‘They deserve better.’

‘Which is why,’ Lavellan said very quickly, stepping forward. ‘We want someone else to take charge of the younger mages. One of our own.’

There was barely a moment of silence before Solas shook his head. ‘I cannot play this role, Inquisitor.’ He offered no other explanation and Lavellan did not seem to require one. She gave him a tight smile and a nod, waiting.

‘I would most happily accept the position,’ Vivienne said, deceptively light. ‘The younger mages require the _most_ care as they are so terribly malleable at this age, prone to dangers as this poor boy is sufficient demonstration. They require a true teacher. I am a Knight Enchanter; my work in the Circles speaks for itself.’

‘Yes, it does,’ Lavellan said, eyes firmly downcast. She was still waiting and Dorian didn’t understand for what precisely until Cullen spoke.

‘Ser Pavus,’ he said rather impatiently, almost rolling his eyes. ‘Would you not consider the role?’

‘Me?’ Dorian said at the same moment that Vivienne said, _‘Him?’_

‘Yes, _you.__’_

‘Inquisitor,’ Vivienne said, laughing breathlessly. ‘I appreciate the innate fairness in giving each of your mages equal opportunity to vie for this role, however I need not reiterate my significant qualifications and knowledge of how to run a Circle—’

‘Except for the fact that we do not _want_ to a run Skyhold like a Circle,’ Lavellan told her. ‘These are the mages who stood shoulder to shoulder with us in Haven, who risked their lives for us. The alliance I offered them—’

‘Was a fallacy!’ Vivienne spat; all traces of laughter now long gone. ‘And even Fiona knows it, which is why she hides their mistreatment from you. They need to be kept away from everyone else, separated to an extent you cannot understand, but I do! I know what it takes to protect the world from mages!’

‘Mages are dangerous,’ Cullen said flatly. ‘No one is denying that.’ For a moment, Dorian thought that the Commander had simply finished speaking and it would have been absolutely standard if he had, but he took a deep breath, jaw working and then he added, ‘But locking them away from the world does not protect _anyone_ from anything. It only concentrates the damage.’

Vivienne seemed to take Cullen’s statement as a personal attack.

‘I cannot fathom this position from you, Commander. You were there in Kirkwall, you witnessed the carnage wrought upon that place by a wilful mage!’

Cullen stared at nothing, hand gripping his pommel. ‘I have seen that and worse, Madam de Fer. The power mages wield requires control, absolutely. The Circles, however—’

‘The Circles have kept Thedas safe since their very inception! They contain the lethality of weaker mages and provide unbreakable protection to the rest of the world.’

‘Circles can be _broken_!’

Cullen’s voice rang sharp and loud through the room, resonating like a thunderclap. Everyone was very still.

Leliana glanced at the Commander. ‘Cullen.’

Hawke finally joined them from the side-lines. ‘He’s right. And despite what fucking shit everyone is determined to say about him, _Anders_ was right, too. Not what he did, but what he envisioned for us. For those poor kids who are so terrified of what the world will do to them that they killed one of their own and hid it! Fiona is enabling a new generation of systematic fear which will then breed resentment, miscommunication and more hatred on both sides.’

‘Dorian,’ Lavellan said, levelling him with a plaintive gaze. ‘You’re of Tevinter, where mages are free. You know better than anyone here how to navigate that freedom.’

Dorian had been watching the scene unfold through a hooded frown with his arms crossed. ‘Meaning precisely what? That I should be the _New Fiona_, whatever the void that entails?’

‘We discussed it this morning,’ she said, glancing back at her two remaining advisors. ‘Leliana and Cullen agree—’

Vivienne’s head tipped back and she made a sound of disgusted impatience. ‘The kind of nepotism one never can _truly_ anticipate.’

‘Excuse me?’ Cullen asked in tone that bordered on belligerent.

‘Dear Commander, is this not a _tiny_ bit out of character for you? Your hatred of our kind is beyond renown! Am I not permitted to state aloud the reason we all know for your supporting Dorian in this matter?’

Lavellan seemed wary. ‘Vivienne, watch yourself please.’

The Knight Enchanter’s eyes flashed dangerously. ‘What a pity I did not take the time to so ingratiate myself with the Inquisitor and to whore myself to her Commander, might then my position within this organisation be more pivotal.’

Dumbstruck silence filled the air and Dorian sorely wished he was not so hurt by the spite of her implication that somehow, he had used Lavellan and Cullen to… what was she even suggesting? Take on a thankless task that he would never be able to fulfil? Maker, he didn’t even _want_ what they were offering. Had Lavellan taken him aside and asked him privately, he would have flatly refused. He had better things to do; a library to attend, wine to drink, Commanders to obsess over, the content of mysterious letters to discern.

But the way Vivienne was watching him, like she was _hoping_ for him to say all of that… well, shit.

‘Yes, all right,’ he said, forcing himself to speak. ‘I’ll do it.’

Lavellan let out a relieved, short exhale. ‘Good. Thank you, Dorian. Speak with Cullen and Leliana, they’ll explain the finer details. Vivienne, with me please.’

Lavellan strode from the room and it seemed for a moment like Vivienne, frankly trembling with outrage, was not going to follow, but she caved at the last moment and stalked away, robes swirling behind her. The door closed again and Dorian let out a shaky breath.

‘Vishante kaffas.’

‘Carver, might we get a moment alone with Dorian?’ Leliana asked in a tone that brokered absolutely no argument. Dorian felt a slight twinge of irrational worry, almost wishing Hawke _wouldn__’t_ leave. Cullen and Leliana made for a rather terrifying pair.

Hawke, give the man his due, looked to Dorian for an answer. The Tevinter mage nodded slightly and Hawke shot Cullen a look.

‘I’ll be around, should anyone need me for anything Championy.’

Cullen watched him leave.

‘Dorian, come here,’ Leliana bade. ‘I apologise. We should have brought this to you privately, but Lavellan was determined to give all her mages the opportunity to put themselves forth for the position.’

‘I respect her for that,’ Dorian said, joining them at the table, trying to keep his eyes entertained with the strategic mishmash of mock chess pieces atop the impressive wooden specimen. ‘Vivienne would have reacted worse if she knew she wasn’t even considered.’

‘We believe you will handle this well,’ Leliana told him. ‘To be clear, we are only asking you to be responsible for the younger mages. The adults are responsible for themselves and somewhat reclusive.’

‘Could _they_ not have assumed this responsibility?’ Dorian asked wearily, staring at the little towers across the maps. Who even made these? Whose job was it to carve and create these statues?

‘In truth, they seem to care very little for the young ones,’ Leliana said and Dorian could tell she was frowning. ‘It could be the way they’ve been allocated separate dorms for so long, or simply that the older ones find them trying. Even so, leaving the mages to their own devices while operating outside of our mandate is not what Lavellan envisages and so, as she said, it is better for one of the _Inner Circle_ to take the role.’

Dorian closed his eyes briefly, cursing his stupidity in getting out of bed today at all. What the fucking void had he gotten himself into _now_?

Cullen seemed to read him startlingly well. ‘The responsibilities are not so abundant. These are not infants, at least. It would simply be a matter of checking in on them, speaking with them, teaching them.’

‘Teaching them what?’

‘Control. Courage. Honesty.’

Dorian’s eyes slid to Cullen’s and his hand tightened on the edge of the table. The word _honesty_ rang in his ears. ‘And what of their magic?’

‘I have spoken with the quartermaster,’ Leliana said, looking back and forth between Cullen and Dorian. ‘We are going to build a training arena just outside of Skyhold. There is an outcrop in the lower ridges of the mountain. It is ideal for mages to train and hone their skills without risking structural damage.’

‘We are also constructing an area _inside_ Skyhold, as well. In the courtyard,’ Cullen added. Dorian thought he saw the first little hint of reluctance in the Commander’s expression. ‘Should they wish to, the older mages may train alongside our soldiers.’

‘How could they possibly train alongside soldiers?’ Dorian asked, and then immediately cursed himself. ‘Oh, fucking Maker, you want _me_ to train them with you.’

Cullen gave a small nod. ‘If you would.’

Dorian allowed himself a moment to consider the enormity of what they were proposing. ‘Lavellan _truly_ means this to be an alliance.’

‘She does, with you very much at the helm,’ Leliana agreed. ‘She seeks to instigate real change. Her vision has merit. I support it.’

‘And you?’ Dorian asked the Commander.

Cullen hesitated only a moment. ‘I support Lavellan's vision, yes.’

That was not enough for Dorian. ‘You _want_ to train mages with me, do you? Team up with the Tevinter mage in front of all your admiring ranks and watch the fireballs fly?’

‘Many of our ranks are ex-Templars,’ Cullen said, idly picking up a tiny tower statue and examining it. ‘They are loyal men, good fighters, but they still harbour much of the ingrained dogma instilled in them by the Chantry, as I did. Mages are a part of the Inquisition. Things need to change.’ He placed the marker down, precisely where it was before. ‘This union will be difficult, but it is necessary. I would not have the mages locked up as Vivienne would.’ He looked at Dorian, something strangely open and yet cautious about him. ‘Cages do terrible things to even the best people.’

Dorian had the distinct and awful impression Cullen was referring to the great gaping chasm between them that was _the letter_. He wasn’t remotely surprised to feel Leliana watching him closely.

‘I agree,’ he said, utilising all his best Wicked Grace defences. ‘And if you’re game for it, Commander, then count me in.’

‘Very good,’ Cullen said and Dorian wanted to squirm beneath the simple comment that felt like praise. ‘We can begin tomorrow. In the meantime, we are moving the younger mages out of their so-called dorm and into an underutilised part of the tower, that you might be able to balance your archival duties accordingly.’

‘I’m sorry… what?’

‘There’s barely more than a dozen of them,’ Leliana said, as though that somehow explained everything. ‘There is ample room in an old storage area to the east. If you are agreeable, there is also a much larger room available for you, Dorian, within the upper tower.’ Appealing to his materialistic side, was she? Well, that wasn’t going to— ‘There’s something of a curiosity in the room,’ she added with a knowing, serene smirk. Only Leliana could _smirk_ serenely. ‘An in-built bathing area. It seems to have been intended for a mage as the process of filling and heating the reservoir would be nigh impossible for a human, even with servants.’

Dorian tried to seem indifferent, examining his nails with a put-upon sigh. ‘I like my current room. There’s a nice view.’

Cullen slanted his eyebrow. ‘There’s a balcony, too.’

The mage waited an admirable four seconds before he sighed, ‘Well, if it’s what the Inquisition requires of me.’

Leliana tapped the table with her fingernails. ‘Excellent. Have you any questions for us, Dorian?’

The offer was subtle and spoken without a trace of inflection. Dorian was disquieted beneath their almost identical gazes. He felt pinned, trapped by a pair of predators who were deciding if he was a worthy meal or not.

‘I… do not.’

‘If at any point you feel out of your depth, I will make myself available to you night or day,’ Leliana said and she hadn’t blinked for a while now. ‘This is a vast responsibility you have undertaken for us. We are grateful.’

Dorian’s throat was dry, demanding that he swallow, so he adopted a casual expression to cover it. ‘Yes, agreeing to take on a litter of unruly mages _is_ rather trying, but I’m rolling with the punches, per se.’

‘Indeed,’ Cullen said quietly. He gave Leliana a brief glance which seemed to communicate something between the two of them. She nodded once and shifted, leaning away from the table.

‘Well, I must oversee the move. Your new quarters will be made ready by tonight Dorian. Thank you again. The future of this world may indeed shine a little brighter because of your…’ she paused, searching for a word she liked. ‘_Devotion_ to this cause. Good day.’

She left silently, not even a swish as she passed Dorian.

And then there were two.

Dorian moved around the table, putting maximum space between himself and Cullen. He was mentally weighing up which of the many aspects needed to be discussed when Cullen said, a in low and dangerous voice, ‘You are simply exquisite when nervous.’

The mage blinked slowly, desire and indignation curling up his spine. ‘What did you say?’

The way Cullen stared at him with just a hint of a smile, like Dorian was something delicious that Cullen was about to fucking devour. ‘You’re _exquisite_,’ the Commander said, leaning on the edge of the table. ‘When nervous.’

‘I’m not nervous.’

‘That’s why you’re exquisite,’ Cullen commented silkily. ‘Because you don’t _realise_ the show you put on for me.’ Cullen’s eyes were dark and predatory. ‘I can taste your fear in the air around you, like a scent. It drives me wild. Swallow for me, Dorian. Show me how nervous I make you.’

The moment Cullen said it, the urge to do so turned into overwhelming fucking _need._ It was uncomfortable to resist and unnatural. _Swallow_, his body insisted, like he was stupid for denying it. _If you don__’t swallow, you’ll drown. _

Dorian swallowed, never taking his eyes off the Commander. It seemed obscenely loud in the quiet of that room. Cullen traced the movement, following the motion down the length of Dorian’s throat.

‘You _don__’t_ make me nervous.’

Cullen grinned wolfishly. It would have been alarming if Dorian wasn’t so painfully fucking hard, dizzily high from Cullen’s attention.

‘You taste even better when you lie.’

The table between them was vast and enormous. Cullen dropped his gaze, sweeping over the surface of the double maps and each small marker.

‘I stare at this map for hours,’ he said, apropos of nothing. ‘It represents much of our efforts, past, present and future.’

The pivot in terms of conversation had Dorian feeling tense and just a touch anxious but concealed beneath that shallow tension was a burning, raw _desire_ to see where Cullen was leading him. Wherever it was, Dorian knew he would be helpless to follow.

‘It’s impressive,’ the mage commented, playing along.

‘How good do you think my memory is?’

The question was only confusing for a split second before Dorian realised Cullen’s intent and oh, fucking _fuck_ yes.

‘I think,’ Dorian said very slowly, stretching each syllable. He reached a hand over the map and knocked over a marker. ‘It’s likely to be very good. You _are_ a studious solider, after all. Memorising details like this would be necessary to make you the _best_, wouldn’t it?’

His voice was affecting Cullen, he could see it. ‘Come to me.’

The corner of Dorian’s mouth curled, heart beating faster. ‘No.’

‘Crawl across this table to me on your hands and knees.’

Errantly knocking over another piece, farewell Fallow Mire, Dorian wet his lips and shrugged insolently. ‘Why should I?’

‘If you crawl to me over this table’ Cullen breathed, eyes bright and so fucking wild with unspoken need. ‘I’ll let you try and fuck me.’

Dorian’s breath caught in his chest as the world tilted dangerously. ‘You would let me fuck you, Commander?’

‘Let you _try,_’ Cullen corrected, presenting the challenge clearly. _‘If_ you crawl to me over this table.’ When Dorian cast a doubtful glance down at the massive wooden expanse, Cullen said, ‘It will hold, trust me.’

The last two words cut deep enough to almost make Dorian question what he was doing. It was worryingly similar to what had happened last time, but no, Dorian just needed to ignore it. Cullen was playing a game.

It was just a game.

‘You want me to make a mess.’

‘It’s what you do,’ Cullen told him. ‘You’re chaos.’

Eyebrow raised, Dorian ran his fingertip across the map, tracing the natural curvature of borderlines and mountains. ‘I thought I was danger.’

Cullen began unbuckling his armour. ‘You’re a lot of things.’

‘And will you remember where each little piece went, after I sweep them aside to clear a space to fuck you on?’

‘I don’t know,’ the Commander said with a small shrug of his own. ‘Depends on how hard you fuck me.’

He sounded almost common, employing a slightly rougher dialect than his usual regal, well-spoken accent. The mage stared down at the table. It was truly huge and when he nudged it with his thigh, it didn’t even budge. He took a deep breath and braced his palm against the surface.

‘_When_ I fuck you,’ he said, slowly, carefully leveraging himself up and onto the table. He began to move on hands and knees, pushing aside markers, knocking them over and sending a few skittering to the floor. ‘You’ll be lucky to remember your name, let alone the precise location of a mission marker from six months previous.’

Cullen was waiting for him, watching every part of the mage’s journey with parted lips and short, shallow breaths. ‘If you think I’ll just submit to you,’ Cullen whispered, dragging his gaze up to Dorian. ‘You’re going to be disappointed.’

They were close enough to kiss now. One of the markers was digging painfully into Dorian's knee and this was literally crazy. The door had no lock, anyone could walk in at any moment and it was daytime, for Maker’s sake. Cullen was always needed somewhere; someone would come in search of him.

‘Commander,’ Dorian said, lifting one hand to thread through Cullen’s hair, immediately mussing it and awakening a few curls. ‘I’d only be disappointed _if_ you submitted without a fight.’

Dorian reared back on his knees atop the table. This way, he was at least a full head taller than Cullen. Looking down at the man in such a way did something strange to Dorian. He felt a desperate, errant desire to see Cullen kneel before him, to witness him brought low, prostrated for Dorian against the will of his pride.

That was highly fucking unlikely though. Cullen was only lower than the mage because of a table and even in that scenario, Dorian was the one on his knees.

Sanity was hard to come by when Cullen stripped off the last part of his armour, leaving his trousers on. He was simply stunning. Every time Dorian saw him like this felt like the first time. Cullen’s hands were either side of Dorian’s rib cage, slowly sliding around to his back.

‘So fucking bad, aren’t you?’ Cullen growled, lips hovering close to Dorian. ‘You corrupt and taint everything you touch.’

‘Including you,’ Dorian murmured, pulling ever so slightly on Cullen’s hair, basking in the beautiful wince it elicited. ‘Do you want me to bar the door with magic?’

Cullen’s gaze sharpened, dark heat flashing. ‘No,’ he said, then relenting reluctantly and adding, ‘But… you should.’

‘Shall I make it so we can’t be heard, too?’ Dorian brought his other hand up and carded it through Cullen’s hair. The position of power made him feel almost drunk with something he refused to admit was based in affection. He found himself wanting to _soothe_ Cullen, make him feel good. He knew how much tension the man carried in his neck. How would it be to trail his fingers over Cullen’s skin and sink warming magics into him, loosening knots and easing aches? Would Cullen allow it? Would he slap Dorian’s hands away for using the wrong kind of magic on him? Or would his eyes flutter shut as he let out a moan, luxuriating in the feelings Dorian could provide if permitted?

‘Stay here,’ Cullen’s voice called, low and velvety. Dorian realised that his own hands had stilled in Cullen’s hair, eyes had become unseeing. It wasn’t a reprimand, not like last time. Dorian had simply drifted and Cullen had called him back. ‘Lock the door and make us hidden.’

Dorian worked a complex kind of magic that prevented the door from opening and would act as a sound barrier.

When that was done, Dorian found himself caught in a strange feeling of uncertainty. What was he supposed to do now? Kiss the beautiful man before him? Hurt him? Fight with him? He wanted to do a little of each and even more but there was no clear path.

He would let Cullen lead. That was safest, wasn’t it?

But in waiting, some of Cullen’s intensity shifted in a way that made Dorian’s skin prickle and his stomach twist. The more the silence stretched on, the more something began to grow between them. Dorian’s hands moved slowly through Cullen’s hair and only when it was far too late did he realise that he was essentially _stroking_ Cullen like a lover; carding fingers through silky soft curls and barely resisting the urge to press kisses there.

Cullen was very still, save for his somewhat laboured breathing. Beneath Dorian’s ministrations, face level with his chest as he stared up at the mage, the Commander seemed achingly young. Dorian tried to imagine that youthful, fresh-faced recruit, resplendent in his unblemished Templar armour, ready to lay down his life for the Chantry, for Ferelden and the world entire.

He stared at the scar struck across Cullen’s lips and he tried to imagine the blade that had sliced through, very nearly taking all of Cullen’s face with it. Dorian could tell by the age of the scar, how faded and thin it was, that it had been inflicted many years ago, at least eight or nine.

He ran his index finger down the length of that scar and Cullen shivered, breath catching in his throat. In the back of his mind, a voice warned Dorian that this right here, this kind of _tenderness,_ was so much more dangerous than having Cullen fuck him on the top of a castle. So much worse than angering Cullen, than taking his life in his hands with a man who despised him and had all the skills required to kill him.

Cullen blinked slowly, like he was dazed. ‘I told you to stay here.’

With another thick, heavy swallow, Dorian said in a shaky voice, ‘I _am_ here.’ It felt like a confession, though it was simple statement of fact. He was right there with Cullen. It was the only room in the world, where else would he be?

Dorian knew he should break that moment; shatter it to pieces with passion and anger and their shared inability to differentiate between the two but he was caught in it, helplessly so.

And when Cullen looked away first, that stab of pain made Dorian realise he was pursuing a new kind of risk with Cullen. Not the risk of injury or pain or even death. The worst kind of risk there was.

Cullen brought his gaze quickly back to Dorian and the mage could see the Commander was at least trying to break the trance, steeling himself for it to shatter around them both.

‘Trying to dazzle me with desire, mage?’

Dorian ignored the insulting suggestion that he needed any kind of magic to _dazzle_ fucking anyone and realised Cullen was actually trying to provoke him_. _That they had wandered into strange and unfamiliar territory and Cullen was attempting to bring them back to their more frequented state of play.

‘Is it my fault you’re easily enthralled, Commander?’ he breathed, bringing Cullen up an inch closer to his mouth, unwilling to take the bait. ‘If you truly think this is me trying to dazzle you, you’ve seen nothing yet.’

Cullen’s fingers dug into Dorian back, but it wasn’t painful, not really. They were sharing the same breaths, so close to kissing but keeping that small, crucial distance for reasons neither could contemplate. Extending the madness, stretching the moment as far as it would go. Dorian knew it would be a bad idea to kiss Cullen with anything less than violent need, but that wasn’t the only thing that kept him holding the beautiful man like this, as if he was something to be cherished.

‘Show me, then,’ the Commander husked and he sounded almost… afraid. He was waiting for Dorian to make the first move again, like that time out on the balcony. Except _this_ time, Dorian could see anticipation swirling in those whisky amber eyes instead of hatred. Cullen was not angry and Dorian hardly recognised him this way.

Fuck it all, Dorian was _going_ to show him. If Cullen wanted to be dazzled, that’s exactly what Dorian would do and yes, _fuck_ the consequences.

But something large and weighty hit the door from the outside, sending a shuddering reverberation through the room. Cullen flinched and Dorian saw something like shame flood those shockingly expressive eyes before the usual shutters slammed into place, placing Commander Rutherford squarely in charge once more.

He stepped away from Dorian without hesitation. Dorian slid off the table quickly as another, less thunderous bang came yet again. There was muffled yelling and Dorian utterly cursed whoever this was, hoping that someone was dying in the very least. Cullen dressed quicker than anyone Dorian had ever seen and without a backwards glance at the mage, he strode to the door and tried to yank it open.

Dorian shot him a patronising, doe-eyed look. ‘Locked, remember?’ He waved his hand, waggling his fingers. ‘Magic.’

Cullen waited impatiently and Dorian barely resisted the urge to play dumb and _force_ Cullen to verbally request he end the spell. Cullen seemed suddenly so irritated and angry, familiar once more but Dorian did not rejoice to see this cold, lethal exterior now he _knew_ it was, at least partially, an exterior. There was something beneath it, something Dorian had glimpsed with no true, earned right to do so but he wanted more of it, just the same.

He unravelled the magic woven into the doorway and let it fall, like cut strings, just before Cassandra almost put her fist through the wood. She was slightly out of breath, cheeks flushed. The _look_ she gave Cullen made Dorian’s inside clench horribly and he wasn’t even on the receiving end of it.

‘You’re needed,’ she said, swivelling her heated gaze onto Dorian. ‘Immediately.’

*


	11. Stay With Me

‘You’ll forgive me for saying this, Seeker, but I feel as though that _could_ have been dealt with by someone else.’

Cassandra Pentaghast narrowed her eyes at Dorian in a way that made him feel rather small. ‘The younger mages are in your charge now, are they not? A fight among them is _your _responsibility, or so I was led to believe at any rate.’

The seeker and the mage walked side by side, heading towards the great hall. Cassandra set a brisk pace and far be it from Dorian to deny her great strides, but keeping up with her was giving him a mild stitch. He resisted the urge to clutch his side and instead made a dismissive sound.

‘A _fight_? Not the word I would have chosen. A squabble maybe.’

‘When a squabble involves fire, it’s best to take the matter seriously.’

Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘I took it seriously.’

Half an hour previous, when Cassandra interrupted what Dorian was certain would have been a world-shattering experience between him and Cullen, the mage had gone with her hurriedly, expecting to see youthful mages in uproar, causing wild chaos and splitting the sky with raw, uncontrolled magics.

What he’d actually been dragged away to attend to was a mild argument between Keenan and Landon. Were it not for the accidental magic, it might have even been called a heated debate.

Neither of the boys seemed to have been previously informed that Dorian was the new Fiona. Landon was pleased. Keenan was… less pleased. Dorian had attempted to communicate the importance of control, all under the watchful and no doubt unimpressed gaze of Cassandra. With the other mages observing too, including the older ones who had gathered curiously to see how Dorian would administer punishment or wisdom, his first act had been a mild telling off and little else.

The best part, in Dorian’s humble opinion of the clusterfuck that was his first foray into being a responsible adult, was when Fiona turned up, furious and absolutely none the wiser about anything, including the downgrading of her responsibilities.

That had gone down just _swimmingly_.

But with Seeker Pentaghast by his side, Fiona hadn’t done anything besides seethe with unbridled resentment and inform Dorian that he was wholly unqualified for such a task. She simmered, however, when Cassandra dryly pointed out that the alternative was to have Vivienne at the helm.

And the whole time, Dorian hadn’t been able shake the phantom feeling of Cullen’s hair from his fingers, the way the Commander stared up at him in that strange moment before it had broken.

‘If you have _another_ moment to spare,’ Cassandra said as he swivelled into the solar, mostly on instinct, wanting to touch base with his bedroom as he often did when fractious. ‘I would like to speak with you.’

Dorian glanced around the lilac, circular room and when Solas was nowhere in sight, he sighed, ‘Very well, dear Seeker. What, pray tell, is on your mind?’

‘Firstly, I want you to know that I am not bothered in the slightest by the nature of your relationship with Cullen. I have seen soldiers in all states of emotion, walked in on couplings that encompassed violence and a level of brutality that would cause even you to flinch. War does terrible things to men and women alike. I pass no judgement.’

‘Secondly?’

_‘Secondly_, let it be known, were it not already, that I did not hold you in high regard when first you came to us,’ she told him bluntly. ‘I did not trust you. Your intentions were murky at best. You befriended the Inquisitor far too quickly. You were smug and brash and wholly dismissive of the dangers facing all of Thedas. You were fickle and wayward.’ She lifted her steely eyes to his as if warning him to contain any glib comments. ‘My opinion on each of these aspects has changed upon knowing you, Dorian,’ she said. ‘Save for the last. You _are_ fickle and you _are_ wayward and I do not think that will ever change.’

Dorian tapped his fingers on his upper arms, crossed in front of him defensively. ‘And last but not least?’

‘By now I’m sure you’re tired of people warning you that Cullen is unstable. Hawke was loudly proclaiming this very morning that you yourself declared Cullen was _not exactly at his most stable.__’ _Anger flared inside Dorian, hot and bitter and just slightly tainted with a surprising sense of betrayal. That fucking prick. Dorian would find him and set his eyebrows on fire. ‘However,’ Cassandra went on and Dorian knew that they were coming to the meat of her diatribe. ‘I think you consistently misunderstand the meaning of this warning and instead take it as some kind of…’ her mouth twisted, parsing the words. ‘_Invitation_ to pursue danger and risk. That is _not_ the warning, Dorian.’

Irritated and impatient, Dorian wished she would simply _get on_ with the business of telling him how Cullen was likely to seriously harm or perhaps even kill him and that Dorian should stay well away. He made a big show of sighing, slouching like a teenager as he waited.

She didn’t react to his insolence. ‘The Inquisition has given Cullen a measure of permanence and faith. These things may mean little to you, maybe they are even tedious to you, but to Cullen they are vital. Believe it or not, this is the most _stable_ I have ever seen him. I am concerned, not for the nature of your congress, but for what will happen to Commander Cullen when you tire of him and set him aside.’

Dorian gawked; he couldn’t help it. ‘I… _what?__’_

She didn’t flinch. ‘I’m telling you that Cullen is unstable and I worry for him when you inevitably discard him. Do you understand, Dorian?’

It was difficult to understand _anything_ beyond that fact that Cassandra was essentially stating her concern for Cullen Rutherford’s _feelings_ when and if Dorian decided to end things between them. There was so much wrong with her assertion that he barely knew where to begin. ‘Honestly, no,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I think you may have been reading one too many _novels_ by a certain dwarf we both know. Cullen is not some fucking damsel whose virtue I intend to ruin!’

His voice rang throughout the solar, causing him to wince because this was _not_ a private place for such a conversation at all.

‘I implied no such thing,’ Cassandra said immovably. ‘I am simply trying to make you see that Cullen is already in a precarious state of mind and that since you can offer him no stability, you are risking more than your own hide.’ She glanced away making a small noise of displeasure. ‘I have great respect and affection for him. He deserves better.’

Dorian tried to hide how much that hurt. ‘Better than me?’

‘Better than what this life has given him,’ she corrected sternly. ‘You don’t know Cullen very well, Dorian. _You_ pose a very real danger to _him_.’

‘Why?’

The way she paused, steely eyes weighing him up, he knew she was deciding whether or not to share something with the mage. When she clearly settled on _not_, Dorian crushed down his disappointment, the feeling seconded only by the sting that, despite everything, Cassandra _still_ did not trust him.

‘I will simply say that for Cullen, balance is important. You are not balanced and you are not consistent. Tread carefully, for his sake.’

She fell silent and in the few moments after, Dorian swallowed down the hot, sickly feeling of somehow being scolded despite the reality of the scenario proving Cassandra entirely wrong. She might have known Cullen, but she did not know Dorian fucking Pavus. Not in the slightest and despite what she’d said about _soldiers’ passion_ or whatever the fuck, she knew nothing about what was between them.

‘Well,’ Dorian chuckled coldly. ‘What an incredibly long-winded way of saying, _hurt my friend and I__’ll kill you_. It’s good to be reminded of how I’m truly perceived in these parts. People have been treating me so decently of late, I genuinely started to forget.’

Stony as ever, Cassandra said, ‘You are wilfully misunderstanding, _again_. Is it so difficult to realise that Cullen is not strong enough to withstand your mercurial nature?’

‘What is there to withstand? It’s casual sex, nothing more!’

At that, Cassandra snorted. ‘See how you demonstrate my point perfectly. To _you_, it is casual, but Cullen has never been able to _casually_ do anything. He’s never been involved with anyone like this. It is not casual for him; anyone can see that.’

Exasperated, Dorian covered his eyes with a hand and laughed thinly. ‘This is fucking madness. Is there some alternate version of the Commander running around that I simply don’t see?’

‘Like I said, you do not know him. This type of liaison may be unremarkable for you, but for Cullen, it is emphatically not and he is _unstable, _Dorian. He has come so far the last few years and the risk you pose him is inconceivable.’

‘I pose him no risk,’ Dorian said hollowly, glaring at her. ‘I’m _nothing_ to him.’

And abruptly, Cassandra seemed to tire of their conversation. ‘Well, yet again you prove me right. I can say no more, there is little point. You hear only what you want to hear. I am… saddened by it.’

Arms crossed tightly over his painfully thudding chest, Dorian sneered, ‘Well, what’s a spiteful Tevinter mage good for it not to disappoint and dismay everyone he meets?’

Cassandra’s expression softened slightly, but not with sympathy or kindness. ‘You’re going to destroy him, Dorian. I urge you to think on what I’ve said.’

She walked away in silence and Dorian watched her go. As soon as she passed through the entrance and out into the hall, Solas came inside, both hands clutching a small cup of steaming tea.

‘Were you listening?’ Dorian asked him.

‘I was _waiting_,’ Solas said, taking a seat behind his desk. ‘Perhaps, if we are building a new mage training arena, I could put in a request for someone to build a room specifically designed to host uncomfortable conversations with Dorian Pavus.’

Dorian wished he could throw some especially vicious magic at the placid apostate. He tried to make himself think of how Solas had made those potions for him, but there was a nasty ringing in his ears and a vile, burning sensation in his chest. Cassandra’s last declaration sat in his stomach like a stone, weighing him down, even though it was patently absurd.

If anyone was going to be destroyed, it was Dorian. _By_ Cullen, he might add.

‘You really shouldn’t hide your dazzling sense of humour, you know,’ Dorian said, forcing his arms to uncross that he might be capable of walking up the stairs. ‘It would greatly detract from your egg of a head.’

*

Dorian had only made it halfway up the rounded staircase when he remembered that Leliana was moving all his things into another room. He then remembered that he had no idea where the new room even _was_. He couldn’t go back the way he came, not after the egg comment, so he diverted. He had to find Lavellan, he needed to talk to her, to _someone_ who didn’t think he was evil incarnate.

As he walked blindly, unable to keep track of where he was going beyond knowing he would end up in Lavellan’s quarters sooner or later, he tried to allow himself to untangle Cassandra’s thorny warning. The woman could use a crash course in _bedside manner_, for fuck’s sake. Not that Dorian was dying or anything, but _still_. How dare she imply… whatever it was that she was implying.

But no, Dorian understood, at least abstractly, what it was she meant.

She was just _wrong_. So very wrong. How could she make any claim to knowing Cullen and think that he would be even remotely concerned if Dorian were to up and declare he didn’t want to fuck around with him anymore?

He supposed she was just looking out for her friend, at heart. Dorian wondered what Cullen would say if he knew Cassandra had spoken to Dorian about such things? He tried to imagine Cullen’s silent, absolute fury. He wished a part of him _wasn__’t_ quite so turned on by it.

When he was almost at Lavellan’s quarters, he turned a sharp corner and smacked right into a hard body. Frequency of occurrence told him it would be Cullen and so he was disappointed when it was only Hawke.

‘Watch yourself there, Splendid,’ Hawke purred in a distinctly _indoor_ voice, hands lightly brushing Dorian off as the mage righted himself. ‘You looked in a bit of a daze. Everything all right?’

Dorian stepped back more than was necessary. In truth, he didn’t _want_ to play this game with Hawke. He should never have started it. ‘Just looking for Lavellan.’

‘She’s not there,’ Hawke told him. ‘Just went up to knock myself. No answer. Though to be fair, she could be napping. I think if I was in charge of all this, I might yearn for the occasional nap now and then.’

‘Naps are revolting,’ Dorian said declared, helplessly reminded of all the lazy mid-day naps that his people indulged in back home. ‘I’ll just go and find her.’

Hawke’s arm shot out in front of Dorian, blocking the door. He stared at it, not moving.

‘Why the rush?’

‘There’s no rush.’

‘You lied to me the other night about being sick.’

‘I was run down,’ Dorian said firmly. ‘A good night’s sleep really did the trick.’

Hawke chuckled, leaning into his blockage as though it was a coincidence that he was trapping Dorian there in a dark stairwell and really, why was everyone obsessed with stairwells lately? Maybe Solas was right; maybe they needed somewhere new for Dorian to be relentlessly fucking hounded night and day when all he wanted was some sanity and a chance to feel safe with his friend.

‘So, how do you feel about being made Head Nanny to the little mages, then?’

‘Wonderful,’ Dorian answered carefully, holding his ground. If he moved back, Hawke would take it as weakness and weakness would turn him on and this was not the place to fuck around, wanted or not. Dorian didn’t have many survival instincts, it was true, but he knew with certainty that fucking around with Hawke where Cullen could potentially see was a _very bad idea_. ‘I do have things to do though, so if you don’t mind?’

Hawke didn’t retract his arm. ‘Why the rush?’

His voice had dipped. _Fuck_.

‘As you said, tiny mages to pander to.’

‘I’m sure they can do without you for half an hour.’

Dorian snorted. ‘A little ambitious for you, no?’

Far from being offended, Hawke seemed to rejoice in the innuendo, however insulting. He swiftly crowded Dorian into the wall, eyes hooded and so predatory, Dorian couldn’t help but want to look away.

He knew he had to be strong, though. Hawke was just waiting for him to bare his neck, that would be all it took. Dorian had known men like Hawke before.

‘Is that a challenge, Splendid?’

Dorian abruptly realised he hated the nickname and that in those moments, he hated Carver Hawke. It was strange, to be lavished with attention and _not_ actually want it. Dorian had always loved attention. With the previous men like Hawke, older men at his father’s parties usually, the feeling of helplessness had been a like a drug. Something to take his mind off of… everything.

He didn’t want that now. He knew it right in the core of his being. Hawke’s attention struck an off-key chord and it felt completely _wrong_.

‘No,’ Dorian said as clearly as he knew how. ‘It’s not.’

Hawke studied him, not giving an inch. Dorian didn’t lift a hand to engage him, couldn’t risk Hawke wilfully interpreting defensive magics as playful ones.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked in a baritone whisper. ‘Are you worried your Commander will come bursting in and see us?’

‘I’m sure you would love that and there is no _us_.’

‘There would be if I was fucking you.’

‘But you’re not.’

‘I could be.’

‘No.’

_‘No_?’

‘Carver, let go of me.’

‘Why?’

Dorian’s eyes were burning as he refused to blink. ‘Because I don’t want you.’

Slowly, Hawke backed off just a fraction, brow furrowed. ‘Why not?’

The answer was in the back of Dorian’s throat before he even had a chance to process it but by some _miracle_, he stopped himself in time. _‘Because_,’ he said instead of the preposterous thing he’d been about to blurt out. ‘I’m not in the mood and even if I was, I’ve no interest in being with you.’

The Champion gave Dorian a slow, cold up and down look. ‘Did I really just get snubbed for a _Templar_?’

Dorian’s hands braced against the wall behind him, a thin tremor of concern winding around his nervous system as he felt Hawke’s magic stir in response to a kind of anger Dorian knew well enough not to ignore. ‘You’ve been snubbed because I don’t do repeats.’

‘So you _didn’t_ fuck Cullen a second time?’

‘I don’t see how that remotely involves you.’

Hawke’s good humour and charm was dissolving right before Dorian’s eyes, but the mage couldn’t cower. Fear galvanised him, it always had. Pushed him onwards, made him do stupid things in the face of it.

And Dorian wasn’t helpless, far fucking from it.

‘Maybe I’m just curious.’

‘Maybe just a little more _pathetic_ than anyone realises.’

Hawke’s hand slammed into the wall right beside Dorian’s face and the blast of magic, barely curtailed, sent a wave of icy air over Dorian’s whole right side, but he didn’t flinch. He knew to show strength, not to bend or bow.

‘We can talk pathetic if you want to,’ Hawke snarled, dark eyes roving across Dorian’s face. ‘How about you being in love with a man who literally despises you?’

Dorian saw the moment play out the way he wanted it to; he would smash his magic into Hawke, shove him back and _away_ and finally give himself the space he needed to breathe because he was so sick of not being able to breathe. It would be glorious and Hawke would be _furious_ and everything would get so much worse from there. Dorian didn’t care about that. If Hawke wanted to fight, Dorian was fucking _ready_.

But…

It would draw attention. People would come. Cullen might come.

And Hawke, being furious, might let something _slip_.

So, Dorian didn’t do that, even though he wanted to kill Hawke for suggesting it. The very concept, framed by someone like Hawke, struck Dorian hard; a sharp, stabbing blow and he wished he could make the man _bleed_ for daring to say things that could end the mage’s whole world.

He controlled his magic. Forced it into shuddering obedience. Hawke leaned into Dorian’s body and the panic tightened to a mild strangle hold. What was wrong with him? It wasn’t _that_ bad. Maker, Hawke wasn’t even doing anything yet and Dorian had let all kinds of men fuck him for so much less.

Fear and arousal had _never_ been mutually exclusive… until now.

While Dorian viciously questioned himself and tried to keep himself upright and focused, a part of him spoke with a voice worryingly similar to the Commander’s and quietly suggested that he didn’t want Hawke because Hawke was _not Cullen_.

That didn’t help, not a bit. Hawke was running a hand over Dorian’s chest, seeking out skin with his fingertips but Dorian was numb and his whole body was tingling in warning that in a few seconds he was going to pass out.

_Stay here_, the voice said, soft and central, just strong enough for Dorian to hold onto. _Stay here_.

When Hawke tried to kiss him, finally something came to life. Dorian shoved as hard as could without resorting to magic. Hawke stumbled back and before he could recover, Dorian held up his arm, palm raised.

‘No,’ he panted. ‘_No.__’_

_‘_No as in…?’

‘No, as in _stay the fuck away from me_.’

Dorian wished he hadn’t been looking at Hawke when the man asked, ‘Why?’ as though he really didn’t know.

‘I don’t need to give you a reason.’

‘What, because I told Blackwall and the Qunari what you said about Cullen, is that it?’

Forcing himself not to glance at the door, the mage attempted to pull himself together. He’d done this a hundred times, gotten out of tricky situations, avoided bad things just in the nick of time. He was good at it, mostly.

‘Maybe you’re just not that interesting.’

Fuck, why couldn’t he stop antagonising him?

Hawke actually laughed at that; a kind of disbelieving chuckle like Dorian was simply playing.

‘I’m not interesting? Fucking _please.__’_

Dorian took a calming breath, reigning his body in from the verge of what he viciously denied had almost been a panic attack. ‘You told people in the hope it would get back to Cullen. It’s _dull_ as fuck, Carver. I’m not interested in your sad version of scheming and, believe it or not, I’m _not_ interested in you.’

In the silence that followed, Dorian made his legs move. This was always the worst part, having to turn his back and walk away, hoping that an attack didn’t come from behind. Adrenaline flowed steadily; senses heightened unbearably as he listened for the sound of scuffed boots to indicate approach.

Dorian was almost at the door when Hawke called out, ‘Would I be more interesting if I told you what was in his precious _letter?_’

His hand was _so close_ to the metal handle and outside, the world waited for him. Dorian would have given almost anything for the strength to open that door and keep walking. To be the kind of man who declared himself free of curiosity and obsession and the endless tangle of lies he’d spun without meaning to.

But of course he stopped.

‘You know about the letter?’ he asked, glancing back warily.

The tip of Hawke’s tongue traced the bottom of his teeth, staring at Dorian with a terrible combination of hunger and satisfaction. ‘I know more than you think, that’s for sure.’

‘What _do_ you know, then?’

Hawke shrugged and backed up one step closer to Lavellan’s room. ‘You’ll just have to convince me to tell you.’

Dorian narrowed his eyes, mind working fast. ‘You’ve heard bits and pieces, but you’re just good at reading people. You don’t actually _know_ anything, that’s what I’ll wager.’

Hawke was unflinchingly confident. ‘I watched him burn it, you know. The flower too. Took them out of a little box and set them on fire. It was quite something to see.’

_A flower?_ Was that the other item? How did Hawke even see it if he was watching from somewhere hidden? Heart lurching violently, Dorian kept his face absolutely expressionless as if this was all just a game.

Hawke went on, obviously enjoying the sound of his own voice now that he had some measure of power in play. ‘I know he thinks you read his letter.’

_Give nothing away, nothing at all. _

_‘And_ I know that Cullen is wrong because you’ve got no clue what was in that letter and now, you’re screwed.’

Staring at Hawke, Dorian quietly said, ‘What do you want?’

Carver glanced over his shoulder. ‘I want to fuck you in her room, on her bed. Then I’ll tell you everything I know.’

Dorian didn’t even consider it. ‘No.’

_‘No_? I think you misunderstand.’

‘Actually, _you_ misunderstand.’ Dorian stepped towards the man, gathering all his mettle. ‘You think you’re being clever, but really, you’re just revealing how _alone_ you are. You wander around this place and no one looks at you, so you can go anywhere and hear anything because you’re invisible. No one misses you; no one seeks you out. You have to lurk and wait and _blackmail_ me into a bed that will never be yours, in a room you’ll never own in a fortress where you’re barely even welcome. A smarter man would offer information in exchange for friendship, but you are not a smart man, Carver. You’ve just been alone for too long.’ He stopped his slow approach three feet from the Champion, lifting his hands to gesture. ‘And _please_, let me make this as clear as I know how. If you want to fuck me again, you’ll have to rape me.’

Hawke stared with something dark and pained in those brown eyes. Dorian waited for the attack, for the man to lash out, but it never came. Hawke reigned himself in, shouldered the rejection and gave Dorian a cold, dead smile.

‘You’re not _worth_ raping,’ he said as he shoved past and left the mage alone in shadows and silence.

*

There were far worse reasons to have a panic attack and Dorian was disgusted with himself for such a reaction, but there was no way to prevent it. He felt the terrible, colossal approach of a great hulking _thing_ that set up shop in his body; a formless abomination, possessing him and trying to kill him with nothing but his own fear as a weapon. His blood thickened with excess adrenaline, chest tightening and heating as though slow roasting his own heart. His lungs began to contract, vision swimming and he was utterly removed from the world, unwilling participant to an onslaught of distress manifested physically.

_You__’re_ _dying_, his body told him over and over and even though he knew abstractly that he was _not_, the sensations didn’t ease for hours.

With no bedroom to abscond to as of yet, he resorted to hiding like he’d done as a child. It was with a supreme amount of effort that Dorian got through the rest of the daylight hours without encountering _anyone _and without actually dying. His meagre luck ran dry when Sera popped her head around the door of the narrow, dark cloister he’d been holed up in for the last six hours.

‘_There_ you are!’ she declared loudly. ‘Bloody frickin’ void I’ve been looking for you all day. This where you been? Should’a known. Why you sitting on the floor?’

She crouched down in front of him and Dorian saw a sudden and unbearable amount of concern in her usually light, carefree eyes.

‘Shit,’ she said quietly. ‘What happened? Do you need someone else? Someone… not me? Shall I get Ellie?’

Dorian laughed, but it was weak. He wrapped his arms tighter around his knees. ‘I’ve fucked up, Sera.’

The elf didn’t hesitate to nod in earnest agreement. ‘Yes. Definitely. That’s sort of what you do.’ She patted his knee. ‘_But_ you’re also pretty good at fixing things, so why not let me help you?’

‘You can’t help me.’

‘I mean, don’t know till you let me try, right? I’ve got people. Skills, too.’

Dorian rubbed his eyes, wishing his hands weren’t shaking so bad. The attack had long since passed but the effects lingered on. ‘I can’t ask you to keep things from her.’

‘It’s that bad, eh?’

Dorian nodded morosely.

‘Right, well, you’re my friend. If you tell me it’s a secret or whatnot, it’s a secret. Ellie may be the big, _glowy_ one; the be all and end all, best shag I’ve ever had in my life by the way, she’s a nibbler, which I definitely didn’t expect—’

‘Making me far more queer than before, but do go on.’

‘Right, sorry - _but _that doesn’t mean I’m obligated to tell her anything unless it’s gonna endanger her or her people. Y’see?’ She sat down in front of him, crossing her legs with childlike ease. She let the closet door fall shut behind her, shrouding them in grey gloom. ‘So, come on. Tell me and it’ll go no further.’ When Dorian tried and failed to think of where to even begin, Sera sighed and asked, ‘Is it that book you nicked from Cullen?’

He nodded mutely.

‘Knew it,’ she whispered. ‘Shite prank, dead giveaway. All right so, what’s the _core_ of what you’d need to make anything remotely OK again?’

Dorian closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, trying to focus. ‘Sera, promise me this goes no further.’

‘I promise.’

‘Inside the book there was this letter and something else. Cullen was furious when he learned I stole the book and he came to take it back, but he assumed I read the letter, which I absolutely _did not_. With me?’

‘Weird, but yes, with you so far.’

‘A few days passed and things became complicated.’

‘Complicated how?’

‘I went to him, or he _found_ me looking around his room and he… expressed some sort of gratitude that I’d read his letter and hadn’t abruptly decided to have nothing to do with him.’ Gratitude was _not _the right word, but Dorian just needed her to understand the basics. ‘I didn’t correct him.’

‘So… he thinks you read his letter and he’s, what, _happy_ about it?’

‘Essentially, yes.’

Sera still seemed confused. ‘You can’t just admit you never read it because…?’

‘I lied and told him that I _had_ read it. I’ve lied to him before so he’s not going to be especially receptive to this latest deception. Plus, he… well, it obviously means something to him that I read it and still wanted anything to do with him.’ Talking about it was making Dorian break out into a cold sweat.

‘OK,’ Sera nodded to herself. ‘I can nick the letter.’

‘He destroyed it. Burned it, actually.’

‘Fuckbags. All right, what else was in the book?’

Dorian thought of what Hawke had said about a flower, but he trusted that man about as far as he could throw him. ‘Something small and dark.’

Sera chuckled. ‘A lock of your pretty hair, maybe?’ Dorian glowered and she relented. ‘All right, well look - this is big old shit show, if I’m being honest, Dor.’

‘Please don’t call me Dor.’

‘What about Ree? Rian? Orian? Oohh, that’s a good one!’

‘Sera, I’m crouched in a fucking closet, can we focus?’

‘Sorry, OK. The letter is gone. Who else read the letter?’

Dorian shifted. ‘Ellana, I think.’

Sera seemed to immediately understand that asking the Inquisitor wasn’t an option, likely because Dorian would have asked her by now himself.

‘Anyone else?’

‘Cole may have had an inkling as to what it contained,’ Dorian said as Sera winced. ‘Yes, I know - hardly the most forthcoming of people. Also, Hawke made shadowy reference to it earlier.’

‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Get him to tell you what he knows!’

Dorian’s head fell back against the wall, eyes closing. ‘He only offered the information in exchange for sex.’

‘Well,’ Sera said slowly. ‘I mean, you _like_ sex, right?’

Darkly, Dorian muttered, ‘Not with him.’

‘Maybe I could extract the information from him?’

‘How?’

‘I could string him up and tickle him till he begged to die?’

‘Tickle— no, I don’t think that will work and anyway, he’ll be on his guard now, more than before.’

Sera blew air through her teeth, looking at Dorian the way a medic usually did before they gave bad news. ‘Well, there’s one person who knows _exactly_ what’s in the letter.’

Dorian eyed her warily. ‘Who?’

‘Cullen.’

‘Fasta vass, Sera, _no_!’

‘I’m not saying ask him outright, am I? Just… do that thing where you’re all slinky—’

_‘Slinky_?’

‘— and get the information out of him while you’re banging or something. C’mon, you know you’re slinky. And he likes you. Hasn’t even murdered you or anything, despite how much you’ve been pushing your luck.’

‘He’ll see right through me and I am not fucking _slinky_.’

Sera huffed. ‘What about Leliana then? She knew Cully-Wully from before, right?’

‘She’ll tell him I was asking.’

Sera grinned. ‘Doesn’t have to be _you_ asking, though does it?’

*

‘This is the worst plan of all the plans I’ve conceived in my thus far brief but memorable visit to this realm of existence and that is really fucking saying something.’

‘Shut your trap, Ree! Keep the crystal working and it’s all gonna be sweet, right?’

‘If you call me _Ree_ one more fucking time—’

‘Pipe down! All right, here goes.’

Sera dashed off leaving Dorian shut in the same tight space that she’d found him, except this time he was gripping a sending crystal, one of a pair, heart positively thundering in his chest. This was so beyond risky but… well, he had to try something.

He could faintly make out Sera’s breathing as she walked or possibly jogged to find Leliana. Night had just about fallen and Leliana should have been back in her area, presumably close to where Dorian’s new quarters were meant to be.

He prayed to any Gods listening that this did not backfire.

In a strangely small way, as though she had been shrunk, Sera’s merry tone rang out from the crystal. ‘Lelly!’

‘Hello, Sera,’ Leliana said in what Dorian was relatively shocked to hear was a pleasant and friendly tone. ‘What can I do for you?’

Sera huffed and there was a kind of soft _whump_ which Dorian took to mean she’d sat down.

‘What _can__’t_ you do for me, babe?’

Leliana laughed musically. Dorian scowled slightly at the warm reception Sera received with literally no effort whatsoever. ‘Not much, in truth.’

‘You look good. You always look good, though. Seems like you barely age. But I digress - that’s a weird word, innit? Yeah, I actually came about Hawke.’

‘Oh?’

‘Setting aside the fact he’s an enormous dick who is clearly going to fuck up everything he touches in his short life; I have a feeling he’s trying especially hard to piss off Cullen.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘To impress Dorian, I reckon.’

‘I see. And this is my problem because…?’

‘_Because_ he was strutting around earlier mouthing off about some letter of Cullen’s. I don’t know, it’s obviously something bad, innit? Cullen wasn’t there but it’s only a matter of time before he hears about it and judging by the smug levels, reckon Hawke thinks he’s onto something big.’

Quietly, Leliana asked, ‘What did he say, precisely?’

‘He was bragging about how Cullen had more skeletons in his closet than the Deep Roads and how he knew things about him that would make Dorian’s hair turn white. Said it was about some letter.’

‘Was Dorian with you?’

‘No. Look, I don’t like all this. Shit-stirring is what it is. That fucker is here to cause problems for his own entertainment.’

‘Hmm, possibly.’

‘So, _is_ there a letter?’

‘He could be referring to any number of things, Sera.’

‘Should I tell Ellie about it, you think?’

‘That is not my place to say in the slightest. Go with your instincts.’

‘Yeah,’ Sera sighed. ‘Well, look - I just worry. Fucking void, Dorian’s got enough on his plate what with his dead Mum and all. He doesn’t need this prick causing more crap. Things are mental between him and Cullen as it is.’

‘I agree.’

‘Course you agree. I’m far too cute not to be convincing. Well. I’ll see you around then!’

‘Bid the Inquisitor a good night from me.’

‘Oooh, saucy!’

Silence rang out from the crystal for a few minutes, though it felt like _hours_ until the closet door opened to reveal Sera. She nudged Dorian aside with her knee. ‘Whassappening?’ she asked, looking down at the crystal.

‘Nothing,’ he whispered back, making room for her. They crouched down in relative darkness, staring at the faintly glowing crystal until _finally_, sound emanated from it.

‘You called for me?’ came Cullen’s voice. Dorian wondered where Sera had left the crystal, activated with a mild warming spell to replicate the sensation of touch. He hoped it wasn’t somewhere obvious.

‘Yes, I apologise for sending the bird. I know how you dislike her.’

‘It’s fine. What’s wrong?’

‘Hawke,’ Leliana said quite seriously. ‘He was apparently proclaiming things about you today, a letter of yours. Sera was concerned.’

_‘Sera_ brought this to you?’

‘Yes. She was clearly fishing for information which is unlike her, but I gave away nothing, of course.’

Cullen’s voice was faint, and yet Dorian could tell he was angry. ‘What did he say about it?’

‘Sera said nothing specific, but this is very serious. Do you believe he knows the full contents of the letter? If he does, he will need to be dealt with.’

There was an awfully long pause before Cullen said, ‘I… he’s never read it himself if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘Has he asked you about it? Anything about Kinloch?’

‘No.’

Leliana sighed. ‘Do you think Dorian could have told him?’

‘Why would Dorian tell him?’

Abruptly, Dorian felt a sick stab of dread. Cullen could easily assume Dorian _had_ told Hawke. Maker, maybe Leliana knew about Hawke and Dorian having highly pedestrian sex too. Oh fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

‘Hawke can be convincing when he needs to be. It could be a move to take your position, perhaps to undermine the entire Inquisition.’

‘Dorian wouldn’t tell Hawke,’ Cullen said so quietly Dorian barely heard it, wishing he could snap at Sera to stop breathing so loudly. ‘I do not believe he would tell anyone.’

‘That’s a little naive, Cullen. He is still a mage after all.’

‘What reason would he have to tell anyone? He doesn’t _want_ me gone.’

‘As I said, Hawke can be convincing—’

_‘No_,’ Cullen interrupted loudly. ‘Dorian wouldn’t tell him. If Hawke truly knew anything, he would have used it by now.’

‘He could be waiting for you to move against him and thwart it, frame the attack as a pre-emptive strike to tear at your integrity and standing as Commander. Hawke is many things but he is not _stupid_, Cullen.’

There was a beat of silence before Cullen said, very softly, ‘And I am?’

‘I do not think that you are stupid.’

‘Naive, then.’

‘Blinded, perhaps. Dorian is of Tevinter and however you may feel about him, he holds enormous power over you now.’

‘I didn’t hand the letter over to him.’

‘You may as well have.’

‘He _stole_ it from me!’

‘And you hid your greatest weakness in his favourite book, Cullen.’

‘How can you say that? As if I wanted him to know the worst moments of my whole fucking life?’

‘Yet he _does_ and here you remain; still engaged with him, still pursuing him. Save your outrage for Hawke, I suspect you are going to need it.’

‘It’s possible Hawke overheard me speaking to Lavellan about it last week.’

‘Did you share details with her?’

‘No, I told her nothing specific.’

‘Does she know what the letter was?’

Cullen hesitated and when he spoke, he sounded ashamed. ‘Yes.’

‘You trust her enormously.’

‘I do.’

‘Do you hold the same level of trust for Dorian?’

‘No, but—’

‘Then you’ve made a fatal mistake.’

‘He…’ Cullen hissed and made a sound of deep frustration. ‘He still came to me, even after what he learned. I do _not_ believe he would betray me. There would be no gain for him, not really. He loves Ellana; he supports her vision for the future of the Inquisition.’

‘You have placed us all in a most untenable position by keeping it, Cullen. You should have burned it years ago.’

‘I know.’

‘The least you could have done was hide it with any measure of dedication. If there is even a slim chance that Dorian has _accidentally_ told Hawke anything, the man will not rest until he has your past laid bare and he will use it to his advantage, no matter the cost.’

‘Dorian would not do that.’

_‘Cullen_,’ Leliana said in an almost pitying voice. ‘I expect more from you. Dorian could have given Hawke the essence of it without revealing anything specific, including the part pertaining to himself. He could also have _only_ told Hawke that part. That would give Hawke almost as much leverage over you as the details of Kinloch.’

‘What do you want from me?’ Cullen demanded tightly. ‘You want me to sit here and agree with you, lend consideration to an idea which I do not believe to be true? Yes, it was stupid and reckless to have kept it, but it was _necessary_, Leliana. I wish it hadn’t been necessary but it was. It was the only thing that…’ Cullen trailed off and Dorian could hear him exhale forcefully, seeking to calm himself. ‘Dorian is capable of loyalty. If not to me, then to Lavellan. He would die before he betrayed her.’

‘He is easy to manipulate.’

Cullen huffed bitterly. ‘He is _not_, believe me.’

‘You only say that because he has infiltrated your defences. I have been watching him very carefully the last month and I can say concretely that he is not immune to Hawke’s charms.’

‘What does that mean?’

The mage was holding his breath without realising it, staring at that little crystal as though it held all of Thedas together. A horribly long silence stretched on and _on_ until Leliana spoke.

‘Would you be hurt if Dorian had slept with him?’

Dorian’s nervous system jolted as though plunged into ice water.

‘Did… did that happen, then?’

‘Answer my question.’

‘Answer _mine_!’

‘Cullen, we have been over this. Dorian is a Tevinter mage from a family of Magisters; slave owners, barely an improvement on the ones who chained and mutilated Fenris.’

‘_Leliana!_’

‘I have offered repeatedly to find suitably discreet people who accept coin in exchange for the kind of interactions you require.’

‘And I’ve told you _repeatedly_ that such offers are repulsive to me, now answer the fucking question!’

Sera’s hand intertwined with Dorian’s, though he barely felt it.

‘No,’ Leliana said after a beat or two. ‘I know nothing of any such occurrence. Behold your _relief_, Commander, assured of your darling mage’s fealty.’

Cullen’s voice was quiet and shaken. ‘There’s no need to insult me to such a degree. No one is more disgusted with me than myself.’

This time when Leliana spoke, she sounded regretful. ‘I… do not mean to insult you, my friend. I am concerned and unable to comprehend the level of involvement between you both, that is all. He has affected a great deal of change in you. I hardly recognise you, sometimes.’

Cullen said nothing and Leliana went on, artfully shifting the subject back to one of necessity. ‘Well, we must first ascertain if Hawke truly knows anything. I can pull him into obscurity for a night.’

‘And then what? You can’t torture the Champion of Kirkwall.’

‘I have potions at my disposal. He’ll remember nothing and I can draw truth from him as easily as asking his name.’

‘No,’ the Commander said wearily. ‘You shouldn’t take the risk.’

‘Cullen, if he knows about what you did—’

‘Then he would not be brandishing it about, as you said. If he truly knew, he would be better served coming to me directly. This way, he’s only made himself a target. No, there is something _else_ at play here.’

‘Such as?’

‘I… don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.’

‘I will look into the matter without taking immediate action, then. You should speak with Hawke, in a friendly manner if you can stomach it. He leaves with Lavellan tomorrow.’

‘I will try. Do you know who she’s taking with her?’

Leliana’s soft voice became amused when she said, ‘Dorian is not accompanying her; he’s staying behind to train with you and the mages, remember?’

‘I wasn’t… I simply wanted to know if Cole was going along. The boy can be useful sometimes. We could utilise his insight to learn more about Hawke.’

‘An atrocious attempt to save face and using Cole is too risky when we ourselves are guarding secrets.’

Cullen’s voice was heavy. ‘You’re right. Cole already knows too much. Lavellan has been attempting to educate him about the nature of secrets and privacy, but there have been times when he’s looked directly at me and said things that make it clear he knows a great deal. I’m sorry for this, Leliana. I know I’ve made things difficult for you. If I truly thought my leaving would make things any easier, I would already be gone.’

‘No,’ she said and Dorian could tell she was smiling. ‘I would miss your scowl.’

He laughed. It was unguarded and gentle. Something in Dorian’s chest _pulled_ and twisted, both wishing to be, and knowing he never would be, the reason Cullen laughed like that.

‘Plus, who would you send your most vicious bird to in the dead of night?’

‘That bird only dislikes you because you ignore her until she pecks.’

‘I will go to Hawke now. Has he taken a room yet?’

‘No, he still wanders. Lavellan maintains that he never actually sleeps. I must find Dorian and show him to his new room. The mages are settling in well, overall.’

‘With that lying bitch away from them, I’ve no doubt they’ll flourish.’

‘I should have listened more closely when you voiced your concern about Fiona, months back,’ Leliana sighed. ‘She turned out to be just as you said.’

‘Perhaps if I hadn’t been ranting, it would have been easier to listen.’

There was the sound of scraping chairs on stone. ‘Before you leave, I wanted to ask something else,’ Leliana said, her voice sounding further away than before.

‘Hmm?’

‘I know you’ve not been using Lyrium.’

‘Well observed, Spymaster.’

‘And yet your constitution is much improved. Are you taking herbal remedies?’

‘I am not. Perhaps the Lyrium’s hold is waning at last.’

‘Lyrium can take years to fully leave the host.’

‘And your point?’

‘Only that you look well, my friend.’

Dryly, Cullen said, ‘As opposed to how I usually look?’

‘Honestly, yes.’ Their voices began to fade and Dorian strained to hear. ‘Perhaps we have your mage to thank.’

‘Dorian is not…’

Silence fell and crystal dimmed with nothing to send anymore. Dorian’s entire body was rigid and still. His hand not clutching the crystal was wrapped firmly in both of Sera’s. He forced himself to look away from the small instrument, wincing when reality trickled in and brought with it a creaking agony up his back and down his legs from sitting in such a cramped position.

‘Well,’ he said, ending the spell and severing the connection.

Sera shook her head and gave him a sad kind of smile. ‘Shit.’

*

Allowing Leliana to find him after Sera left was a simple matter and Dorian employed all his mastery in keeping himself cool and aloof. The Spymaster was her usual placid, assured self as she briefly showed him the new dorm for his charges and then upward to the top part of the tower where all his things had been moved.

The room, at least compared to his last one, was huge. It was a perfect, full circle, the ceiling reaching up into a cone with a large candelabra in the centre, bathing the room in light. His bed looked almost comically small where it had been placed and Dorian knew right away, he would need a new larger bed to help fill the room properly.

There was, as Cullen had said, a small balcony that led outside through a narrow pair of glass framed double doors. The balcony itself was sturdy and quite little, barely big enough for Dorian to stand outside but it was so beautiful, it made his heart ache. He griped the wrought iron sides and stared out at the pitch black of Thedas in shades of night, breathing in the cold air and he felt… still.

The bathing area, however, was just about the best thing Dorian had ever seen and he could hardly contain his elation because he had his own _bath_ now and, unlike the balcony, it was not small by any standard.

It was not a freestanding bath; it was literally built into the floor of the room like a smaller version of the baths in lower Skyhold. A kind of stone pool with two wide steps leading down. The concavity was bigger than the double bed Dorian was planning to have brought in. The steps on either side lead down into where the water would be, intended as seats. The middle and lowest part of the bath was deep enough that Dorian knew he wouldn’t be able to sit without the water rising above his chin. It wasn’t big enough to swim in, not by a long shot, but he would be able to lay back and fully extend his arms and legs. He would be able to submerge himself completely if he wanted to.

Before she’d left, Leliana had reminded him that tomorrow at dawn (fucking _dawn!_) the training drills would begin between mages and soldiers but Dorian had waved her away, much too concerned with the haphazard state of all his beautiful things.

He spent the next hour or so carefully and painstakingly arranging his belongings into a pleasing semblance of order and decor. It was important to him that the room be _Dorian__’s_ room and not just a room for Dorian. His mother had gone to great trouble to send his things to him since his stay in Skyhold and even some things that she’d simply known her son would love. A pair of green and black velvet curtains with an intricate pattern of silver studs, in particular. Dorian hung those himself across the glass doors leading out to the balcony. There was box that had obviously been brought in by mistake; it bore the words _raw materials; caution_ along the side of the wood and a cursory glance inside revealed what seemed to be cleaning rags. Dorian set it aside for the time being and got to work. He moved his furniture, spread it out and made clear, defined _areas. _Sleeping, working, relaxing, bathing.

By the time someone knocked, he was almost done.

‘Oh,’ he said, surprised to see the oldest boy from the younger mage dorm standing outside of his door with a guarded expression and a book. The book, it required Dorian only a split second to realise, was _T__he__ Watchful Ambler, _Cullen’s copy, or his copy now as he would likely never give it back. ‘Hello.’

‘You left this,’ the boy, Keenan, said quite awkwardly. He held out the book and waited. Dorian was tired and fraught and fucking drained beyond anything he’d felt for years, but… but the boy had come for a reason.

‘Come in?’ Dorian said, politely stepping aside to offer entry. He didn’t take the book right away and was pleased when Keenan stepped inside. ‘I’ve almost finished unpacking. How is your new dormitory?’

‘Bigger,’ Keenan said, looking around. ‘Not as fancy as this, though.’

Dorian left the door slightly ajar, not wanting the young man to feel trapped or obligated to stay. ‘Can I offer you… hmm, I don’t actually think I have anything except stolen wine.’

‘I’m fine,’ Keenan said. ‘We ate earlier.’

Dorian frowned and unnecessarily plumped a cushion. ‘Do you eat in your dorm?’

‘Yeah, we always have.’

‘Starting tomorrow, I think you should eat in the hall with everyone else.’

‘Fiona always said we should pretend we’re not here.’

Dorian turned to face Keenan with a determinedly level expression. ‘Fiona was a good woman who clearly cared about you all, but she didn’t… always make good decisions.’

Keenan eyed Dorian coolly. ‘And you will?’

‘I’m going to try. Tomorrow, you and the others will be very much free to eat in the hall with me and everyone else.’

‘And _everyone else_ will be fine with us being there?’

‘I think it’ll be clear right from the off that the local entertainment around here is _me_ and the shit-show that is my personal life. No one will look at you twice.’

Dorian hadn’t meant to say it, but he was still jittery from the panic attack and humour, however poor, was his go-to. Keenan actually snorted a little but he didn’t quite crack a smile.

‘I’ll tell the others, see what they say.’

‘I appreciate that, Keenan. Thank you for bringing my book back.’

Keenan held it out again and this time Dorian took it. ‘It’s not really yours, though, is it?’

‘Sorry?’

‘The book. Commander Rutherford’s name is in the front.’

‘Oh yes,’ Dorian chuckled. He put the book in the middle of his bookshelf in his _study_ area. ‘It is, isn’t it?’ He turned back to Keenan. ‘I may have stolen that too.’

A bubble of silence began to grow. Keenan’s shoulders dropped before he spoke, his face closing off slightly.

‘I killed Bayren,’ he said bluntly. ‘I was the one who killed him and if anyone is going to be punished—’

‘Then it should be you,’ Dorian finished. Keenan seemed surprised, but nodded all the same. ‘Because you single-handed killed a desire demon who had taken over your friend’s body.’

‘I did.’

‘That’s very impressive, if true. How old are you, Keenan?’

‘Almost nineteen.’

‘Where are you from?’

The boy’s expression remained flat. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘Because it’s easier to disassociate yourself from the past and not give anything away to people who mean to hurt you. I respect that.’ Dorian ran a hand through his hair and sighed. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I know I want to help you all. You don’t have to be honest with me, you don’t have to tell me anything about yourself but I do want you to tell me when you need something. If what happened to Bayren happens again, come and get me right away. You shouldn’t have to kill your friends.’

‘It’s happened before in the Circles,’ Keenan said quietly. ‘It’s not my first time dealing with things like that.’

‘Well, let’s hope that’s the last.’

Keenan stared at the floor. ‘Am I going to be punished or not?’

‘No, of course not. You killed a demon. There’s no crime.’

‘I hid it.’

‘Fiona _told_ you hide it.’ Wide eyes met Dorian’s and the mage knew he hadn’t been expecting that. ‘You don’t have to say anything. Just know, I’m _not_ Fiona. I’m not going to hide you all away unless you want to be hidden. There’s a possibility that things can change here. The Inquisitor wants this alliance to be built upon freedom and trust.’

‘And you want that too?’

‘I’ll be honest with you Keenan, what I want is to try out my new bath and then get very drunk. In that precise order, too. I think if I get drunk _before_ the bath, I’m in real danger of drowning.’

Still no smile, but Dorian sensed that it was a near thing. ‘If there _is_ to be punishment—’

‘There won’t be.’

‘Right, but—’

‘Keenan, I understand. There’s not going to be any punishment, however, if there is for any future transgressions, consider yourself the representative for everyone younger than you. How’s that?’

Keenan toed the ground, visibly tense. ‘Thank you.’ Dorian floundered for a moment, trying to think of ways to be reassuring and kind while also debating if he should just let the boy leave. ‘I have to tell you something.’

Dorian straightened immediately, carefully schooling his features into neutrality. ‘You can tell me anything.’

‘There’s an issue in the dorm.’ Dorian immediately wanted to seek clarification but he made himself wait and simply listen. Keenan heaved a sigh and kept his gaze down. ‘One of the… actually, can I tell you about it tomorrow? It’s complicated and I don’t want to leave the others on their own too long. First night in a new place is always rough on someone.’

‘No, of course,’ Dorian said, hiding his disappointment well. ‘Tomorrow is fine and Keenan? Whatever it is, I’m here to help, no matter what.’

‘Thanks again,’ he told Dorian before giving a polite nod and letting himself out. Dorian’s shoulders sagged and he thought of all the different ways in which he could have handled that. Fuck, this was difficult.

He finished the last of what needed to be arranged and then paused to look around. The newness was incredibly invigorating. Dorian filled the bathtub with ice and then melted it into water. He was about to heat it, when someone knocked on the door again.

Half expecting it to be Keenan, back to confide in Dorian, the mage answered, ‘Come in,’ instead of being honest and telling whoever it was to fuck off because Maker damn it, he really wanted a bath.

When Cullen walked slowly inside, Dorian forgot all about the bath.

‘Oh,’ he said, getting to his feet from beside the bathing area. ‘You.’

Cullen _almost_ smirked. ‘Me,’ he agreed. ‘You like the room.’ It wasn’t a question, not at all. The Commander walked around slowly after closing the door behind him. ‘You’ve settled in quickly.’

Dorian felt the urge to make some snippy comment but he was tired, so _tired_ of being snippy. His energy for hatred and sarcasm were worn low and while he was certain they would both be fully restored tomorrow, just then he was lacking the weapon needed to properly spar with Cullen Rutherford.

‘Well, you’re going to be terribly disillusioned, but I’m actually not—’

‘You put my book in the middle.’

‘Pardon?’

‘My book,’ Cullen clarified, index finger tracing down the dark red spine of _The Watchful Ambler_. ‘It’s in the middle.’

Dorian squinted at Cullen. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly.

‘That’s where it was before, in my quarters. Dead centre.’

‘I suppose so. I didn’t really think about it.’

Cullen didn’t take the hint. ‘You clearly did. The books are arranged by colour, there’s a design,’ he said, pointing unnecessarily to the rest of the books while Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘All your reds are over here. My book isn’t.’

Oh, but the urge to tell Cullen it wasn’t _his_ book anymore was powerful and only with heroic restraint did Dorian force himself to comment, ‘Hmm,’ instead of verbalising his claim of ownership.

‘I suppose as well,’ Cullen continued, finally turning away from the meticulously organised bookshelves. ‘You put it there because you intend to read it tonight and this way, it’s easier to find.’

Cullen’s stare was a heavy thing and Dorian sought refuge by glancing down at his fingernails. ‘That seems reasonable.’

‘Do you want me to leave?’

‘I… no.’

‘If you tell me to leave, I will.’

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘I’m just… I’m not myself. I can’t give you what you want, not tonight.’

Cullen stepped closer. ‘What do you think I want?’

_Everything_. Cullen always wanted everything from him; took whatever Dorian could give and everything else on top. ‘I’m not in the mood to play _fuck me up_, Commander. Sorry to disappoint.’

Dorian was alarmed to realise, upon looking up, that Cullen was suddenly very close and that his inscrutable expression was becoming more and more _scrutable_ as time wore on. Dorian fought the urge to move back because Cullen wanted what he couldn’t give and the mage didn’t want to _see_ the man visibly disenchanted when he realised it.

‘It’s not why I’m here,’ Cullen said, slowly reaching up with one hand. It seemed purposefully slow, to give Dorian the time to slap it away if he so desired. ‘I came to see you.’

Dorian didn’t believe him. ‘What for?’

‘Just to see you.’

Taking a step back, Dorian shook his head. ‘No, this is unfair. I don’t… you should leave.’

He expected Cullen to sigh with frustration and walk away. He was already planning on how to console himself, how to blot out the image of Cullen’s too-expressive eyes. Being a step ahead was always a solid approach when one was this disaster prone.

Except Cullen didn’t even move and he didn’t seem frustrated. ‘If you want me to leave, tell me to go and I will, but I don’t want anything from you that you’re not capable of giving. I would not ask that.’

‘What are you asking, then?’

Cullen began to walk slowly around the room while he considered his answer. ‘I find myself wanting to be here with you,’ he spoke at length.

‘_Why?__’_

At the glass doors, Cullen turned and shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, rather nonchalantly. ‘You like the balcony, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Dorian admitted unwillingly, watching Cullen with no small amount of distrust. ‘It’s… nice.’

‘I thought you would like it,’ Cullen said, opening the doors. An icy breeze flooded the room, sending a couple of the candles flickering but it stabilised after a few seconds. Cullen’s eyes closed and he seemed to simply bask in the cold air. Dorian thought of the hole in Cullen’s roof.

‘Yes, I like it fine,’ Dorian said, forcefully blunt. His patience was fraying and part of him wished he’d just slipped into the role right away, even if it didn’t feel right that night. He should have just given Cullen what he wanted the same way he should have given _Hawke_ what he wanted. ‘Look, if you want to—’

‘You didn’t open the box,’ Cullen said, speaking over him again which grated on Dorian, set his teeth on edge until he realised what Cullen was saying. ‘The box,’ Cullen repeated, indicating to the box of rags on the floor by his desk.

‘It’s not mine.’

‘I should have had it marked more clearly,’ Cullen said his voice turned distinctly gruff. ‘It was the only one laying around at the time. It’s the chess set. I had it packed up and sent here, so… yes, it’s the chess set.’

Dorian put his hand over his eyes, trying not to get angry. ‘What?’

‘I thought—’

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘Dorian—’

‘You can’t do this,’ the mage said raggedly. ‘This has to stop, all right? This isn’t what you… what I need or even remotely…’ he trailed off when it became difficult to breathe again. _Not again, please not again_. ‘This isn’t right.’

‘Dorian, stop.’ Cullen was in front of him again and Dorian was too cowardly to open his eyes. Cullen took his hands, he had to pull them apart because they were clutched together hard enough to make Dorian’s fingers numb. The Commander rubbed his thumbs soothingly over the thin skin covering the bones of clever, magical fingers and he said, ‘Breathe slowly. Please, stay with me.’ The mage’s eyes flew open and he stared at Cullen in disbelief. ‘I know a panic attack when I see one,’ Cullen said, a small crease of concern between his painfully beautiful eyes. ‘Come and sit down.’ He led Dorian over to the bed and lowered him to the edge. ‘Lean forward,’ he instructed. ‘Let your head drop down. It’ll stop you from passing out.’

‘I’m fine,’ Dorian mumbled, even as he obeyed. The man was rubbing his back in firm, wide circles.

‘Yes, you are,’ Cullen agreed, despite the scene in which they found themselves. ‘Everything is fine.’

Blood rushed back to Dorian’s head and the faint dizzy feeling was held at bay. It became easier to breathe after a few moments, but when Dorian tried to sit up, mortified beyond the telling of it, Cullen’s hand prevented it.

‘Another minute,’ the Commander said and continued to rub Dorian’s back. ‘You’re doing well.’

‘You shouldn’t—’

‘Yes, I _know_,’ Cullen said crisply. ‘But here we are.’

Dorian fell silent at that and waited until Cullen’s hand told him it was all right to sit up again. When he did, Cullen didn’t move away and now, fucking _now_, they were just sitting side by side on Dorian’s bed like friend or… _lovers_ or something equally ridiculous.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What for?’

He shrugged and realised Cullen was holding his hand. Why did everyone always hold his hand? Probably because his life was nothing but a total wreck. He looked down at the connection between them wondering how any of this could be real.

‘You should leave.’

Cullen inhaled slowly and after a moment, he nodded and untangled his hand from Dorian’s. He got up and headed for the door without looking back and something terrible and so fucking _traitorous_ crescendoed inside Dorian, screaming in protest of the punishment.

‘Wait, I’m… just wait.’ The Commander paused by the door and Dorian closed his eyes, letting himself accept that he was giving into his _weakness_ and _shame_ and that Cullen would hold it against him no different than a blade but… fuck, he was just so tired and anything, _anything_ Cullen had to offer him, he would take. ‘Don’t go.’

Dorian made himself stand even though his legs were weak and wobbly. He closed the distance between them, barely able to take in his surroundings with the effort it required to walk in a straight line. Cullen turned just as Dorian made it to him and he wasted no time whatsoever. He grabbed Cullen’s face and dragged it into a kiss.

Cullen didn’t respond at first and that was good because it made Dorian angry enough to _want_ to hurt him. Familiar ground was desperately needed. But when he began to kiss Dorian back, it wasn’t painful or bruising, it was slow and so very fucking dangerous. It was the kind of kiss Dorian knew would have happened in the War Room earlier, before things had become that much more complicated. Dorian fiddled with the clasp to his mantle and removed it, letting the garment slide off Cullen’s shoulders down to the ground. Cullen’s hands slid around Dorian’s back and pulled the mage into him, groaning softly and this had been a terrible idea because Dorian was anchor-less and adrift, helpless but to enter Cullen’s slipstream and go where he was led.

A distressed sound escaped Dorian’s lips and Cullen drew back, _seeing _the mage in a way that was utterly disquieting. Cullen thumbed away tears Dorian didn’t even realise he’d been crying and held him close.

‘What do you want?’ Cullen asked, quiet and hoarse, studying Dorian intently.

It was the truth when Dorian replied, ‘I don’t know.’

The fingers that had wiped away his tears slid into Dorian’s hair; a move both gentle and possessive enough that it made Dorian’s eyes flutter slightly.

‘Let me…’ the words caught in Cullen’s throat; he shook himself and spoke again. ‘Let me give you what you need.’

‘Why?’

‘Dorian.’

‘Why do you want to give me anything? Why do you say my name like that? Why are you here? Why do you _care_?’

Cullen’s hands moved through Dorian’s hair, stroking him the way Dorian had in the War Room. His gaze was so intent, so full of _feeling_ but his words came out tight and controlled, verging on purposefully rigid.

‘Can’t it just be enough that I _do_ care?’

‘Tell me _why_?’

The Commander’s eyes fell shut and he pressed his forehead to Dorian’s. His voice broke slightly on the last word when he said, ‘You already know why.’

Dorian’s heart jack-knifed painfully; a physical wrench inside his ribcage. He forced himself not to react because his reaction would be to _cry_. It was too much. It had been a month of _too much_ and now he had no idea what he was doing anymore. Living moment to moment, his well-crafted defences crumbling before him and all that remained was a paper wall, built by all Dorian’s deceptions and determination to lie even when the truth wouldn’t have been so bad.

And so, despite knowing that the risk was potentially catastrophic, Dorian couldn’t help but say, ‘Tell me anyway?’

‘Is that what you want?’ Cullen said, tipping Dorian’s chin back and exposing the line of his throat, fingers tracing the place where sometimes he would sink his teeth into the mage. ‘For me to say it?’

Oh, sweet Maker, now he was dizzy for a whole other reason but it didn’t matter. Dorian was never going to be able to survive Cullen; his chances were always low but now he knew this was the thing that would kill him. Cullen was going to say something to him and it was going to be the end of his whole world when Cullen _inevitably_ realised that Dorian was nothing but a fucking fraud.

‘No,’ Dorian whispered, swallowing thickly, almost disappointed that he still had enough sensibility to keep from self-destructing completely. ‘I a-already know, like you said.’

Cullen kissed him then, but it wasn’t the kind of kiss that would lead to sex. He kissed him, it seemed, just for the pleasure of it, just to tell him what words couldn’t and Dorian wished he wasn’t starting to learn this language. He wished he didn’t know anything _about_ this man, kissing him like they had all the time in the world. Wished he could convince himself it was a game, _anything_ but the truth. Cullen’s teeth dragged softly over his lower lip where he would usually tear and bite; it was teasing, _loving_ and Dorian had never allowed himself to think that word before but it was undeniable. He felt every bit Cullen’s _darling mage,_ as Leliana had teased. Cullen left him no alternative, no other conclusion to draw from the attention he was receiving.

‘You’re cold,’ Cullen said, breathless and soft. Dorian was shaking, but it wasn’t from the chilly air. ‘Come, I’ll make you warm.’

Cullen led him by both hands to the bath and there, he stripped Dorian’s clothes away piece by piece. He undressed Dorian with a growing ease born of familiarity. Dorian had never been with anyone enough times for them to _learn_ how to undress him because he always wore complex, daring outfits and they always encompassed a whole lot of buckles. Cullen’s fingers were confident and deft, undressing Dorian and shedding all the exterior layers before gently pulling the mage down to his knees.

‘Use your magic,’ he said, voice barely above a whisper. It was reverent and full of quiet anticipation that Dorian didn’t understand because Cullen hated magic, didn’t he?

Strong fingers wrapped around the base of Dorian’s palm, he lowered it into the freezing cold water and held them both there, waiting for Dorian. The magic was easy; fire had always come naturally and Dorian let it flood from his palm into the water, instructing it, heating without vaporising. Cullen never flinched, never pulled back even when Dorian made the water hotter than was usually bearable. Dorian had always loved scalding water, could never abide a bath that was lukewarm, not when he had a choice in the matter. Dorian looked at their hands beneath the water; Cullen hadn’t let go the entire time. It must have hurt.

‘Very good,’ Cullen praised intently.

He guided Dorian down into the water, staying by the edge himself. It was burning, perfect bliss. Dorian’s skin vibrated in warning that the water was too hot to bear, but he ignored it, knew it would adjust. The heat consumed him, took away each cold ache and melted every splinter of sadness and disgust and self-loathing. He felt reborn, at ease… and Cullen was there for all of it.

Dorian didn’t sit on the intended seating area, he went straight to the centre and dropped beneath the steaming surface. Sound and vision ceased; he was submerged in darkness and silence. _Safety_, it felt like and above, Cullen waited for him.

When he came up for air, his body felt almost like normal again, though he was still too tired to let himself feel properly ashamed. He was laid bare and stripped of everything.

‘Better?’ Cullen sat directly beside the edge of the water, legs in a straight line before him, leaning back slightly on his hands.

Dorian nodded, not trusting himself to speak just then. The water was so perfect and he wasn’t alone. It was more than he’d allowed himself in many years; a degree of comfort he was not used to. His body adjusted to the scalding heat and finally… _finally, _he began to level out.

‘Shall I stay?’ Cullen asked, watching Dorian while exuding a sense of ease that had no place in this realm, let alone Dorian’s _room. _

Dorian should have told him it was fine to leave now and give the status quo the time it needed to regrow between them, but instead, he nodded again and slowly lifted his hand out of the water, determinedly not looking Cullen in the eye when he extended it in invitation.

Cullen sat forward and stared while Dorian waited for the inevitable clearing of a throat, gruff excuses to leave and be elsewhere, attending to things that actually mattered.

Except yet again, _no. _

The Commander pulled his shirt over his head and kicked his boots off, making slow but sure work of stripping naked before he lowered his feet into the water. Dorian watched, fascinated to the extent of an almost dreamlike quality, as Cullen cautiously dipped himself into the water, wincing at the temperature. Dorian supposed he’d never been in a bath like this; only mages could make the water this hot and _keep_ it so.

Cullen took a steadying breath before he ducked his shoulders under, but not his head. Dorian watched him adjust to the heat, saw the moment it went from painful to bearable to wonderful. He didn’t crowd Dorian, he was simply _there_ in the water with him, looking at the mage like…

Dorian didn’t even know. No one had ever looked at him like that before.

‘I knew you’d like the room.’

_Don_ _’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it. _

‘I love it.’

Cullen smiled. It was a real smile, nothing flashy or wide just as though he was just happy that Dorian was happy. Dorian was past trying to preserve himself, unable to maintain defences or survival instincts any more. He smiled back, a little uncertain but with genuine feeling. It felt like a monumental thing and maybe it was.

‘Appeals to your vanity, I suppose.’

Dorian chuckled. ‘It will _aid_ my vanity, I assure you.’

Cullen moved his hands through the water, watching as he made little waves and ripples. He seemed somewhat fascinated as he lifted his hand from the bath and curled his fingers, observing the steam that emanated from his skin. They were at least three feet apart, separated only by water and the still quietness of the room. The doors of the balcony were still open, letting in all that fresh, frozen air that Cullen apparently loved to breathe, but Dorian found he didn’t mind, wasn’t cold at all. The water gave him all the heat he needed. They could leave the doors open all night if that was what Cullen wanted.

_All night_. It didn’t feel like a presumption.

When Cullen’s eyes returned to Dorian, he mirrored his growing sense of desire. Dorian was calm enough now, _centred enough_, to take in the fact that Cullen Rutherford was sharing a hot bath with him utterly naked. It didn’t feel dirty or wicked. Instead, it awakened a need unlike anything Dorian had ever felt before.

And if it was going to kill him at some point in the future, then bring it the fuck on. Dorian didn’t care.

‘You’re exquisite when relaxed,’ he told Cullen and slowly moved back until he found the lower step. He sat upon it, shoulders barely above the surface. Cullen studied the space between them, his skin red and flushed from the heat of the water. When he looked back at Dorian, there was something writ large upon his features.

_Yes,_ he seemed to say. _We can play it this way. _

It didn’t feel like playing anymore, though.

‘Come to me,’ Dorian bade, unable to take his eyes off of the man before him, this man who had clearly never experienced the joys of scalding hot water. ‘And I’ll give you everything you want.’

It seemed to be a little too much for Cullen, who swallowed and took a short, steadying breath. Dorian marvelled at his reaction to kindness, although kindness _really_ wasn’t the word.

Cullen moved through the water, keeping his shoulders beneath the surface until he was right in front of Dorian, mere inches between them now. His heartbeat was strong enough to create ripples of its own and Dorian couldn’t help but stare. He placed his hand over Cullen’s chest, feeling that pounding rhythm, strong and fast beneath his palm. It could have simply been the heat of the water, but Dorian let himself think that maybe it was _him. _

He pulled Cullen onto his lap, feeling the man’s hardness against him and Cullen began to breathe a little faster. ‘Tell me what you want,’ Dorian whispered, smoothing Cullen’s hair back from his sweaty forehead.

Cullen swallowed again; pupils blown wide. ‘You know what I want.’

But Dorian was having none of that; could not shoulder the weight of hidden things between them and though he wasn’t able to give Cullen the truth, he couldn’t help but demand it from the beautiful man currently wrapped around him. Everything was finite, he knew that. This, with Cullen, it would end soon and it would end _terribly_ but… just then, it didn’t matter.

So, the mage brought Cullen even closer, their skin pressing wetly, hearts beating together. ‘Say it then.’ The blonde’s eyes closed tightly as a kind of pained expression blended unbearably with his lust. ‘Stay with me,’ Dorian said, trailing his fingers down Cullen’s neck and over his shoulders, down his well-built arms and all the way to his hands where Dorian intertwined them both. ‘And say it.’

Cullen looked at Dorian and said, ‘I want _you_.’

Dorian smiled. He was lost, so fucking lost to this man. He would never find his way back to being _Just Dorian_ ever again and he simply didn’t care. ‘I’m yours, Cullen. You know I am.’

Cullen’s legs wrapped around Dorian as much as he could manage, plastering himself against the mage. ‘I want you inside me,’ he whispered against Dorian’s ear. _‘Please_.’

The word threatened to wreck all Dorian’s self-control, but he held steadfast to what remained because otherwise he was going to say _all kinds_ of stupid things. Maybe he didn’t care about himself anymore, but… fuck it all to void, he cared about Cullen and _some_ restraint was needed for his sake.

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, helplessly grinding up against Cullen, jaw slack. ‘Whatever you want.’

They were both rubbing off on each other now, Cullen making delicious little moans every few seconds, his hands braced on Dorian’s shoulders and _fuck_, the world could have been ending right outside and Dorian wouldn’t have cared. This was _everything_; the actual totality of everything.

‘Fuck me,’ Cullen begged and Dorian’s eyes rolled, couldn’t help it because _that_ was never, ever leaving his mind.

One hand working Cullen’s cock, slow and teasing, his other hand went around to Cullen’s entrance, index finger circling the hot flesh before slipping inside. Cullen arched slightly, head tipping back as he let out a breathy sound from the base of his throat unlike anything Dorian could ever have imagined this man, this beautiful man, was capable of making.

‘You want my magic inside you, don’t you?’ Dorian breathed and Cullen crashed his mouth to the mage’s, unable to hold himself back. The kiss was wild and desperate and just this side of painful, but not physically. There was an incredible undertow of _feeling_ in everything now. Bittersweet bliss and agonising wonder as Dorian pushed another finger inside Cullen, the man’s tongue twining desperately with his and he generated the slickness that wasn’t really necessary. Cullen sobbed when he felt it and ground himself harder against Dorian’s hand, his control evaporating fast.

‘Please,’ he kept saying against Dorian’s mouth. ‘Dorian, please, please!’

Dorian wanted to wait a few seconds longer, or at least he knew he _should_ because despite their dynamic being entirely centred around pain, he still didn’t want to hurt Cullen, not this way. He wanted him to be more than ready, for it to be only absolute, perfect pleasure when he was at last inside of him.

But Cullen was apparently done waiting. He reared himself up, breaking their kiss and reaching behind to guide Dorian’s cock into himself. The feeling was _excruciatingly_ beautiful, a kind of all-consuming pleasure that threatened the basis of everything Dorian had ever believed in. Cullen was tight and demanding, taking all of Dorian, taking every inch of him. Dorian’s head fell back and Cullen’s mouth plundered his neck, sucking instead of biting that place where once his teeth had broken skin.

It was too much and Dorian knew he wasn’t worthy of this feeling, but he didn’t care. It was the absolute epicentre; _Cullen_ was the centre of the world.

Dorian tried to let it sink in, that he was inside Cullen. That he was literally inside him. Cullen didn’t wait for Dorian to fuck him and he didn’t beg for it either; he started to move himself up and down, setting the pace, rendering Dorian an almost helpless bystander. The water began to move with him, sloshing against the sides. Dorian’s body was being pulled apart by bursts of pleasure. Cullen’s pace was just a little too fast and almost brutal, but he writhed and worked Dorian like it wasn’t _enough_, like he wanted the mage deeper inside him. Like it was even possible.

Dorian bit his lip when Cullen wasn’t kissing him, not for the thrill of pain but because he was terrified of what he might say. He felt let loose; untethered and free in a way that could only mean danger.

And then Cullen cried, ‘Kiss me like you love me,’ and Dorian fucking _died_.

Cullen didn’t wait for anything, he took that kiss like it was owed to him and if Dorian was crying against his lips, Cullen didn’t seem to mind. It was deep and plundering, taking all Dorian’s breath and replacing it with spiralling need, with desire and _love_. That’s what it felt like, there was no way to deny it. Dorian had never been kissed by someone who loved him and Dorian deserved to feel it at least once, right? To feel loved even if it wasn’t strictly real; to feel something that at least resembled love_. _He couldn’t have stopped it anyway; it crashed over him, consumed him and when Cullen worked himself to point of coming, Dorian was already long gone, sold into the slavery of a feeling he’d worked hard to avoid all his adult life.

It was thunder made flesh, his orgasm. It was a burst of pure, absolute rapture. It was Cullen’s name on his lips as his world disintegrated and then reformed, slowly and painfully with Cullen wrapped all around him.

The water was shimmering, almost glowing and Dorian wondered if that was his magic or if he was hallucinating slightly. The air was so cold that it chilled his lungs to breathe, but his body was hot and warm and still connected with Cullen’s. He was buried inside him, he never wanted to leave.

Cullen was panting breathlessly when he pushed Dorian’s hair back, staring at the mage with wonder-struck eyes and beautiful red lips. Dorian touched his own mouth and realised at some point he had bitten through his lips trying to keep inside words and declarations, spilling blood instead.

They didn’t speak, Dorian didn’t think it was necessary. Cullen smiled, a little shaky but not uncertain. He gently collapsed against Dorian, wrapping his arms loosely around the mage and he sighed with bone deep contentment.

Dorian closed his eyes and let himself drift, tried not to think about the days to come, how few weeks he likely had until Cullen realised that he was nothing but a liar. The man in his lap was tracing delicate patterns into the skin of his back. They might have been words. Dorian couldn’t make them out, couldn’t read them, but he liked to imagine and pretend.

With trembling fingers, he wrote things on Cullen’s skin in return. He didn’t focus on what exactly he was writing, safe in the knowledge that Cullen couldn’t read any of it. Cullen’s mouth pressed wet, soft kisses into his shoulders as Dorian traced words into that scarred expanse of skin that he would never allow himself to say aloud.

He wished it didn’t sound so much like a suicide note.

*


	12. Red Sky in the Morning

_Dorian was twenty-four and he knew he was going to die. _

_‘Father, please!’_

_‘Damilla, gag him again.’_

_‘No, th-there’s no need - I’m not screaming for help, see? Just… please, Father, please look at me!’_

_Halward Pavus beheld his son, bound on the floor, sporting a few minor injuries from the struggle. Dorian searched his eyes for any sign of mercy, any indication of what was about to happen, even though he suspected, deep down. _

_‘Don’t do this,’ Dorian pleaded softly, wrists pulling hard behind his back. Damilla looked to her master impassively, awaiting instructions, the gag in her hand. ‘Please, I promise not to embarrass you anymore. I’ll keep it quiet, I will! I’ll be discreet, _please_!__’_

_‘My son,’ Halward said and Dorian closed his eyes because he knew what that voice meant. ‘Believe me, I take no joy in resorting to such measures. This is how low your disgrace has brought me. Using blood magic on my own child to ensure that our legacy does not die with you.’_

_Dorian shook his head, trying to get his wrists free but it was no use. His magic was dampened, he was _collared_ like a slave. __‘Don’t do this. I’m begging you don’t do this to me. I’ll marry Livia. I’ll do my duty, I promise. Please. Please!’_

_Halward made a sound of impatient disgust. _ _‘You think I would believe you, Dorian? You are my son; I know the depths of your deception. Your talent for lying is only outmatched by your aptitude for self-destruction. Behold now where your sins have led you.’_

_‘It’s not a sin—’_

_Halward whirled on his son, eyes flashing. __‘It is a _perversion_ and I will rid you of it! You will thank me. Yes,__’ he nodded to himself, pale and rigid. ‘You will thank me.’_

_Dorian__’s back teeth ground together hard as his magic swirled within him, uselessly bottled and unable to __defend him like it sought to. __‘I will _never_ thank you!__’ he spat, the skin of his wrists starting to split and bleed from how hard he yanked it trying to get free. ‘And I’ll kill myself first chance I get! I’ll jump out of a fucking window face first so you can’t even display the body you _mutilated_ in the pursuit of perfection!__’_

_‘You will not,’ Halward said, but there was a shaken undertone beneath the certainty. ‘You’ll be happy, Dorian. You’ll see.’_

_Dorian let his head drop, finding it hard to breathe. The stone beneath his knees was unusually warm; the entire room was hot and dense. It was a _Pocket; _a shady, private room available to rent by the hour to perform blood magics. The floor of the room dipped ever so slightly in the middle, revealing a currently plugged grate where the blood could be easily drained and cleaned. There were no windows, only one door and it was cramped. The air was thick and hot, burning his throat. _

_He was going to die in this room. A part of him, at the very least. _

_The door opened briefly and someone came inside. A blood slave, Dorian assumed. She wore leather gloves up both arms and a docile, blank kind of expression that those of her kind had down to a fucking tee. _

_‘Both arms, Ser?’ she asked Halward. The man’s resolve solidified and he gave her a brisk nod. Dorian struggled all the more, but his ankles were chained to the stone. There was no escape. It was inevitable and it was all his fucking fault. If he’d only been less arrogant, less pridefully determined to be himself. _

_Dorian closed his eyes, tears sliding down his nose. _ _‘Father,’ he tried again, low and broken. ‘I’m your son. I love you. Please don’t do this to me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’_ Halward ignored him completely. 

_Dorian let himself cry while the nameless blood slave dropped neatly beside him and removed her gloves, setting them aside. She held both arms out, soft under-skin facing upwards. Dorian wanted to be horrified at the scars he saw there; a grisly tapestry of old wounds and vile magics, but he felt numb to everything except the terror of what was about to befall him. _

_What if he didn__’t remember? What if he awoke, obedient and none-the-wiser? No. No, he _had _to remember. _

Kill yourself,_ he tried to brand into himself. _Kill yourself, find a way_. _Go somewhere high and jump off.

_‘…wrong with him, Ser?’_

_‘Nothing, he’s… He’s fine. He’s going to be fine. Damilla, stand by the door and prepare the aftercare potions. Make sure everything is ready._ _’_

_‘Yes, Master.’_

_The stones beneath him were a dark brown colour. Dorian stared down at them and tried to be brave. He'd read about bravery; he knew that when the end came it was best to be brave. He thought of fictional characters he loved because they were all he had now in those final moments. Idols of paper and ink and well-intentioned fantasy. _

_‘Are you ready, son?’_

_Dorian_ _’s grey eyes flew open. ‘You have no son.’_

_Halward_ _’s mouth thinned as before he began to speak, starting the ritual in a slow, methodical manner. The moment the blood slave sliced down along her arms, all the air in the room seemed to vanish. Dorian’s chest felt like it was being crushed. The slave bled calmly into the dip of the floor, creating a pool of blood that eventually reached Dorian’s knees. He tried to shuffle away, but the chains didn’t allow him to move an inch. _

_A kind of black _glitter_ began to appear in the air, turning each dust mote to something alive and shining. Dorian blinked tears down his face, mouth open to try and make the passage as easy as possible for any air, but there was little to be had. _

_Something like a rope pulled his arms up and out; his father_ _’s magic, making him vulnerable to whatever demented evil was about to be wrought upon him. _

_Halward began to speak in Tevene and Dorian wanted to scream over him but there was no way he could do anything besides bear witness to his own destruction. _

_He could tell the exact moment the blood magic reached inside of him and _wrenched_ at his very being. Something awful and dark plummeted into the very depths of his soul, seeking to rearrange and shift things. It smiled the whole time, this magic; cruel and absolute. _

Stay still_, it whispered. _Stay still, pretty one.

_He was dying. Such pain was beyond anything, it was not survivable. _

_And then_ _… it halted. It did not dissipate, but the movement, its journey down into him was paused. Something hummed in warning and when his eyes opened, Dorian knew that it hadn’t worked. _

_He thought of men, so many men, of Rilenius_ _… beautiful, gorgeous men who pushed him against walls and fucked him just the way he loved…_

_He started to laugh, the bitterest sound he_ _’d ever created. _

_It hadn_ _’t worked. _

_‘You _failed_!__’ he all but screamed at Halward, body shaking hard enough to make his chains rattle. ‘You couldn’t even get this right, you sad, old SHADOW OF A MAN!’_

_Halward_ _’s anger turned to contempt as he opened his mouth—_

Dorian awoke to a sharp knock on the door. Consciousness slammed into his nervous system like a maul, arms jerking reflexively to ensure he wasn’t chained. He blearily looked over at the glass doors. It was still dark; a couple of candles were lit on his dresser and the room was still.

The knock came again and, more alert now, Dorian realised he was alone. Which… well, that was to be expected. Cullen likely had a morning routine, probably wanted clean clothes and _maybe_ even wanted to oversee his incredibly important _Commanderly_ duties which required him to be up at the crack of…

_Dawn. _Dorian groaned.

‘Ser?’ came a female voice from outside. He had to actually get up and _do things_. His body was emphatically not in favour of doing things. ‘_Ser?__’_

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, rather waspishly. He rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. Oh Maker, Cullen had probably seen his _hair_ like this before he left. When had he left? Not immediately after all the sex, Dorian was sure. He remembered falling asleep in bed with Cullen. Though in all fairness, that seemed far more likely to have been a post-orgasm induced fantasy than anything rooted in reality.

A middle-aged woman came inside who Dorian didn’t recognise; Sera would likely deem her to be one of her _little people_. She was carrying a tray with what looked like tea and a small plate of fruit. Hanging neatly over her forearm was something else, some kind of clothing.

‘Commander Cullen bid me wake you before dawn, Ser,’ she explained in a no-nonsense kind of way, setting the tray down on the floor besides Dorian’s armchair, instead of upon the small table like a normal person. ‘He said you’d be needing tea and fruit.’

Dorian blinked slowly, staring at the tray with intense mistrust. ‘What’s that?’ he asked as she lay what seemed to be his favourite outfit over the back of the chair.

‘He had your clothes cleaned, Ser.’

Dorian shook his head, unable to come out with anything wittier than a splutter at this demented hour of the morning. He glared at the glass doors.

‘The sun isn’t _up_ yet.’

‘Well observed, Ser,’ the woman said, picking up a few errant pieces of clothing here and there. ‘Commander says to remind you that you’re to meet him in the training yard _at _dawn, not after.’

Dorian scowled and tried to ignore how much he wanted that tea. ‘Did the Commander say anything else?’

‘Only that if you’re not on time, you’ll be in a lot of trouble.’

She said that while collecting Dorian’s smalls without a hint of judgement, though perhaps a shade of amusement. Dorian, for his part, kept right on scowling.

‘Anything else, Ser?’ she asked, hovering by the door with what seemed to be his _and_ Cullen’s underwear bundled under her arm.

‘What’s your name?’ Dorian asked, swinging his legs over the side and wincing at the icy bite of the stone floor.

‘Joy, Ser.’

Dorian may or may not have snorted, thus earning himself a stern glare from _Joy_. ‘Apologies, just clearing my throat, there. Joy, do you usually attend to the Commander?’

‘Yes, Ser.’

‘Please don’t call me Ser.’

‘It’s a customary mark of respect—’

‘Which I despise,’ Dorian told her with a forced smile. ‘You could call me Dorian, if you like.’

‘I prefer to stick with Ser, if that’s quite all right with you. I say it a thousand times a day, mostly without noticing and if I have to adopt a specialised title or term just for you, that’s one more thing I don’t need, with respect, _Ser_.’

Dorian glared, but relented. ‘Fine. May I ask what time the Commander came to you with these instructions?’

‘Three hours past.’

So, Cullen had stayed a while, then. Had he slept? Why the fuck couldn’t Dorian _remember_ incredibly important details such as whether or not Cullen Rutherford had slept in the same bed as him?

‘Is he usually up so early?’

Joy shifted her weight, eyes at half-mast and hand on the door. ‘Commander’s schedule is varied and demanding at times. Anything else, Ser?’

‘No, thank you, _Joy. _You’ve quite lived up to your name.’

She was gone before he was even finished speaking. Dorian padded over to the tray on the floor and peered down. The fact that it was his favourite kind of tea should have been worrying but, in the scheme of things, it really didn’t rank. Dorian traced his fingers over the freshly buffed leather and cleaned material of his outfit, noting that the buckles were a little shinier than usual.

He leaned down to pick up the tray but then he noticed why Joy had placed it on the floor instead of the table. The table was already taken.

Cullen had set up the chess board.

Dorian stared at it for a long time, the way one might with an alarmingly skittish creature that was hiding in the corner of the room. Cullen had sent him tea and fruit, had his clothes cleaned and then taken the time to set up the _gift_ he’d had sent to Dorian’s room. The mage rubbed over his mouth with one hand, feeling that he needed to shave. He wondered if he had time, not entirely sure how to read the sky the way he was certain Cullen could.

He let the tea go cold while he washed, shaved, dressed and meticulously attended to his hair and moustache. When he looked perfect, he wrapped his hands around the cup and reheated it, wandering out onto the small balcony, mind awash with thoughts that pulled in many different directions. The unpleasant residue left behind from the dream was easy enough to shake, he’d had enough practice in the last few years.

Dorian stood there in the cold, bracing air of morning and he sought something resembling peace. He closed his eyes and thought of the night previous, mere hours ago really.

Cullen hadn’t been violent, not at all. It was… so different than before and Dorian was aware he had no true basis of comparison because every time he had sex with Cullen, something changed. That first time had imprinted into his expectations and now anything less than blood, bruises and near death felt almost unbearably _tender_.

Dorian wasn’t brainless. He knew how unhealthy it was to establish _anything _on such a basis. If any of his friends, how nice to think the word in plural, came to him and spoke of such an involvement, he would warn them away immediately. Tell them they deserved better, they deserved safety.

He sipped the tea and the way it warmed him from the inside was simply lovely. The darkness began to wane, giving way to red streaks. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to live in the moment, for once.

*

‘So sorry I’m late,’ Dorian said in a way that offered no regret whatsoever. ‘Slept in.’

Cullen was slowly pacing up and down a line of well organised soldiers as they performed what Dorian could only assume was some kind of _warm up_ exercises in the gloom of dawn. Whatever it was, it involved a lot of running.

Dorian wasn’t sure what he expected from Cullen, well no, that was a lie. He expected a blank mask; the _Commander_ and not Cullen. And it was there to an extent. When Cullen looked over, he was every part the strong, steady Commander of the Inquisition’s armies. Dorian resented how well rested he seemed, how refreshed and simply _gorgeous_ he was at such an hour.

‘You’re not late,’ Cullen corrected lightly. ‘You’re a little early, actually.’

Dorian looked around and noted the lack of mages. ‘Pardon?’

Oh, but Cullen’s eyes were glittering with amusement.

‘It’s false dawn,’ he told Dorian, nodding up at the sky.

‘What _the fuck _is false dawn?’

A couple of soldiers nearby snorted, but the laughed was quelled immediately when Cullen shot them a sharp look.

When he returned his attention to the mage, Cullen gave him a slow, evaluating gaze that dragged down the length of his body and all the way back up again. ‘Exactly what it sounds like,’ he said.

‘I suppose that’s the kind of thing a Ferelden farm boy like yourself would know,’ Dorian sighed, not so easily bested.

The corner of Cullen’s mouth was _ever so _slightly curved. Maybe this would be more fun than Dorian thought. ‘My men need to perform their drills before we incorporate the dual-training aspects. _Actual_ dawn will be fine from now on.’

He was teasing Dorian, baiting him to point out that he’d clearly sent Joy to him much earlier than necessary, anticipating that Dorian would be late on purpose anyway and doing it all just to plainly fuck with him.

A thrill of something snaked its way up Dorian’s spine. If Cullen wanted to play it that way, Dorian was _more_ than game.

In the meantime, however, he let it go. Crossed his arms and fell silent, leaning against the outer fence and watched the soldiers perform what were apparently _drills_. Drills, Dorian decided, looked exhausting and tedious. He hoped Cullen wasn’t expecting him or any of the mages to be involved in anything so _messy _as all that.

Cullen’s focus was razor sharp, watching each of his men - and there were a solid eighty or ninety of them in this rotation - and offering precise critique when and where he deemed necessary.

Warm, pink rays split the darkness soon after, heralding Cullen’s so-called _actual dawn_ and the older mages arrived right on time. Their approach was slow and hesitant. The soldiers’ drills ended when Cullen called time and they caught their breath, watching the huddled men and women approach reluctantly.

‘Good morning!’ Dorian greeted them cheerfully. ‘How is everyone this fine morning? I, myself, have been up for _hours_, basking in the renowned glory of the Frostback dawn.’

A few of them smiled, some even laughed under their breath. They stopped close to the outer fence.

‘So,’ Dorian said, crossing his arms as he always did when nervous. ‘I assume you know why you’re here?’

‘To be used a cannon fodder for Templars?’ someone muttered from the middle of the huddle.

‘Yes, that’s precisely it,’ Dorian said, nodding sagely. ‘Very well discerned there… sorry, can’t see who said it.’

The crowd parted to reveal a rather flabbergasted man, fretfully seeking escape. He was older than Dorian, pushing forty with pale hair and strong shoulders. He seemed to hugely regret his outburst.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Olan.’

‘Olan here will demonstrate!’ Dorian declared, swerving into the arena. ‘Come along, Olan. Don’t tarry!’

The man miserably followed Dorian after a brief and bitter bout of deliberation. The soldiers moved out of the arena entirely, giving them space. Dorian glanced at Cullen, mostly to check that the man was on board. Cullen was watching him with unguarded interest, no trace of hesitatiom in place.

‘Commander Cullen,’ Dorian said. ‘Any recommendations from your own ranks?’

Cullen’s eyes slid over to his soldiers. ‘Haynes, he said evenly. The woman who stepped forward, Haynes, was shorter than Olan, but not by much. She carried herself well, walked into the clearing with confidence and a nod to her Commander. Olan and Haynes faced each other warily, Olan’s eyes flitting back to Dorian every few seconds.

‘Excellent. Now, we’re not going to have you kill each other _just_ yet, so try to contain your excitement, eh?’ That got a few laughs. ‘Haynes, I want you to cut off Olan’s balls please.’

Haynes stared at Dorian while Olan spluttered indignantly. ‘Pardon, Ser?’

‘I think you heard me, Haynes,’ Dorian said above the rush of whispers from mages and soldiers alike. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’

Haynes wasted no time and Olan let out a strangled scream when she came at him, sword drawn. Dorian was pleased to note it _wasn__’t_ a training sword. She was almost on top of him when Olan threw up the shield, blocking her. Haynes couldn’t pass it. She looked to her Commander, who nodded.

She dropped a Smite. The mages recoiled, even though it was well aimed and contained. Olan’s shield faltered and dissolved. Dorian was tense and ready to intervene at any point, praying that this wouldn’t backfire.

She swung her sword at Olan, not playing around by any measure. It wasn’t meant to kill him, but there was no denying _where_ she had aimed it. Cullen had chosen well.

Olan rolled away, managing to force himself up as he threw a weak mind blast. Haynes stumbled and Olan downed a Lyrium potion, replenishing his mana right before he threw his hand skyward and drew down a blinding bolt of lightning. It struck the ground right in front of Haynes, singed the very earth and flooded Dorian’s senses with ozone and fire.

Haynes recovered and before the pair could properly get into it, Dorian threw up his hand and called out, ‘STOP! Excellent work hanging onto your balls, Olan.’

Olan was panting, eyes wild and mouth open and he leaned forward on his knees. Haynes had barely broken a sweat, but she was clearly shaken by the sheer force of the lightning.

Cullen stepped between them, toeing the scorched earth with his boot. ‘Impressive,’ he commented neutrally. ‘Have you any training as a battlemage?’

The man shook his head, gaze slightly averted when Cullen spoke to him so directly. ‘None, Ser.’

‘_Very_ impressive, then’ Cullen said, turning away and heading towards Dorian. ‘Haynes is one of my best. Given the chance, she’d be holding your balls this very moment.’

Haynes nodded blandly. ‘I would,’ she agreed and then added quietly, ‘And none of us here are Templars anymore. We fight for Commander Cullen, for the Inquisition, same as you.’

‘So, you see,’ Dorian said addressing everyone at large, impossibly smug because something had actually gone the way he’d planned. ‘Even an untrained mage can still rend the sky apart when cornered. We are not cannon fodder. We are the _cannons_. High time we aim this power where it needs to be aimed.’

‘What about us, Commander?’ someone in the front rows of Cullens soldiers asked. ‘What’s to be gained for us, teaching _mages_ to control their power?’

‘If you think you have nothing to learn from the literal embodiments of power made flesh, then you must be _very_ talented indeed,’ Dorian couldn’t help but purr, despite the man having addressed Cullen. It was difficult for Dorian to control himself, especially knowing that within this rotation of soldiers, there might well be one or all of the men who’d threatened him.

Cullen addressed the man. ‘We are not teaching mages to control their power; this isn’t a Circle. The mages have raw power but they lack military training. They are unused to battle.

‘_We’re_ not,’ the man insisted rather stubbornly and Dorian eyed him, wondering at Cullen’s allowance of such casual impertinence.

‘No, you are all well trained for battle,’ Cullen said, hand resting on the pommel of his sword. ‘But magic is a terrifying thing to be faced with. When a sword comes at you, you can raise your shield. When a mage or a demon strikes, they could pull the sky down on top of you. Raise corpses from the ground, rend the earth with fire or even slow time itself to their advantage. That first moment of panic must be controlled or it will be your last.’

The man tipped his chin. ‘We’re not afraid of them, Commander.’

‘Excellent, then you can show me. Pair up! One mage, one soldier. Six pairs at a time in the arena, let’s go!’

Cullen’s _Commander_ voice definitely wasn’t a turn on, not in the slightest.

The next few hours were slow going, but Dorian’s enthusiasm didn’t wane. It actually went _well_. Imagine that. In retrospect, he and Cullen should really have discussed some aspect of what they intended to do here, but it didn’t seem to matter because they were of the same mind in this. The mages were untrained and flighty; lashing out with uncontrolled magics in fear instead of aiming sustained attacks on a targeted opponent. The soldiers, despite what the cheeky one had promised Cullen, _did_ sometimes panic when faced with what they knew was uncontrolled magic. The majority of them held up well, though and Dorian knew the mages had far to go by comparison.

But… it was something. It was involvement and training and, if one squinted, _socialising_. Before midday, Cullen called time and Dorian was actually a little disappointed. The training arena looked like a battlefield.

‘Tomorrow we’ll repeat this with the second rotation,’ he explained to Dorian as they stood together while everyone else went to do… whatever it was that soldiers did. Return to their barracks for lunch? Clean up? Dorian no idea. He watched the mages amble back to their dorm. He hoped they were enjoying the extra space now, with the younger ones in their new tower. ‘And so on through the week until we make our way through the ranks. Tomorrow will likely be difficult; these were some of my most experiences soldiers.’

‘So, we spend all week doing the same thing every day?’

Cullen smiled wryly. ‘Welcome to the military.’

Dorian felt unexpectedly disarmed by the smile and without thinking, he bit his bottom lip, smiling back. Cullen’s light brown eyes were drawn to the movement, watching Dorian’s mouth in way that left very little to the imagination.

‘You did well,’ he told the mage, voice slightly rough. ‘Your magic was… impressive.’

Almost everyone had gone and Dorian’s fingers longed to reach for Cullen, to grab him and pull him into a bruising kiss. His heart was still racing from the exertions of the morning. Cullen seemed to pick up on it, was _affected_ by it, even. His desire for Dorian was almost a tangible taste in the air, a heady scent preluding something. Dorian was mesmerised by it.

The Commander cleared his throat and looked away, shifting his weight. It took Dorian only a moment to see why. Haynes was approaching.

‘Good work today,’ Cullen told her without preamble. She smiled respectfully and gave Dorian a brief nod before she spoke.

‘Thank you, Commander. I request permission to be involved with the morning rotation for the rest of the week.’

‘For what reason?’

Haynes seemed to consider her answer. ‘The other rotations are less frequently exposed to mages,’ she said carefully and didn’t offer any more than that.

Cullen gave a nod. ‘Request granted. Anyone else who wants to participate through the week, use your discretion. I trust your judgement on who will be helpful.’

‘Thank you, Commander,’ she said, her eyes sliding onto Dorian. ‘Good day, Ser Pavus.’

Cullen waited until she was a suitable distance away before he commented, ‘You don’t like being addressed that way, do you?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Dorian admitted. ‘But there isn’t much of an alternative. _Lord_ Pavus? _Altus_ Pavus? Mage? They’re all the same. A polite way of _not_ calling me Dorian.’

He stopped speaking abruptly, realising that he’d essentially been whining to Cullen about something incredibly mundane. He half expected to see ridicule or boredom, but Cullen’s expression was the same one he’d given Dorian all morning. _Interested_, that was the only word for it.

‘Hmm,’ was all the blond said and the pair began to walk towards the tavern. Dorian looked around Skyhold, bathed in grey light from the moody clouds above, a definite chill in the air.

‘Where did our dear Seeker depart to?’ he asked, noticing that Cassandra’s training dummy was all alone in that pokey little corner of the buildings.

‘Gone with Lavellan to the Approach,’ Cullen explained. ‘Cole, Vivienne and Hawke with her.’

Something in the way Cullen said Hawke’s name made Dorian want to shiver. He thought of last night, hearing Cullen’s urgent manner in which he’d questioned Leliana when she led him to believe something could have happened between the two of them.

‘You don’t like him much, do you?’ Dorian chuckled.

‘Hawke is an exceptional fighter,’ Cullen said replied after a beat of hesitation.

‘Oh, come now, Commander,’ Dorian teased, exaggerating his accent ever so slightly, leaning into the familiar role. ‘He’s not _here_. You could slander him to your heart’s content! Tell me of his cruel nature or his tendency to kick helpless Mabari pups and no one will ever know you spoke ill of the Champion!’

Cullen diverted towards Cassandra’s dummy and Dorian followed, anticipation curling through him. ‘I don’t know Hawke well enough to slander him and I would not care to.’

Dorian glanced around, skin prickling and breath quickening because Cullen was leading him into a shadowy corner that was not remotely private. The fact that he couldn’t _see_ anyone didn’t mean that no one could see them as had certainly been the case that night on the battlements.

‘You wouldn’t care to know him better or you wouldn’t care to slander him?’

Cullen pushed Dorian against the wall.

‘I don’t _care_ about Hawke,’ he said, leaning close and hovering his mouth over Dorian’s. The hard line of his body pressed into the mage, armour clinking against Dorian’s newly polished buckles. ‘Watching you all morning, seeing you show off with your magic,’ Cullen growled, eyes flashing. ‘Why are you so fucking beautiful?’

Dorian stared at Cullen, awe-struck and unable to deny it. ‘Does my presence affect you, Commander?’

‘Your arrogance does,’ Cullen said, low and deep, sliding one hand down to press against his cock, which had been steadily hardening ever since Cullen diverted right instead of left. ‘Your _conceit_ affects me.’ His hand slotted perfectly against the hot flesh, rubbing slow and hard. ‘You fill my head, make me drunk with desire to throw you down and fuck you in front of everyone to make them see that this haughty, _powerful_ mage is all—’

Someone cleared their throat followed by the familiar creak of a door opening. Cullen didn’t spring away, but he fell silent and his hand stilled. Dorian’s heartbeat echoed in his ears, whole body flushed and hot and so desperate for Cullen that he _ached_.

Dorian glanced over the furry mantle and saw no one; someone had most likely gone into the requisition room which meant they would be coming out again soon. He placed his hand on Cullen’s breastplate and the man moved away slowly, not needing to be told.

‘Apologies, Commander,’ Dorian said, trying not to think of how close he’d been to actually letting Cullen fuck him in_ broad daylight_. ‘Maybe right now isn’t the best time, or place for that matter.’

Cullen rubbed the back of his neck and seemed to hesitate over something. ‘Would you… would you care to take lunch with me this afternoon? There is a small woodland area not half a mile from here. It’s very secluded.’

_So that I can make you scream as loud as I want_, Dorian imagined him saying.

‘Don’t you have better things to be doing?’

Cullen didn’t take the bait; he so rarely did. ‘I have some time, if you can spare your duties for an hour or two.’

Dorian looked up at the sky. ‘It’s going to rain later,’ he said, tasting something faint and metallic. It was already a little overcast.

Cullen smirked. ‘Can’t tell sunrise from false dawn, but you know when it’s going to rain?’ It was teasing, almost _fond_.

‘I am well acquainted with storms, believe me,’ Dorian said, stepping away so that he didn’t kiss the man before him. ‘I must first attend to the teenage aspect of my new _duties_, but then I’ll meet you by the gate in an hour.’

*

Almost immediately, Dorian began to regret visiting the mages after a morning of such strenuous activity when a headache came upon him. Their excitement at the new dorm and relative freedom from the disapproving watch of the older mages was tangible. They chatted eagerly with him, told him a little bit about themselves in turn. It was all very lovely, except they spoke so _loud_ and so very fast.

It was the early start, had to be. Dorian winced at the thought of doing such a thing every day from now on. He would have to go to bed earlier.

_With Cullen_, his mind quietly hoped.

He sought out Keenan, hoping to speak about whatever had been on the boy’s mind last night, but Keenan kept to himself and avoided Dorian, so the mage let it go for now.

He explained what he knew about the arena that was being constructed for them to train in safely and tried to lay out a few basic things, including making sure they understood they were free to go wherever they wanted, so long as they weren’t alone. When they asked why, Dorian was honest. Safety in numbers, at least for now.

By the time they broke for lunch, a few of them heading down to the hall with Keenan in tow, Dorian’s headache has blossomed into something verging on a migraine. He stopped by his room, his beautiful spacious room, and swiped a bottle of Solas’s potion which he swigged half of and pocketed the rest.

The potion took hold immediately, blissfully removing all traces of pain and ache, leaving him refreshed and energetic.

He went to meet Cullen, unable to contain a small smile as he walked.

*

It was undeniably freezing. Dorian didn’t think he could ever be persuaded to have sex on a scrap of grass, barely shrouded by snow laden trees on a gloomy day in fucking _Ferelden_, but there they were and apparently, stranger things _had_ happened.

The Commander laid down his cloak onto the still damp grass, creating a kind of bedroll, Dorian assumed. The gesture was almost quaint. ‘Make the air warm, if you like,’ he suggested casually, though there was very little casual in his eyes as he watched Dorian expectantly.

Cullen liked it when Dorian used magic, there was no other explanation. Whatever the man’s reasons, Dorian could draw no other conclusion. Cullen went out of his way to request the use of magic from the mage and he never flinched, never once looked away with disgust or revulsion. He watched as Dorian wove a clever kind of magic, creating small orbs of heat that emanated warmth all around them. Cullen _liked it_. When he wanted to be hurt, Cullen asked Dorian to hurt him with magic. To wet his cock, the heat the water. He’d even asked Dorian to heal him that one time, though Dorian most assuredly didn’t want to think about _that. _

Dorian’s magic made the air shimmer with translucent heat. Cullen watched it with barely contained fascination, lifting his hand to touch around the orbs, his face open and young. It was hard for Dorian to control what it did to him, seeing that. He’d accepted that Cullen was going to be the death of him, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hurry it along or anything. He wanted this time to last, before everything became horribly and irreversibly fucked.

And when Cullen looked at Dorian, he worried that it wouldn’t actually be very long at all.

There was an element of violence between them this time, but it was very clearly a manifestation of need. It was desperate and frantic, as though one would die without the other. Dorian didn’t even laugh at that thought, just quietly acknowledged how painfully true it felt.

Cullen bit at Dorian’s lip, tearing the skin. It was alarming how dangerously close that pushed Dorian to coming when he wasn’t even naked yet, cock thus far untouched and weeping against his clothes. The Commander had Dorian’s face in his hands, sucking on that bottom lip and making sounds so obscene they might have made Dorian blush if he had any spare blood above his waist that wasn’t already Cullen’s.

The two of them kissed in the small woodland, feeling hidden and invisible. Dorian’s fingers were welded in Cullen’s hair, tugging and messing it, desperate to deepen the kiss, to physically _pull_ Cullen inside of him somehow. He felt achingly alone inside his own skin, would have shed it if he could just to be closer to the man who revelled in his blood.

Cullen looked like a predator when he wrenched his mouth from Dorian’s. The stark light of day showed the radiant bloom of Dorian’s blood around his mouth and chin. It was so stunningly _red_ it quite took Dorian’s breath away. He hadn’t seen it before like this; always at night, always in the dark. It felt… indecent, almost. Daylight was for goodness and heroes and normality. Yet there Cullen stood, appearing to all the world as though he’d been _devouring_ Dorian and the mage supposed he had been. The Commander’s breathing was ragged, his eyes glassy and pupils wide. His arms snaked around Dorian’s back.

‘Delicious,’ he breathed, kissing Dorian gently before he kicked his leg out from under him and sent them crashing hard to the ground, Cullen on top of him. Dorian was winded, but not enough to stop him complaining loudly about wet grass despite the cloak. Cullen shut him up by grinding his cock against the mage’s, hands seeking out the skin of his hot, flushed chest. ‘So fucking hard for me, aren’t you?’

Dorian's eyes rolled when Cullen ground harder, striking a deep ripple of pleasure through him. ‘Well, obviously,’ he panted. Cullen dragged his tongue messily over Dorian’s mouth one more time before he moved down, leaving a trail of pinkish red kisses over Dorian’s neck and collar bone, stripping him bare wherever possible.

When Cullen yanked Dorian’s belt open, the mage felt a rush of lukewarm air hit his cock, replaced immediately by the scalding heat of Cullen’s mouth. The Commander didn’t take him deep, not right away. Some part of Dorian thought that maybe Cullen wasn’t very experienced in this. It was a distant thought, though, and it didn’t lend Dorian any strength to prevent him from bucking up, nudging his cock towards the back of Cullen’s throat.

Cullen didn’t choke or gag, he _groaned_ and let Dorian do it again, no hands on the mage’s hips to steady him, palms braced instead on the wet grass. He relaxed his throat and let Dorian fuck up into his mouth a few times before growing impatient and pushing himself down, sucking hard and creating a dizzying blend of pressure and wet traction. He took Dorian as deep as he could, gagging often but never backing away. Dorian sat up on his elbows, desperate to see. Cullen was kneeling between his legs, bent over the mage’s cock, fucking slaving over it. The sight was enough to make his cock twitch in Cullen’s mouth, desperate to flood down that throat, but Dorian reached down and clamped his fingers tightly around the base, cutting off the impulse.

Cullen met his gaze, still sucking hard and messy and it was _really_ a good thing he had his cock in a vice grip otherwise he would have come there and then, no doubt about it. Cullen stared at him with staggering desire and… other dangerous elements that struck Dorian to the core and shook away all else.

‘Are you going to fuck me or not?’ he demanded through gritted teeth, barely able to speak he was breathing so hard. Cullen pulled off with purposefully loud _pop,_ his mouth a stunning red mess of swollen lips and smears of blood. He crawled up and slammed them into a kiss, moaning Dorian’s name in a way that it was never meant to be moaned.

‘Get on my lap,’ he instructed breathlessly, hauling Dorian up and shoving his trousers down around his thighs before settling back on his knees, his perfect, swollen cock now free. He palmed it slowly, waiting for Dorian. ‘Strip all the way off,’ he said when it was plain that Dorian was only going to get as naked as was strictly necessary. Even with magic, it wasn’t exactly the kind of climate Dorian was used to.

But he didn’t hesitate to obey because he knew exactly what Cullen was going to ask for next.

‘If you’re cold, make it warmer.’

Dorian added more orbs of heat, increasing the intensity of the existing ones. It became noticeably warmer and when the heat began to melt the snow in the trees above, Dorian threw up a lazy domed shield to protect them from the drizzle. Wonder clashed with lust in Cullen’s upwards gaze while Dorian removed every part of his clothes. He climbed into Cullen’s lap, naked and needy and when Cullen looked back at him, Dorian felt shaken by the intensity he was met with.

‘You like my magic,’ he blurted out, hands on his shoulders, gripping hard. ‘Don’t you?’ No sooner had he spoken the words, Dorian regretted them. Cullen flinched slightly; a fracture of something self-conscious and uncertain clouding his desire in a way that Dorian simply couldn’t bear. He ran his fingers through the Commander’s hair, studying the man. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, wishing he knew what else to say, wishing he hadn’t _said_ anything. ‘I’m only teasing.’

‘I do like it,’ Cullen said quickly, like if he got the words out fast enough, they weren’t even real. ‘Your magic is… different.’

Helplessly, Dorian ground himself against Cullen, eyes fluttering shut. Hearing Cullen admit that, it drove him a little wild, made him want to preen and show off even more. _Dazzle him _the way only Dorian could.

‘Different how?’

Cullen was vying for a kiss, but Dorian wanted to hear him speak. He kept the Commander’s mouth a hair’s breadth away, waiting.

‘Just different,’ Cullen said, voice stronger now. His hands were moving over Dorian’s chest. ‘It’s warm and it coils like a snakeskin, like silk come to life. Smooth like your skin. There’s not a scar on you, is there?’

_None that you can see_, Dorian thought and then he frowned slightly, catching what Cullen had said about how his magic _felt_ to him. Before he could say anything, Cullen spoke again.

‘I want to make you ready,’ he said softly and it was plainly a request, not a command. ‘The w-way you made me ready last night.’

Dorian froze, his breath sticking painfully in his chest. ‘What?’

‘Use me as the conduit,’ Cullen whispered, free hand moving behind Dorian, fingers sliding down the cleft of his arse. ‘Let me do what you did to me.’

‘No,’ Dorian refused out of instinct, naked curiosity twining with disbelief that Cullen would even _ask_ for such a thing. ‘No, it’s far too dangerous, there’s—’

‘I know the risks,’ Cullen said swiftly, kissing Dorian once, just a press of his lips to silence the objection. ‘Push your magic into me. Make me the conduit like you did with the water last night.’

Dorian leaned back. ‘What did you say?’

Cullen searched his face with a frown. ‘Last night with the water,’ he repeated slowly, the words stretched out with encroaching mistrust.

‘What happened with the water? Did… did my magic affect you then?’

‘It didn’t affect me,’ Cullen said but Dorian took no relief from it because he could already see what the man was about to add. ‘It went _through_ me. Your magic was inside me. I felt it.’

Dorian immediately tried to rationalise it. Cullen had been using Lyrium for many years and his body was used to magic in a sense, not that he thought Cullen would see it that way. Maybe Cullen _was_ capable of acting as a conduit but surely not for raw magic, not the kind Dorian had inside him and fuck, even if he _was _capable of it… the danger was astonishing.

It wasn’t unheard of, but even in Tevinter, it was forbidden. Cullen was human and no matter how much his body had been warped and shaped into a vessel for the bastardised brand of magic the Chantry so prized, Dorian would not risk him. He struggled to even believe Cullen would _request_ such a thing.

Cullen’s fingers pressed lightly against Dorian’s entrance, circling. ‘Please?’ he uttered softly, taking Dorian’s lower lip between his teeth, offering Dorian a flicker of pain and teasing out a small amount of the blood he apparently couldn’t get enough of.

And something clicked into place. Something… impossible.

Except it wasn’t impossible, it was fucking _happening_.

Cullen made a low whining noise, pressing his face into Dorian’s neck, lips framing the word _please please please_ over and over against the skin. Dorian stared at nothing, mind blank except for the strange, new knowledge that he didn’t want to contemplate, even abstractly.

The memory of Lavellan’s voice circled his mind, words muffled from behind a wooden door but clear enough to be heard.

_You__’ve traded one addiction for another_, that’s what she’d told Cullen.

_Addiction is slavery_, was his response.

Dorian looked down at the man beneath him. Had it really already _happened_? Dorian thought of the shimmering water and his blood on Cullen’s lips last night, of Cullen’s recent and apparent ability to combat the remaining Lyrium in his system. Lyrium that would be _absorbed_ if he was channelling magic the way a mage could.

He swore shakily in Tevene.

Cullen looked up at Dorian, eyes widening slightly and he sobered, taking Dorian’s silence and patent shock as a refusal. ‘I’m…’ he said, floundering as colour flooded his face from the neck up. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

All Dorian could do was retrace everything, every single time they’d been together. Was it… _blood magic_? Fuck, he didn’t even know. He’d been _feeding _Cullen his blood and never once did he stop to think that it might have any consequences beyond being the hottest thing he’d ever felt.

And Cullen wanted it so badly, like an _addict_.

Dorian suddenly wanted to shove him away. Shut the man out, cut him off and keep him safe. Dorian was a _plague_; a literal disease of recklessness and irresponsibility, causing chaos and damage everywhere he went, to everything he touched.

Cullen was saying things, speaking in that velvety quiet voice, but Dorian couldn’t understand it at first. He was utterly shaken, unable to instinctively intuit the common tongue until some of the shock wore off and he realised Cullen was, once again, asking the mage to stay with him. He wished Cullen could say that in Tevene. It might have meant more, somehow.

Dorian gathered himself slowly with unadulterated determination. He needed to look at Cullen when he said this, needed to _see_ it happen so there was no confusion or misunderstanding. Clean break, as if any such thing existed.

‘I think,’ he said, finding it hard to speak. ‘That my blood is… affecting you, Cullen.’

The man wrapped around him stared up at Dorian wearing a small frown, eyes shining with concern, but not for himself. He pushed the mage’s hair back from his forehead and slowly nodded.

‘Yes, I know.’

*

_Dorian was brand new and whoever the fuck the tall, glowering soldier was, that man did _not_ like him at all. _

_Dorian had been scowled at non-stop in the South and he was actually staring to enjoy it, truth be told. He_ _’d always loved getting a rise out of people, eliciting an emotional response to then turn around and fling something flippant and gleeful at them before sashaying away. _

_This was different. This man looked at Dorian Pavus as though his very existence threatened his own. It was thrilling and frightening. Those eyes were so brimming with unjustified hatred, a kind of absolute loathing that made Dorian question if they_ _’d met before. Dorian had spent at least five years in a generally drunken state - it was possible. _

_Though he didn_ _’t think he could ever forget those eyes. _

_‘Dorian, this is Cullen Rutherford, Commander of our armies,’ said Lavellan. _

_Cullen Rutherford, Commander of Our_ _ Armies, did not extend his hand and Dorian’s smile curved, helplessly enjoying himself. _

_‘A pleasure,’ he said simply, taking in the man’s stance, the way he held himself and the faint scent of Lyrium. Templar, then. Of course. ‘Oh, don’t look so happy to see me now, Commander. The wind might change and then you’ll be stuck wandering around with a love-struck expression all day.’_

_Cullen Rutherford__ somehow managed to look at Dorian with a new level of abject hatred and loathing. Dorian wondered if anyone else was seeing this, if anyone was not the least bit _alarmed_ by this man, likely a trained killer, whose attention was set upon Dorian with animalistic focus. _

_The silence seemed to stretch on into unfathomable realms, but Cullen_ _’s resolve broke eventually and some long lost manners presented themselves. _

_‘Pleasure indeed,’ he snarled softly, making it abundantly clear that the opposite was true. _

_Dorian had laughed then, blithely and quite genuinely amused that so many people hated him on sight. But something observant and perpetually troublesome had latched onto that first impression, caught how Cullen_ _’s hand hovered near his sword. _

_Dangerous, he noted. Maybe even a little unstable to act in such a way in front of his superior, but mostly dangerous. _

_Danger was fun and fun meant risking everything. _

_Dorian smiled the whole time, watching Cullen with a growing swirl of anticipation. _

_Maybe this jag wouldn_ _’t be so dull after all. _

_*_

‘You _know_?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘What exactly do you know?’

‘What you just told me. That your blood is affecting me.’

Dorian shook his head, eyes screwed up tight. ‘I… hang on just a fucking minute! How could you not tell me?’

Cullen gently pushed Dorian back, wincing. ‘My legs are numb,’ he said, dragging his trousers up. ‘I thought you knew.’

Dorian moved off of Cullen completely. ‘…you thought I knew?’

‘I asked you if there was magic in your blood. You told me yes.’

Dorian spluttered. ‘That’s hardly the same as you sitting me down and explaining—’

_‘You’re_ the mage,’ Cullen said with a sudden bite of impatience, not meeting Dorian’s gaze. He seemed on edge and maybe even ashamed, but in the kind of way Dorian recognised all too well. The way he knew would morph into hostility and defensiveness. ‘I shouldn’t have to explain what your own blood was doing to me.’

Outside of Dorian’s shield, miraculously still operating, it was pouring rain. He hadn’t even noticed until then. The rain created a thick, lush symphony of white noise; the rustle of drenched leaves under attack from a heavy deluge of rain. The skies had darkened to a stony grey and Dorian could taste ozone on the back of his tongue as a substantial storm approached.

Cullen was almost fully dressed by the time Dorian yanked on his trousers, shivering slightly in the absence of his heating orbs that had begun to fade.

‘Explain it to me then,’ he demanded tightly.

Cullen was closed off and angry, all jerky movements and shame barely disguised as irritation. Silently, he bent low to try and pull his cloak from beneath Dorian, but the mage didn’t move. Cullen glared and Dorian held his ground.

‘Explain to me, Commander, why you’ve been engaging in such behaviour when you _know_ it’s affecting you?’

‘You’re one to talk about _behaviour!__’ _Cullen growled, trying ineffectually to get the cloak free from Dorian, who was not above using magic to cement the garment to the ground. ‘There’s a healing potion in your fucking pocket!’

Dorian didn’t stop to ask how Cullen knew that. ‘Tell me why, or walk back without your prized _mantle_.’

Cullen scowled bitterly and flounced off without hesitation into the rain.

‘Oh, fucking void!’ Dorian hissed, unable to anticipate such a level of pettiness from anyone but himself. _‘Cullen_!’

But Cullen was well and truly storming off and now Dorian was left behind under a clump of trees in what would soon be a very violent storm, barefoot on a damp fur cloak. The man was fast, Dorian gave him that.

He dressed awkwardly, trying to hurry and therefore making silly mistakes like wrong boot on the wrong foot. Cullen had vanished from sight by the time Dorian was dressed and he snatched the cloak, throwing up a roaming shield as he hurried out into the storm.

The woodland area was small; everywhere round it was rocky and barren. He remembered the way they’d come, at least, and he began to run in that direction. When Cullen’s form came into view, Skyhold looming large ahead of him in the distance, Dorian felt relieved and that relief made him so angry that he wanted to scream.

He launched a small, _mostly_ harmless ball of lightning at Cullen’s back out of something resembling spite. Cullen flinched, whole body jerking away and he whipped around. Dorian was too far away to make out his expression, but he’d bet it was a dead ringer for the one they’d shared upon first meeting.

‘How could you not tell me?’ Dorian shouted. ‘You fucking _idiot_ putting yourself in danger like that and for _what_?’

Cullen began to stalk towards Skyhold again, the fortress dark and enormous against the greeny-grey skies. Dorian ran flat out after him, boots slapping wetly against the uneven rocks beneath his feet. They were slippery and treacherous. Dorian couldn’t remember the last time he’d run so fast.

When he caught up with Cullen, he didn’t slow down in time and he skidded, crashing into him. The impact almost knocked them both to the ground, but Cullen managed to grab Dorian’s arms and keep them both upright before he abruptly remembered that he was supposed to be storming off.

He shoved Dorian away. ‘Leave me be!’

Dorian’s anger was strangling him, burning in his veins. ‘Do you even _know_ how dangerous it is?’ he yelled, blinking the stinging rain out of his eyes. ‘Or did that not matter to you?’

Cullen’s whole body was taut with fury. ‘It poses no danger to you!’

‘AND WHAT ABOUT YOU?’ Dorian bellowed, the words erupting as lightning flashed above them, stark white and absolute, followed by an almost immediate rumble of thunder. ‘_WHAT ABOUT YOU?__’_

Cullen turned to leave again but Dorian couldn’t allow that. He reached for his wrist and yanked him back with all his strength. Cullen lashed out, using the momentum of the turn to expertly smash his fist into Dorian’s face and it hurt so much that Dorian made a low noise, a kind of cry that he wished he’d been strong enough to contain.

‘Why do you have to be this way?’ Cullen demanded, anger causing the words to quake. ‘I _despise you; _do you realise that? I hate you so much that it’s a physical thing inside me, burning whenever you’re near, whenever you speak!’

Dorian put his hand over his mouth. ‘Tell me why.’

Cullen hands slammed into his chest, forcing him backwards. He began to impose upon the mage, walking into him and pushing him back further whenever Dorian became too close, herding him like a prisoner.

‘Do you realise how difficult this is for me?’ Lightning and thunder were barely a split second apart that time, the pulsing energy of the storm almost directly above them. ‘How impossible this is for me to reconcile? No, of course you don’t! You’re a selfish, spiteful creature and you take _pleasure_ in condemning me to the depths of—’

Before he could shove Dorian again, the mage swung his arm as hard as he could and backhanded Cullen across the face. It was artless and utterly instinctive. Dorian had never been taught how to punch and even if he had, he knew it could never inflict that same level of damage that came naturally to Cullen. That didn’t mean he didn’t know how to fucking _hurt_ him without resorting to magic, though.

‘If you knew something was happening, if you knew it was dangerous, then why do it? Tell me _why!__’_

Lightning struck the earth barely twenty feet from where they stood. Dorian had hit Cullen hard enough to split his lip. A thin rivulet of blood trailed down his chin, becoming diluted with the rain cascading over his skin.

‘So you can own that too?’

‘I own nothing of you!’

Cullen laughed so bitterly; it was almost a sob. ‘You own everything! You’ve taken everything that I am and carved your name into it, into every part of _me_!’ Cullen smacked his hand against his wet chest for emphasis on the last word.

Dorian grabbed Cullen’s face, holding it steady, desperate to wrench sense and _truth_ from him. ‘You tell me why, right fucking now!’

‘And you don’t even want it,’ Cullen seethed, ignoring Dorian’s demand. ‘You own everything and you don’t even fucking _want_ it! You’re just waiting for the perfect excuse to cut the strings and _leave_, well here it is, on a platter! And I’m left like this, ruined by the big bad Tevinter mage who’s really nothing but a fretful fop running away from his disappointed _Daddy!__’_

Dorian tried to control his voice. ‘Why my blood?’

Cullen knocked the mage’s hands away from his face, expression twisted into something feverishly cruel. ‘Just a tragic little slut who uses wit to deflect from truth!’

‘Was it to replace the Lyrium?’

‘Incapable of anything but destruction and lies!’

_‘Cullen_—’

‘—only talent is fucking every man in Thedas to hide the fact that you have nothing to give, _nothing_ inside you beneath all that prettiness! You have nothing to give me but you’ve _taken_ everything!’

It felt like a knife, like being _gutted_. Sharp and so determined to pierce skin, bone and organs. Cullen was lethal; he didn’t need a weapon to kill Dorian and he never had. The storm raged around them and Dorian was so cold that his body had surpassed the ability to even recognise it anymore.

‘Here's your fucking truth, mage,’ Cullen said in an abruptly hollow way, eyes closed in abject misery. ‘It’s not to replace Lyrium, it’s not an addiction. It’s _you. _It’s to get more of you, to have you inside me, to… I don’t even know anymore, but I know it’s _you_. I can feel you in every drop of your blood, your magic. You _are_ your magic.’ Cullen took a great, shuddering breath, fingers clawing in his own hair. ‘You are your magic and I…’

A rigor mortis of dread had Dorian in a strangle hold. He wanted Cullen to say it, wanted to hear him verbalise what Dorian didn’t let himself acknowledge or even consider because things like this were so fucking precarious.

For a long, awful moment, Cullen just stared at Dorian and the mage knew he was being evaluated to some extent. That even in the heat of such intensity, a literal storm exploding around them, Cullen was weighing Dorian in anticipation of saying something he likely wouldn’t be able to take back.

Dorian saw the exact moment Cullen decided to trust him, despite the weight of his hatred and resentment. It was a terrible thing.

‘And I fucking love it,’ Cullen blurted out wretchedly. ‘For a long time I hated magic more than anything in this world and you… you’ve made me love it again because it’s _yours._’ Cullen put his hands over his face and said, barely audible over the raging storm, ‘Because it’s you.’

Dorian took a step back, reeling slightly. ‘It’s too dangerous,’ he said numbly. ‘I didn’t even _know_ my magic was moving through you last night.’

‘It’s your blood,’ Cullen told him, maybe just for the sake of saying it aloud. ‘Your own magic calling upon itself. I could feel it from the first time I bit your lip. When you hurt me, the magic went _into_ me. It became a part of me.’

Disgusted with himself for not realising this sooner, so much fucking sooner, Dorian scowled. ‘And it could have killed you! Fucking Maker, Cullen! It could have torn you apart!’

Cullen shook his head slightly, not moved by Dorian’s dire warnings. ‘Your magic was made to fit inside me.’

The threat of that statement brought Dorian’s defences to the surface, seeking to protect him from this unpredictable man who could no more be guided by common sense or survival instincts than Dorian.

‘What the fuck would you know about _magic_? Just because you were fed Lyrium for years you think you have the slightest clue what it is to have magic inside you?’

The Commander moved closer to Dorian, wiping rain from his eyes. ‘Show me, then.’

‘No!’

_‘Show_ me, Dorian.’

They were having to yell just to be heard. ‘It’s not worth the risk!’

Cullen’s mouth twisted in a sneer. ‘Because it’s not a risk to _you_, I suppose. Of course, its fine for _you _to risk your life coming to me, letting me beat you bloody and hold you inches above a fall that you could never survive but I’m… what? Not worthy of your magic or your time? Not up to the task, like you are?’

‘You’re so fucking stupid,’ Dorian growled, wanting to hit Cullen until he fucking _understood_. _‘I’m_ not worth such a risk, don’t you get it? You are risking too much and it’s _not fucking worth it_!’

Cullen’s eyes flashed and he snapped. When he grabbed Dorian, the mage instinctively expected him to lash out. Part of him longed for it, for that return to a familiar routine. Pain was the least dangerous option here, the safest path. He didn’t even flinch, but it wasn’t pain Cullen offered.

Cullen’s fury manifested in a bruising kiss instead, yanking Dorian into him, crashing their mouths together and between them, static energy fired and crackled. The kiss was wholly unforgiving, lips sliding wetly as the rain made it difficult to get enough purchase. Dorian had never been kissed this way; he’d never tasted the tears of another, blended with cold rain.

Dorian knew he was kissing him this way _instead of_ hurting him, that Cullen had made a choice, despite the heat of the moment and the swirling madness born of too many feelings to reconcile. It was momentous, the contact between them, threatening to break Dorian’s ribcage all the way open and let loose those terrible things he had caged inside of him.

The Commander tore his mouth away. His expression was a stunning mess of emotions. Dorian saw need and ardour corrupted by loathing and misery, but mostly he saw _conflict_. Cullen looked like he was being torn apart, like Dorian was quite literally killing him.

Oh, the fucking _irony_ of that.

‘Who are you to judge what’s worthy?’ Cullen demanded, voice breaking all over the place. He was wild and ragged, barely in control. ‘Who _the fuck_ do you think are to tell me what is and is _not_ worth taking a risk?’

‘I’m not—’

‘You’re worth it if I say you are!’

The centre of the storm was directly overhead now and Dorian felt the eye upon them. The storm could sense their heat, it was drawn to their bodies. _Conduits_, that’s how it saw them. _Conductors_. The thing Cullen had begged to be, but not for a storm, for _Dorian_; for Dorian’s magic.

‘Cullen…’ he tried to warn the man, but he felt the shift in energy before he could say another word; a needle-sharp wrench as the air became still, preparing to split and part that the storm’s whip could unfurl.

Dorian threw his hand up just in time, dredging every particle of magic he owned to make a shield strong enough to protect them. The lightning struck, aiming for Cullen, not himself, and just _barely_, Dorian’s shield absorbed the worst of it. The impact rang like a gong, vibrating through Dorian’s bones, jarring his insides. The energy ran rampantly through him, but it wasn’t concentrated; mostly spread thin over his domed shield, splintering off angrily. He could take it. He was a part of it, after all.

The sharp scent of electric fire filled the air, burnt ozone and the oldest magic born of the skies. The flash had been so bright that it had made Dorian momentarily night-blind. He tried to blink the bright, swimming spots away to see if Cullen was safely within the dome, but he couldn’t make out anything.

The shield had held up just about. The lightning still crackled and juddered all around the dome, making a cage of sorts.

The energy faded after a few seconds with nowhere to go and no conduit to house it. Dorian let his shield disintegrate and all his strength went with it. His arms were quivering, mana painfully depleted from what had been required to protect them from something so incredibly powerful.

‘Dorian,’ Cullen sounded far away, his strong voice reverberating. ‘Are you—_fuck_!’ The mage could feel himself swaying, the world tipping heavily to the side. Cullen’s strong arms caught Dorian before he could fall. He took all his weight as though it was nothing.

‘Why’re you always catching me?’ Dorian slurred, eyes rolling in his head, skin tingling and rolling with waves of varying sensation. ‘I _can_ fall, y’know. Won’t break if… I just fall sometimes.’

Cullen adjusted his hold so that he could lower Dorian, damsel style, onto the ground using his knees as a pillow.

‘You’re always falling when I’m around,’ Cullen said shakily, hands moving over Dorian’s skin, checking for injuries. ‘Seems rude to just let you plant your face in the dirt.’

Laughter bubbled out of Dorian without his permission. ‘Well, issa very pretty face you’re protecting.’

Cullen sounded distracted when he agreed, ‘Yes very. Is there an exit wound? Dorian? Does anywhere feel especially cold?’

‘It’s pouring rain, idiot. ‘M cold everywhere.’

Cullen didn’t dignify that with a response, hands carefully searching Dorian’s body. It took Dorian a while to realise that Cullen was concerned that the lightning might have genuinely hurt him.

‘Cullen,’ he said slowly, stretching out the _L’s _while trying to focus on the spinning, drenched man above him wearing such an intense frown. ‘There’s no exit wound. I’m a mage, ‘member? I’m _made_ of lightning, silly.’

The hasty, lingering kiss Cullen pressed to his forehead caused a snap of static, but the Commander didn’t seem to mind. ‘You are _not_ made of lightning,’ he pointed out, stronger now that Dorian had reassured him somewhat. ‘You’re flesh and blood.’

‘Just like you.’

Dorian’s vision was stabilising enough that he saw Cullen swallow as he dragged the back of his trembling hand over his eyes. ‘Just like me.’

‘Was it pretty, the lightning?’

Cullen scowled. ‘I wasn’t looking at the _lightning,_ you absolute fucking moron.’

Dorian’s head was in the clouds when he giggled and sighed, ‘You make that sound like an endearment.’

‘Well, there you go,’ Cullen said with a hint of stern snark. ‘From now on, feel free to interpret “_you absolute fucking moron__”_ as an all-out declaration of my regard for you.’

They fell silent while Dorian’s senses slowly returned, his mana rebuilding steadily as the earth returned what the lightning had stolen. The memory of their argument trickled back, bringing with it a faint sense of embarrassment because Dorian was laying there in Cullen’s arms like some sort of wounded princess after they’d been screaming at other about…

‘Stop it,’ Cullen chided.

Dorian blinked. ‘I’m not _doing_ anything.’

‘Yes, you are,’ he said as he looked around. The rain was easing off, moving away to other parts. ‘How many times do I have to tell you to stay here?’

Dorian tried to make it as plain as possible when he said, ‘I _want_ to stay here, believe me.’

Cullen gave a small nod, swiping an errant lock of the mage’s hair out of his eyes.

‘I believe you.’

‘You can’t have my blood, Cullen,’ Dorian said, grasping the man’s wrist and squeezing. ‘I don’t think I have to offer a _secondary_ demonstration of just how dangerous magic can be, do I?’

‘I know magic is dangerous,’ Cullen said quickly, sharply. ‘I’m not an idiot.’

Dorian’s mouth tugged at the corners, not remotely cowed. ‘No, just an absolute fucking moron.’ Cullen grunted, but he was stroking Dorian’s sopping wet hair so it lessened the effect somewhat. Dorian gingerly pushed himself up and Cullen helped him, one arm around his back.

‘I need to tell you something,’ Dorian said, throat sticking unpleasantly, like his body was trying to prevent it. ‘You were honest with me and I… I should be honest with you.’

Cullen stared at him with an inscrutable expression. ‘You don’t need to tell me anything,’ he said with a level of calm that Dorian envied.

‘I want to, though,’ Dorian forced himself to say. Maybe it would be easier while he still felt numb. Maybe Cullen would listen because they were alone and there was nowhere for him to immediately run to. ‘And it’s difficult and, fuck, it’s going to hurt so much I don’t even know where to—’

‘I love you too.’

‘—begin, it’s all such a… wait, what?’

Cullen’s intensity never waved. He didn’t seem insecure or worried. He was steady and utterly sure of himself.

‘I love you too,’ he said, like he was informing Dorian that they shared an appreciation for a particular brand of ale. ‘You don’t need to say it. I know you don’t _want_ to say it and that’s fine. I thought you were hurt, with the lightning. I thought you might die.’ He gave a brief shrug, frowning to himself. ‘There are doubtlessly better ways to say such a thing but I don’t possess anywhere near the levels of charm or verbosity that you do. You likely gathered as much from the letter, but I didn’t want there to be any… confusion about what I wrote.’ He watched Dorian evenly, bringing up a hand to caress his cheek. ‘I didn’t mean what I said before and I love you.’

Dorian briefly wondered if he was going to add _so there_ at the end and was almost disappointed when he didn’t. It might have made the whole thing funnier somehow, less like the centre of gravity for the entire world had shifted into Dorian’s solar plexus. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Cullen kissed him softly.

‘Don’t say it back,’ he murmured. ‘You’ll forever shatter my illusion of the hard-to-get mage who drives me wild with his arrogance and pride.’

Dorian couldn’t have formed words if his life depended on it, so he simply nodded, giving Cullen what he hoped was a shaky smile and clutched his shoulders tightly. He was entirely overwhelmed and so… _so_ fucking sad it brought tears to his eyes.

He kissed him back, though; let his fingers travel into the Commander’s wet hair. Cullen was the still point of the turning world. Everything would rotate around him now, Dorian knew it, bone deep and even though it meant the end of the world, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Cullen was so fucking perfect and beautiful and he _loved_ Dorian. The fucking crazy ex-Templar _loved him_ or at least he believed he did. Dorian still didn’t let himself acknowledge what he felt for Cullen, he kept it as contained as possible but it wouldn’t be long now.

Everything was fucked, completely and irreversibly and Dorian hadn’t even told Cullen the truth.

At least, Dorian tried to console himself while Cullen kissed him deeper, maybe now he wouldn’t have to.

*

_It hadn_ _’t worked. _

_The blood ritual had failed. His father had failed and Dorian was filled with a terrible, vengeful hysteria. _

_‘You _failed_!__’ he all but screamed at Halward, body shaking hard enough to make his chains rattle. ‘You couldn’t even get this right, you sad, old SHADOW OF A MAN!’ He started to laugh, a terrible thing wrought of despair and hatred so sharp it cut to breathe. _

_The magic still had him in its grip, though unable to perform the task Halward had requested. Dorian felt it inside of him, waiting. Smiling and patient. _

_‘The great Magister Pavus, forever stuck with a bent son!’ Dorian scathed, tears still streaming as his whole body shook violently with abundant adrenaline. The magic seemed to lend steam to his anger. ‘You have no power over me or who I love, you fucking lowlife!’_

_Halward looked at Dorian with such contempt, it made Dorian turn cold. _

_‘I would see you _dead_ before you were in love with a man!__’_

_That awful magic, pure glittering blackness, struck like a snake. It took hold of Dorian and burrowed into his skin, into his magic, his very soul. It writhed and pulsed, cheerfully raping him while praising him for his anger. For causing Halward to lash out and frame a curse that he so deeply deserved. _

You brought this on yourself_, it sang, pressing kisses into his veins, crafting a caveat so monstrous that even abstractly, Dorian could feel that the magic was proud of itself. _

_And then it was gone, spent. _

_Dorian collapsed, barely able to draw breath. Someone was touching him and he wanted to scream and flinch away, but he wasn_ _’t in his body anymore. He wasn’t there. _

_He heard his father_ _’s voice, trembling with fear and worry, calling his name over and over. He heard his father bellow at their family servant for something that didn’t matter, couldn’t possibly matter. Nothing would help. _

_Nothing would help. _

_His father was apologising, saying over and over that he didn_ _’t mean it. That wasn’t his intention. Pleading for Dorian to forgive him, to speak, to move. _

_Dorian lay there in a puddle of someone else_ _’s blood while stars danced before his eyes, utterly numb to everything around him. The world kept turning and when Dorian closed his eyes, he let the last of him that had ever loved his father die there on that very floor. _

_He hoped everything else about him that wasn_ _’t brittle or jagged, sharp enough to weaponize, died too. He had been soft and stupid when he’d followed his father into this room. Trusting, like a fool. _

Let it die, _he begged himself. _Let it all die so I never will_. _

_Dorian was twenty-four and he was never, ever going to fall in love. _


	13. Seven Days

‘All right, so I may have made a few mistakes and by a few mistakes, what I mean is that I’ve completely fucked up everything in my life and now face the prospect of early death either by a blood magic curse or Cullen’s sword.’

Dorian stared at himself in the mirror and scowled. That wasn’t good enough, not at all. Lavellan was his only chance now and he knew how unfair that was to place so much at her feet when she _did_ have other things to worry about, but Dorian had always been selfish. Maker, the woman had barely been back two hours.

He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath.

‘Ellana,’ he said into the mirror in a more sombre tone of voice. ‘I wouldn’t ask unless this was absolutely necessary and I realise you’re sworn to secrecy by Cullen and that he trusts you but… I really, _really _need you to tell me what was in the letter because I might not have much time left now and I…’

His throat closed up, the threat of tears burning in the corner of his eyes.

Fuck it all, he didn’t _want_ to die and there were so many reasons but chief among them was the actual reason he was _going_ to die. It was all one very big Cullen-esque circle. Dorian didn’t want to die, he had things to live for - imagine that!

But if he was going to die, he really didn’t want to die a liar. He couldn’t tell Cullen the truth, couldn’t even contemplate what it would do to the man or the tentative _thing_ growing between them, especially this past week since the Storm Incident. So, if he couldn’t tell Cullen the truth, then he had to find out what was in the letter.

He had an option… but it was a terrible fucking option and Dorian was keeping that for his absolute rock bottom last resort.

Lavellan knew things. Lavellan was solid and trustworthy and he loved her very much. He just had to convince her to break her promise to Cullen and give Dorian additional hints about this motherfucking letter.

Dorian already had a few clues, put together throughout the week, but he didn’t have a clear picture yet. He suspected Lavellan’s knowledge was the key. The last piece that would slot everything he’d learned together in pleasing fashion and allow Dorian to do at least one decent thing in his life before it was stripped from him.

And it would be. He recognised the reality he was faced with. It was a matter of time, a simple matter of when Cullen pushed him too far. Dorian had never been remotely prepared for it. Had never believed in love at first sight and so never felt the need to write a note and keep it in his personal things should the day come when he was struck down by the curse. He’d sharpened himself to a point; a glittering, gleaming slope of a person that someone could rest on for a day or so and enjoy the slow ride down, but it was _inevitable_ that the person slid down. No one had ever _wanted_ to stay and he’d made it so that no one ever could.

Fucking Cullen and his… _ways_.

Dorian took a deep breath and stared at himself in the reflective glass. How would he look when his father’s _blood curse_ finally took hold and killed him? Would he remain beautiful long enough before they burned him or would he rapidly pale and wither? The eyes, he knew, always went first. His stormy grey eyes, reduced to a dull, dry white.

He shook himself forcefully and when the image didn’t shift, making it hard to breathe, he slapped himself on the face, just once and just hard enough to root him in the present where he was very much still alive.

‘Ellana,’ he said, voice deep and strong, despite the tremor. ‘I should have been honest with you when you asked what had happened between me and Cullen. I need your help.’

That was better, yes. It would have to be a variation of that. Ellana was a good person, she would help him and if she didn’t, which was really quite fucking reasonable given the circumstances, then Dorian was going to have to pursue his worrying last resort. Last resorts were always bad.

The rain outside had persisted on and off all week. Dorian realised that by the very nature of association, he was getting slightly turned on just listening to it through his glass doors. Cullen apparently had a _thing_ for fucking in the rain and over the course of that especially rainy week, Dorian had found out just how _much_ the former Templar enjoyed it.

*

** _Six Days Ago_ **

‘We are _not_ fucking in the rain.’

‘Dorian—’

_‘No_. I only just got dry and warm. It’ll be a miracle if I don’t die of a cold and in case you hadn’t noticed, these are not the temperate rains of Tevinter during that one week a year it _does _rain. This is the South, where everything is frozen solid and very muddy.’

Cullen’s arms circled around Dorian from behind, lips pressing against his neck as the mage stared out at the downpour from his room. ‘I’ll keep you warm,’ he offered. ‘Or you could use a shield, as you did before.’

Cullen speaking about magic and things like _before_ threatened to give Dorian a mild panic attack. He’d returned to Skyhold and his room hoping to dry off and get things straight in his mind, but Cullen had followed him back like a stray cat, sensing an obliging new owner.

‘No rain,’ Dorian said firmly, though he couldn’t help but place his hands over Cullen’s, appreciating the warmth of the man’s skin. Cullen was always warm. Dorian wondered how it would feel to snuggle with him, the way he did with Lavellan that one time.

Then he realised it might actually be a possibility and the stark realisation of how much had changed in so short a time span threatened even more panic.

‘You _are_ a little cold,’ Cullen said, kissing Dorian’s neck in a way that should be outlawed immediately. ‘Why don’t you make a bath?’

‘Don’t you have things to do?’ Dorian asked, slightly shrill. ‘I thought the Commander of the Inquisition might have better things to be doing than lurking around a pariah mage all day.’

Cullen smirked against Dorian’s neck. ‘Am I lurking, then?’

Dorian took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Cullen,’ he said. ‘You’re not having my blood.’

Cullen scoffed easily. ‘I don’t _want_ your blood.’

‘Is that why you’re mouthing at my neck?’

More kisses, light and teasing. ‘Mmm,’ Cullen hummed, one hand travelling up Dorian’s chest, messing with the buttons of his shirt while the other travelled determinedly south. ‘Maybe I just want to claim you. Bite hard and forbid you to heal it; make you wear my mark for everyone to see.’

_Well, fuck_.

Dorian’s lashes fluttered, heart flipping. ‘Stop teasing.’

‘But you love being teased.’

‘I… do not.’

Cullen’s mouth dragged over his earlobe, gifting the entire left side of Dorian’s body with shivery frissons of gooseflesh. ‘Yes, you do,’ he said in a voice that made Dorian’s knees tremble. ‘And I never get to tease you, isn’t that _outrageous_? You’ve never let me tie you down and drive you wild, pushing you to the limit and then stopping, making you wait and beg for even the slightest touch.’

Dorian swallowed, head falling back against Cullen’s shoulder. ‘Neither of us is that patient.’

‘It’s true,’ Cullen rumbled, teeth grazing Dorian’s neck in a feather-light touch that had the mage whimpering slightly. ‘You bring out the animal in me. I spent so long wishing I could throw you down on that table in the War Room and fuck you until all your pretty words failed you. But I want _everything_ now. I want to make up for lost time.’

Those last two words were finally enough to snap Dorian out of the lust-filled haze Cullen was so expertly weaving all around him. He moved away from him, not bothering to hide his state of arousal from where Cullen had been palming his cock.

‘You’re needed elsewhere, I guarantee it,’ he said, only panting slightly. ‘And so am I.’

Cullen shrugged languidly but the dark desire never left his eyes.

‘Well,’ he said, picking up his recently dried cloak, which was shaggier than ever now. ‘I suppose I’ll have to wait until sundown. That’s when the sun goes _down_ across the horizon and the sky turns dark.’

Dorian’s mouth fell open and he stared indignantly. ‘Did you just make a fucking joke? At my expense, to boot?’

He was very pleased with himself; Dorian could tell. Like a smug, overgrown cat of some kind. ‘It’s not my fault you’re a pampered mage who can’t read the sky.’

With a spectacular eye roll, Dorian huffed, ‘I can read the sky, thank you very much. Sundown is fine, though you don’t have to come at all if—’

Cullen kissed him firmly and then said, ‘I’ll be here unless you don’t want me here.’

‘I do,’ Dorian said in a fairly treacherous tumble of words. ‘I just don’t want you to feel obliged.’

The Commander sighed slowly, his gaze meandering down over Dorian in leisurely fashion. _‘Obliged_,’ he echoed with evident scorn. ‘Why would I feel obliged?’

_Maybe because an hour ago, you declared your love for me. _

Dorian maintained an aloof expression, determined not to be _clingy_. Dorian fucking Pavus was not clingy and never would be.

‘I’m merely pointing out that if you have work to catch up on, I won’t be standing in the doorway wearing an apron and a scowl.’

There was that half smile again and _why_ did he have to look at Dorian like everything the mage did amused him no end? ‘But I like your scowl.’

Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Shoo now, Commander.’

Cullen chuckled. It was a gentle rumble of affectionate amusement and Dorian wanted to kiss and slap him in equal measure, though he tempered both desires and kept himself contained. It wasn’t Cullen’s fault he was… well, _none_ of this was Cullen’s fault.

‘Have a good day, Dorian,’ Cullen bade and finally took his leave. Dorian tried not to smile when he realised the room smelled faintly of the Commander, even in his absence. Cullen had a nice kind of smell, strongest at the base of his skin. Leather, sandalwood and fresh rain.

Dorian looked around at his beautiful room and sighed tiredly. He was literally _shaking_ with excitement knowing Cullen was coming back later. Fucking void, he felt like a teenager.

And speaking of…

*

‘Andraste’s _arse_ please tell me that’s a joke.’

Dorian and Keenan’s conversation had started off so well, damn it. Keenan was being respectful and even cautiously friendly, though Dorian was aware that the young man had a talent for acting however was best to appease certain adults. Still, he hoped to make it very clear that he had zero ulterior motives - his life literally had no room for any motives beyond staying alive and maybe not breaking Cullen Rutherford’s heart - and that he cared about all of them in equal measure.

Apparently, he’d done a decent job of it because Keenan then quietly informed him of what it was he’d almost told Dorian the night previous.

‘It’s not a joke,’ Keenan said flatly. ‘Nalari won’t say whose it is, but she’s definitely pregnant.’

Day two of being a _Responsible Adult. _

Dorian sat on Keenan’s bed and glanced around. The younger mages were engaged in something or other; organising clothes, chatting loudly but it was clear they were all very much aware of what Keenan was telling Dorian and the bustle and noise was simply cover.

‘Fasta vass,’ he muttered. ‘All right, well… where is she?’

‘Why?’ Keenan asked sharply.

Rubbing his hands over his thighs, Dorian sighed, ‘So I can speak with her?’

‘What are you going to say?’

‘I honestly have no idea.’

Keenan’s arms were crossed very tightly. ‘Are you going to yell at her?’

‘No,’ Dorian said softly. ‘Not at all. You can stay if you like and supervise. If I get shrill at any point, you can freeze me in a block of ice.’

Still no smile, but the young man relaxed fractionally. Dorian was going to get a smile out of that kid one day, come void or high water.

‘All right.’ He glanced behind him and nodded and the pretence of a busy dorm room ceased so abruptly that Dorian felt like he’d been in a stage play that was suddenly interrupted. They stopped what they were doing and someone, Dorian really needed to learn more of their names, called out to Nalari. She came forward slowly, holding herself very carefully and gauging Dorian with wary eyes.

She looked to Keenan who nodded earnestly and she sat down at the far end of the bed Dorian was seated on. These mages needed chairs and a table; Dorian decided. And books. And clothes chests. And maybe to open a window.

‘Hello,’ he said offering her a small, genuine smile. ‘Nalari, is it?’

‘Yes,’ she said, looking down at her lap. ‘I didn’t want to tell anyone but I think it’ll be noticeable soon and I… I’m not sure what to do.’

She said the last part so quietly that Dorian barely heard it. She was very pretty, Dorian noted; a full head shorter than Keenan, who hovered over them both like a chaperone at a party, with waist length blond hair which curled at the ends. If her face wasn’t so taut with dread, Dorian knew she would have been simply stunning. It wasn’t important, of course.

‘Do you know how far along you are?’

She shook her head.

‘That’s all right,’ he said easily. ‘That’s fine. Do you want to speak with someone else about this? I know a little about these things, but I can heartily assure you someone else knows more.’

Another shake of her head as she tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘There’s a healer,’ she said hesitantly. ‘One of the older mages, but he’s…’

‘A prick,’ Keenan filled in bluntly. ‘No one ever wants to go to him.’

Dorian nodded and waited.

‘And I know you have healers,’ she went on quietly, still not quite meeting Dorian’s gaze. ‘But they’re not mages.’

‘Well, if you’re happy to talk to me then that’s great.’ Nalari nodded once. ‘Why don’t you come and sit further back and get more comfortable?’ Dorian offered, sliding the pillow out from behind him and offering it to her. ‘Keenan could sit beside you if you like.’

Another hesitant glance at Keenan who looked at her as if to say, _if that__’s what you want?_ Dorian felt a great swell of pity and admiration for these young mages, for Keenan especially, who seemed to hold the weight of their world on his shoulders in a way Dorian couldn’t even imagine.

Keenan put the pillow behind her back against the small, wooden board at the end of the bed and sat beside her.

‘All right,’ she said softly.

The mages behind them were back to being noisy teenagers again; their loud, inane chatter providing the perfect level of cover for the conversation.

‘Some of these questions might be a little bit uncomfortable,’ Dorian said with an apologetic smile.

‘That’s fine.’

‘When was your last moon blood?’

Nalari looked off to the side with a small frown. ‘Three months past?’ she said uncertainly. ‘Maybe four. Is that how you tell how old the baby is?’

‘That’s a rough estimate of how far along you are,’ Dorian told her. ‘Even if it’s closer to four, you still have at least two months before you’ll start showing.’

She blinked. ‘Showing as in, my belly will grow large?’

‘Yes, exactly.’ Dorian was going to find Fiona later and scream at her for her absolute failure in teaching these mages _anything_ besides hiding themselves away. ‘Can I ask, when did you realise you were pregnant?’

She pinched and rubbed the tips of her fingers nervously. ‘I can feel it,’ she said, looking down at her hands. ‘I could feel it a few weeks ago. It’s like… something else is there, inside me. It’s very little but there’s a thumping noise. Before that, I just thought it was the food making me sick.’

Dorian studied her carefully. The girl was extremely pale, her eyes swimming in dark hollows. ‘It’s affecting your sleep too?’

‘Yes,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘My heart feels like it’s beating too fast.’

‘It puts a huge strain on your body, from what little I know about it,’ he told her. ‘Nalari, if you’re three months gone, or closer to four, you know there’s nothing you can… do about it now?’

‘We know that,’ Keenan said, jaw tight and Dorian whole-heartedly believed him.

‘This has happened before,’ Dorian realised slowly. ‘With other girls.’ Keenan said nothing, but he didn’t deny it either. Dorian looked around at the rest of the room, at the determined protectiveness of the mages and a suspicion solidified in his mind.

‘Nalari,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘You don’t _have_ to tell me and please believe me when I say I’m not even remotely judging you, but I’d like you to tell me who it was you had sex with.’

The reaction was instant. A small gasp as her nostrils flared and her gaze immediately averted. Keenan took her hand in his and Dorian thought the young man might physically shatter apart, he’d gone so rigid.

_Maker_ _’s fucking breath, this was bad. _

‘I don’t know,’ she said after a moment, voice tight and thin.

‘You don’t know because… you don’t know his name, is that right?’

She closed her eyes and nodded once.

Dorian felt a sickly heat twist into his blood, an anger that he kept well contained and hidden because this girl had been through quite enough without him adding to anything.

‘If you don’t want me to tell anyone, I won’t,’ Dorian said.

Keenan took a shaky breath. ‘You can tell them it’s mine.’

Dorian’s lips parted, not because he was surprised - at this point the bravery of these mages already had him floored - but because of the emotion it wrenched inside of him. He was moved, impossibly so.

Nalari looked annoyed for the first time. ‘I’ve already said _no_, Keenan,’ she hissed at him. ‘They’ll hang you out to dry and you know it!’

‘They won’t,’ Keenan said, staring very pointedly at Dorian. ‘_He_ won’t.’

‘No one is in trouble here,’ Dorian said, gesturing between the two of them. ‘I want to make that very clear. _No one _here is in any kind of trouble. Nalari, how old are you?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Well, there you are. Legal age in Ferelden is sixteen and even if you weren’t, we would find a way to protect you, no matter what.’

Keenan asked, ‘How?’

Dorian thought for a moment before answering. ‘Well, if you weren’t sixteen, then whoever _really_ got you in the situation would be in staggering amounts of trouble. You would still be in no trouble at all. I want to make that clear. No matter the circumstances, you’re in _no_ danger of punishment or reprimand whatsoever. And,’ he went on slowly. ‘If you were to say that Keenan was the father, he would be in no trouble either.’

Nalari looked down and shook her head slightly. ‘I should have been more careful,’ she said under her breath. Keenan’s hand flexed in hers, thumb rubbing over her knuckles. Dorian badly wanted to ask more questions about the _father_, namely who it was so he could murder him.

‘Keenan,’ Dorian said, drawing the mage’s attention. ‘If you’re going to say it’s yours—’

‘I am,’ he insisted sternly.

‘Well then you likely need to be prepared for the possibility that you’ll need to marry.’

‘I know that.’

Dorian nodded. ‘You don’t _have_ to, obviously.’

‘No, that’s fine,’ Keenan said. ‘It’ll seem more… real, won’t it?’

‘Yes, I suppose it will. Nalari, do you want me to hold off telling anyone for the time being?’

The young girl considered his question and Dorian could tell that she _did_ want that, but there were other factors swaying her decision.

‘No,’ she said after a beat. ‘It’s… best to make it known, I suppose.’

‘All right. Well, I’ll only tell the necessary people for now. Do you know about eating and avoiding certain food?’

She shook her head, frowning slightly.

‘That’s fine,’ Dorian said with a smile. ‘It’s basically eating healthy - lots of leafy greens which I’ll make sure you’re swimming in and avoiding certain cheeses, meats, herbs and so forth.’

She glanced away miserably. ‘I can’t imagine eating anything anyway,’ she said. ‘I feel sick all the time.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, feeling more than a little useless. ‘Um, I wish I could do more. But I’ll do whatever I can for now, starting with a double layered mattress so you can sleep a little better. You’re all in desperate need of new furniture, too. I think a trip to Val Royeaux is in order. This room is spacious and all but there aren’t even any curtains! I’m going to make this place just as pretty as you are, sweetheart,’ he told her, earning an _almost_ smile in return. ‘And if you need new clothes… well actually you _all_ need new clothes. Yes, I’m warming to my theme now which is to lavish you all with nice new things.’

Keenan frowned. ‘We can’t afford—’

‘Yes, well,’ Dorian interrupted sternly. ‘My father certainly _can_. Now, in the meantime, I’m literally only upstairs so you can come to me for anything, any help I can give is yours for the asking.’ She nodded mutely; eyes averted once more. ‘Is there anything else you want to ask me?’

There clearly was, but she seemed to struggle when attempting to put it to words. Keenan gave her hand another gentle squeeze and spoke for her. ‘There’s a pattern in the guards’ night shifts,’ he said tightly. ‘We would appreciate if you could ask your Commander to change that pattern.’

Dorian kept himself calm and neutral, fucking _barely_. ‘Change the guards’ shifts?’ he clarified. Nalari nodded, looking determinedly down at her and Keenan’s hands. ‘Right, consider it done.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Can I go now?’

‘Of course. Thank you for speaking with me.’

Nalari slid off the bed, untangling her hand from Keenan’s, her green eyes meeting Dorian’s for a moment as she said, ‘You’re kind.’

‘Well,’ he said, unprepared for the genuineness of her statement. ‘That’s very sweet of you to say.’

Dorian watched as she vanished into the thicket of her fellow mages, the young girl Saffy wrapping an around Nalari’s middle as she went.

‘Keenan,’ Dorian said. ‘Walk me out, please.’

The young mage didn’t hesitate and he didn’t comment when Dorian kept right on walking all the way back to his room.

‘Come in,’ he offered when Keenan hesitated at the door. ‘How old are you again?’

Keenan said, ‘Almost nineteen.’

‘I think you’re older than that,’ Dorian said, uncorking a bottle of wine with trembling hands. ‘I think you’ve purposefully stayed with the younger ones to protect them because you couldn’t risk ageing up and leaving them.’

Keenan crossed his arms, mouth in a thin line.

‘I have nothing but respect for you,’ Dorian told him, pouring wine into a glass. ‘What you’ve done for them is commendable.’

‘I don’t want your praise.’

‘I know, but you’re getting it all the same.’ After taking a long swig, Dorian turned to face Keenan. ‘Do you know which guard raped her?’

Keenan’s expression was set in stone. ‘No,’ he said resentfully. ‘If I did, I might have been able to stop it. She was… protecting _me_.’

Dorian knew he wasn’t going to like the answer but still asked, ‘How so?’

‘The guards have threatened more than once to kill me,’ Keenan baldly stated. ‘Nalari said I should stop intervening, at least on her behalf.’

‘So, it’s happening with others too.’

‘Of course it is.’

‘Right,’ Dorian said, taking another shaky swig. ‘Well it’s stopping right the fuck now.’

Keenan rolled his eyes. ‘Oh really?’

‘Yes really.’

‘Look, no offence - you seem sort of decent and all - but you’re not going to be able to stop it. Not without killing them all.’

‘Well then I’ll kill whoever comes near any of you with intent to harm.’

The young mage’s eyes widened fractionally. ‘You can’t do that.’

Dorian shrugged, topping up the wine. ‘Why not?’

‘You’re… part of the Inquisition.’

‘So are you,’ he said. ‘The people who _aren__’t_ are the ones hurting you all. They’re no loss to our organisation, are they?’

‘You won’t kill them.’

Dorian laughed. ‘That sounds like a dare.’

‘You’re angry.’

‘No,’ Dorian said, heading towards his glass doors. ‘I’m furious, actually. I knew there was a level of… discontent with the soldiers here but I never suspected it was this systemic. Fiona knew, I assume?’

‘She tried to protect us,’ Keenan said after an uncomfortable moment’s silence. ‘A few times she… gave the girls witherstalk to prevent pregnancy.’

Dorian opened the glass doors and welcomed the biting breeze that flooded inside. ‘To be honest, if I’m going to kill anyone, it’s likely going to be Fiona.’

‘Look,’ Keenan said, walking towards Dorian. ‘I can tell you’re angry and that this is all shocking to you but I can’t let you make our lives _worse_.’

Dorian wished he didn’t understand.

‘I’m not going to make your life worse,’ he said looking at the young man. ‘I know you’re protecting Nalari by saying it’s your baby. You’re a good man but you wouldn’t do that unless she was at risk of being hurt or killed if anyone found out. Things have to change from now on.’

‘Like I said, the guards shifts—’

‘That’s not enough,’ Dorian said, shaking his head. ‘Nowhere near enough. But it’s where I’ll start.’

‘You have to be careful with who you tell,’ Keenan warned. ‘I know you trust Commander Cullen, but everyone under him is a potential threat. That’s why I want it known that Nalari is pregnant and that it’s mine. There’ll be no need to _cut_ any loose threads that way when the shifts are changed.’

‘I understand.’

‘I… thank you.’

‘You know,’ Dorian said, lighting the fire in a nearby small grate with his magic. ‘If you knew who it was, I could simply arrange to have him removed.’

Keenan scowled. ‘If I knew who it was, this would never have happened. In Kirkwall, when I was young, we had a way of protecting the girls sometimes. It didn’t always work, but it was better than nothing.’

Dorian only hesitated for a moment before pouring a second glass and offering it to the young man. Keenan warily eyed the glass before he accepted it with a nod. ‘What was your method?’

‘Sometimes the Templars, the softer ones, they’d let us grow herbs and flowers in boxes on the windowsills,’ Keenan said, taking a small sip. ‘If we were careful, we could grow witchgrass without them noticing.’

Dorian blinked. ‘Why would you… witchgrass is poisonous.’

Keenan held the glass in both hands, staring out of the doors. ‘Only in large quantities. We would stew it and put two drops in the tea of whoever was hurting the girls,’ he said. ‘It would make them sick for a few days, that’s all. Buy the girls time until the shift rota changed.’

‘That’s incredibly dangerous,’ Dorian couldn’t help but point out. ‘Not that I’m remotely concerned about any rapists being killed you understand, but even a drop more than intended could result in slow death. Is this common practise in southern Circles?’

‘I don’t know if it’s used all over. My Father was the one who taught my Mother and she taught all of us.’

‘Your parents were…?’

‘They were separated by the Templars as a punishment. Sent my Mother to Kirkwall. My Father was kept in Kinloch Hold,’ Keenan explained in a dead kind of voice. ‘It was accidental, being placed with my Mother; they would never have allowed it if they knew, but there were bigger things to worry about in the Gallows as time went on. My Father wrote to my Mother and me. He taught us how to collect the witchgrass seeds from bird droppings. Told us what birds to lure, how to grow it in the window boxes so it wasn’t noticeable and then how to stew it properly. Two droplets for two days and no more, always in tea. Heat activates the effects. It was a good trick while it lasted, anyway.’

‘You can’t do that here, Keenan,’ Dorian said in a low voice. ‘If anyone found out, it would look like attempted murder.’

Keenan’s expression was carefully blank. ‘I know how it would look.’

There was a long pause before Dorian said, ‘I’m going to stop this, Keenan. I swear to you.’

‘I know you’ll try,’ Keenan said and for a moment, he sounded much older than Dorian. ‘But your Commander is, or at least _was, _a Templar. He spent years in Circles. He knows what goes on, he must know to an extent what happens here.’

Dorian frowned, trying to suppress his natural curiosity. Kinloch was the thing Cullen and Leliana were discussing, the very thing they were concerned about Hawke knowing from the letter. ‘The Commander would never permit anything like this. He despised Fiona for her secretive treatment of you all.’

Keenan observed Dorian for a long moment. ‘Everyone knows he hurts you,’ he said at length. ‘Why do you let him?’

There were just about a million things Dorian wanted to say then. He wanted to tell Keenan that such an assertion simply wasn’t correct. That Cullen never hurt him unless he wanted it. That consent was important. That Cullen was a good man. That _Dorian_ was a good man, despite how it seemed.

But there was a depth to Keenan’s question; a genuine desire to _know_ and not a rhetorical assumption. Dorian decided to try for honesty, raw and unfiltered. The young man deserved that much at least.

‘At first it was the risk,’ Dorian said, thumb circling the rim of his wine glass. ‘I’ve… always been drawn to things that might kill me.’

‘Only at first?’

_Be honest, don__’t deflect. _‘Cullen could still kill me,’ Dorian said, jaw working slightly in protest of voicing something so painfully true. ‘But not in the same way anymore.’

‘Do you love him?’

Dorian drank some more wine. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t.’

Keenan looked relieved. ‘Good,’ he said, placing his mostly untouched wine glass aside. ‘That’s good. He could be useful to us if you can sway him.’

‘Sway him?’

‘We’ve all done it. He’s in a position of power. He could make our lives a lot easier under your influence.’

_Under your influence_.

Dorian’s blood. Cullen’s almost _passive_ acceptance than it was affecting him in ways yet unknown. Cullen’s need for Dorian’s magic. His open adoration of it and his desire to have it inside of him.

‘The Commander is _not_ under my influence,’ Dorian said rather forcefully. ‘He’s not under anyone’s influence, the Chantry included.’

Keenan’s expression twisted slightly with a bite of impatience. ‘So do a better job of fucking him, then!’ Dorian said nothing, he didn’t react at all and after a long drawn out moment, Keenan sighed, looking away. ‘I didn’t mean that, I just… he holds the keys, Dorian.’

It was the first time Keenan had ever said his name. Dorian wished it didn’t come off the back of something so unpleasant.

‘There are no keys here. No locks, no cells.

‘In your world, maybe. Look, I do appreciate your help.’ Keenan sounded abruptly tired. ‘Nalari needs all the help she can get and I… I believe you _want_ to help us.’

‘I’m going to do everything I can.’

Keenan gave a brief nod and looked around. ‘All right.’

He began to leave when Dorian called out, ‘Keenan, wait. Did… did your father ever speak of Commander Cullen while he was in Kinloch Hold?’

Keenan hesitated near the door, his back to Dorian. ‘He did.’

Dorian’s stomach was a nest of writhing snakes. He forced himself to ask, ‘Was he… did he hurt anyone?’

Slowly, Keenan looked back. ‘My father died in Kinloch Hold,’ he told Dorian. ‘But before that, when he used to write to us in secret, he spoke of people. Your Commander was mentioned more than once, but not for hurting anyone.’

‘What for, then?’

Keenan’s gaze remained flat. ‘He was the Templar who allowed them to have window boxes to grow flowers in. The _soft_ _one_, my Father called him.’

For a long moment, the two stared at each other. Keenan seemed to be daring Dorian to ask for more details and though Dorian wanted to, part of him was genuinely afraid to _know_ more when his mind was overflowing as it was.

When Dorian simply thanked him, Keenan nodded, as though the mage had somehow managed to both prove him right and disappoint him at the same time.

*

By the time the sun descended, Dorian was beyond exhausted. He missed his little library. He missed standing there looking gorgeous and appraising books, sometimes one at a time… _for hours_. Oh, the days when he’d had nothing to do and nothing to worry about beyond how he was going to piss off Cullen that night.

The days when it had all been a game and Dorian a professional player.

He’d spent most of the day thinking and then thinking some more. There was too much information to process fully, but damn it, he’d made some serious effort to do just that. When he hadn’t been thinking, he returned to his library for more than mere nostalgia of easier times, but to consult a few of his books chronicling events in Ferelden around ten years ago.

His search turned up nothing but a veiled reference to another book he didn’t have in his library, much to his disappointment. He made a note of it nonetheless and then he wrote to his father requesting an eye-watering sum of money to be sent ahead of him to Val Royeaux.

He briefly debated telling Halward that this might well be the last time he heard from him, that the curse his father had placed upon him was very likely to take effect soon. It seemed unnecessarily spiteful, however, especially when Dorian thought of his mother. She and Halward had not been together for many years now, but that didn’t mean Halward wasn’t heart broken by her loss.

The mere thought of her was enough to cause Dorian’s hands to tremble as he held the quill.

He kept the letter brief and impersonal. Halward wouldn’t deny his request, wouldn’t fucking dare.

Then, while he was sat there at his desk, quill in hand, he began to write down everything he knew about what might have been in Cullen’s letter. He wracked his brain to think of everything Cole had ever said that seemed pertinent, every little hint from Cullen’s conversation with Leliana and with Lavellan. Hawke’s observation about the flower. Keenan’s mention of him. Everything he could think of.

He stared down at it, hand aching slightly, and tried to make sense of it.

_The letter pertains to Kinloch Hold._

_Cullen was a Templar in Kinloch Hold._

_He permitted the mages to grow flowers in boxes on the windowsills. _

_The mages grew witchgrass and used it to drug abusive guards. _

_Cole mentioned boxes, he seemed worried. _

_If the letter was made public, Cullen would be in trouble. _

_It involves, or at least mentions, me. _

_Hawke said the other thing Cullen burned was a flower. _

_Something bad happened at Kinloch Hold. _

Dorian stared at that last line for a long time. He was starting to put together a picture, but he simply wasn’t sure if it was the right one.

Slowly, he dropped his head into his hands and made a low sound of frustrated exhaustion. He stared into the darkness for a moment before bright spots began to swim like blurry fish in a black pond.

He couldn’t cope especially well with stress, not for many years now. This was an insanely stressful situation and he could feel his strength fraying at the edges. He couldn’t even get properly drunk anymore because he had fucking _responsibilities_ and _duties_ like he was someone who could handle either. Maker damn it all to void, but he would have given anything to go out, get wasted and have some stranger fuck him against a wall until he cried.

Cullen chose that precise moment to knock on Dorian’s door and let himself in before the mage could even wring out a response. Dorian looked up from the secret hideaway of his own hands and tried to construct his features into those of someone who wasn’t about to pass out into an anxiety-induced coma.

He sighed throatily and met Cullen at the door.

‘Look—’

Cullen didn’t even let him get the words out. His hands reached for Dorian, one wrapping around the back of his head and pulling him into a kiss, the other resting gently against Dorian’s face. Cullen let slip a little moan, lips slanting over Dorian’s far too perfectly, teeth carefully avoiding that bottom lip.

‘Missed you,’ Cullen said in a half whisper half groan.

‘I… Cullen, we need to discuss something.’

The shift was almost startling. Cullen froze, eyes immediately filling with resigned dread. He made clear effort not to get defensive and instead sighed.

‘Fine,’ he said, kicking the door shut behind him neatly. He strolled into the middle of the room and for the first time, Dorian noticed Cullen wasn’t wearing armour. The mage rather wished it wasn’t so distracting how good Cullen looked wearing all black. Black leather breeches with boots and a soft linen shirt, slightly untied at the top. It highlighted his pallor and the golden hue of his hair and _fuck_ that was really not relevant. ‘I began to wonder if you were _ever _going to want to discuss it, to be honest.’

Dorian’s mouth turned very dry. ‘It’s… not that,’ he said, fighting his desire to let Cullen speak. It was too risky. Cullen had only to ask Dorian one thing, one small thing he had no way of knowing, and everything would be abruptly fucked. ‘It’s about your soldiers and the guards.’

Cullen relaxed a fraction, but instead of dread, his expression took on a frown of concern. ‘Oh, go ahead then. Wait, have you eaten yet?’

Dorian paused, mouth closing with a snap. ‘Sorry?’

‘Dinner?’ Cullen said, looking around as if he didn’t quite trust Dorian to be honest. ‘You didn’t go to the hall and I see no trace of plates.’

It grated on Dorian a little. Who the fuck did he think he was, checking up on Dorian like he had any right to do so?

‘I was busy.’

‘Hmm,’ Cullen said, crossing his arms, staring at Dorian in a rather unsettling manner. ‘Well, I’ll be back in five minutes and then we can continue this conversation.’

A flare of deep, writhing irritability flashed through Dorian. ‘Uh, excuse me, but maybe I don’t _want_ to wait five minutes! I have things to tell you, important things!’

‘Yes,’ Cullen said, already halfway out the door. ‘Hence why I’ll be quick.’

And then he was fucking _gone_, just like that.

Dorian stared at the door, indignant outrage vibrating through him. He was in half a mind to lock the door with magic and refuse him re-entry when, and if, the arrogant fucker deigned to return.

He didn’t do that, of course. Instead he furiously tidied up, shuffling papers and miraculously remembering to hide the _list_ he’d constructed before Cullen had barged in… or, more accurately, politely knocked, but _still_.

Cullen returned before five minutes was up or at least it felt that way. He knocked again and just like before, let himself in. Dorian flopped down in his chair, determined to be rude if he could.

‘Joy is bringing some food,’ Cullen said and when he glanced around, he smirked ever so slightly. ‘Did you clean up to spite me?’

Dorian fumed silently, hoping the intensity of his glare was sufficient to convey how much he hated Cullen just then, even if very little of it was truly justified.

‘Well.’ Cullen poured a glass of wine and offered it to Dorian in a calm, patient fashion. ‘What have we to discuss?’

When Dorian didn’t take the glass on general fucking principal, Cullen rolled his eyes and gracefully folded himself down to sit on the floor opposite Dorian’s chair, legs crossed. He set the wine on the floor and leaned back on his hands.

He was waiting Dorian out, the unbearably smug motherfucker. He knew Dorian wasn’t patient enough to sit there in silence and so he was waiting for the moment the mage’s resolve broke.

It didn’t take long.

Dorian scowled after barely thirty seconds and said, ‘If you’re quite ready to listen to me now?’

Cullen was the epitome of serenity. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think so.’

‘It’s a serious fucking matter,’ Dorian snapped. ‘You can’t just _waltz _away because you’ve declared yourself in charge of my eating habits!’

‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I was hungry and I thought you wouldn’t mind if I ate while we spoke, that way I could devote my full attention to you without needing to leave.’

Some of Dorian’s fractious anger weakened at that, but he clung to what remained because it was so wonderfully straightforward to hate Cullen. ‘Are you really going to sit there like a child?’

Cullen wasn’t cowed. ‘Why don’t you tell me what’s happening?’

Dorian was saved the trouble of having to figure out where to start when someone knocked on the door. It gave him the excuse of seeming like he was being interrupted again while he tried to gather himself and think of how best to start this awful conversation.

‘One moment,’ Cullen called, getting to his feet. He opened the door and immediately took one of the trays. Joy ambled inside.

‘Evening Sers,’ she greeted Cullen and Dorian without looking at the mage. ‘Where will you be eating, Master Rutherford?’ she asked, glancing around with a disapproving frown. The table was still occupied by the chess set, meticulously arranged, and Dorian was in the only chair.

‘On the floor,’ Cullen told her, setting his tray down where he’d been sitting before and taking hers, careful not to jostle the contents.

‘You can’t eat on the floor, Ser,’ Joy complained indignantly looking at Cullen with wide eyed concern. ‘It’s freezing and… and bad for digestion!’

‘Your concern is duly noted,’ Cullen said with a pleasant smile as he patted her on the shoulder. Dorian watched in barely contained _awe_ because who the fuck was this man and what the fuck was even happening anymore? Dorian gave up, that’s right. He fucking _gave up_.

Joy was unconvinced. ‘Perhaps it would be better to eat in the dining hall, Master Rutherford,’ she suggested, giving Dorian a quick once over. ‘It’s mostly empty now, if you were concerned about… privacy.’

Dorian huffed out a bitter laugh and rose up from his chair in one smooth, sulky movement. The food smelled wonderful and it made his stomach clench painfully, but something rotten in him was determined not to eat, not to give Cullen the fucking satisfaction of being right _yet again_.

‘Thank you, Joy, but we are well enough here.’

Dorian pretended to be busy fiddling with something atop his chest of drawers, wishing her gone already. He heard her sigh emphatically.

‘As you say, Ser. Bid you both a good night.’

‘And you, Joy.’

When the door clicked shut, Dorian expected Cullen’s attention immediately. Maybe Cullen would tease or scold him for acting this way. Maybe he’d demand he come and eat.

Dorian was… unsure, truth be told. Cullen was unpredictable.

When literally nothing happened, he turned to sate his curiosity and was rewarded with the image of Cullen Rutherford sitting on his fur rug with two trays of food set out in front of him.

Cullen had made a fucking _picnic. _

_Andraste preserve him_.

‘Cullen,’ Dorian said in a voice that did _not_ waver. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

The Commander shrugged and speared a piece of meat, not looking at Dorian. ‘Having dinner. I’m starving and I haven’t eaten all day.’

‘I have a chair,’ Dorian said, crossing his arms. ‘_And_ a table, if you hadn’t gone and set up a fucking chess set without even asking—’

‘Are you going to sit on my lap in the chair?’

Dorian glared. ‘I highly doubt it.’

‘Well then,’ Cullen said. ‘You’d better tell me of these _important things, _no?’

With supreme effort to reign in his fractious nature, Dorian sat opposite Cullen on the soft rug. He’d never actually _sat_ on it before because he was a mage with some measure of dignity and mages with dignity didn’t sit on the fucking floor like barbaric Fereldens, let alone _eat on the floor_, but such was the current state of his life.

Dorian took a deep breath, maintaining Cullen’s steady stare. ‘There is systemic abuse being aimed at the younger mages in our care.’

Cullen lowered his fork, chewing slowly. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I know that there remains an enormous amount of prejudice and hatred against the mages, it’s why I wanted to organise the training sessions, to promote some level of unity between them.’

‘No,’ Dorian said. ‘You’re not hearing me. These men, your soldiers, the guards, are actively participating in abuse; physical and sexual. A girl has been raped, more than once. She’s pregnant.’

Though there were very few candles in the room, Dorian could see that Cullen had paled. He rubbed his eyes and sighed tiredly. ‘Fuck.’

‘Yes, precisely my thoughts.’

‘Who did she say was the perpetrator?’

‘She didn’t; she refuses to reveal him, clearly out of fear.’

‘She’ll _have_ to reveal him,’ Cullen said firmly. ‘I can’t have one of my men _raping_ innocent—’

‘It’s more than one man,’ Dorian said.

Cullen’s mouth closed with a snap; lips pressed firmly together. He studied Dorian with sharp eyes, narrow and seeking. ‘How many more?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then you don’t know that it’s true.’

‘What the fuck did you just say?’

‘I’m not saying the girl is lying about the man who raped her, but to imply the issue is _systemic, _without even offering basic proof such as name or numbers—’

‘They’re _not_ lying!’ Dorian said, much louder than he meant to. ‘I realise that’s hard for you to grasp, what with mages being _unable_ to tell the truth and all, but this is real and it’s happening right under your nose.’

‘Don’t overreact, Dorian.’

The mage’s magic was swirling hot and furious inside him, just begging to be unleashed. How _dare_ he say this to him, after everything he’d already done? Not enough for Cullen to be the sole reason Dorian was likely to be _dead_ soon, but now this?

_‘Overreact_?’ Dorian echoed, lethally quiet all of a sudden. ‘Are you really this soulless?’

Irritated and impatient, Cullen sighed and rubbed his face. ‘Maker’s breath, will you just listen to me? I’m telling you how difficult it will be to attempt to root out such filth unless I have the proper intelligence! I can’t find these men unless I _know_ who they are, can I?’

‘You imply that the mages could be exaggerating.’

Cullen didn’t flinch. ‘You’re passionate and caring, but you’re also heavily biased, Dorian. Those kids aren’t stupid, far from it. Growing up in a Circle breeds a different kind of mage to the kind you’re used to, _believe_ me.’

Dorian’s mouth twisted into an unpleasant sneer, belying the anger that refused to dissipate. ‘You would know, I suppose.’

‘Yes, I would,’ Cullen said, glancing down with a deceptively light expression. ‘Circles create monsters of men but they also turn mages highly manipulative and ruthless.’

‘So that they can _survive_.’

‘Precisely.’ The two glared at one another for a while until Cullen sighed and looked away. ‘_However_, I will do whatever you think is best.’ Dorian held his silence about him and allowed Cullen to speak. ‘If you say it’s serious, then I will of course treat it as such. I assume the first step will be to change the guards’ shifts?’

Dorian nodded stiffly, feeling slightly robbed of the chance to have a screaming match with Cullen. Fuck, he _wanted_ to scream at him, to get out everything he was feeling and exist for a while without such weight in his chest, constantly churning, constantly growing. Where was the violence he’d come to rely on? Cullen’s vicious temper and this _famed_ instability everyone couldn’t shut up about?

‘Very well. I will probably speak with Leliana and we will conduct a quiet investigation to root out the rot.’ Cullen took a bite of the rapidly cooling food and when he didn’t add anything, Dorian decided to try and speak without letting his anger get the better of him.

‘I appreciate that,’ he said tightly. ‘Seems the least we can do considering _children_ in our care are being abused, though I’m not really surprised you didn’t notice.’

Cullen froze, fork halfway to his mouth. ‘Meaning what?’

It was like a hand in his chest, gripping and wrenching, this anger.

_‘Meaning_ you’re obviously used to letting mages suffer in the throes of neglect and cruelty, what with your tenure in Kinloch.’

The moment he said, Dorian knew he’d gone too far. Cullen was overcome with the kind of stillness Dorian usually associated with shock. His eyes slightly widened as he stared at the mage like he’d outright threatened to kill him. Slowly, he lowered the fork and blinked hard.

‘This has nothing to do with that,’ he said thickly and _there_ was the anger again, maybe brittle enough to out-match Dorian’s. ‘And even if it did, to attempt to equate _this_ to my actions in the Circle Tower is, quite frankly, fucking monstrous.’

_Backtrack, backtrack, backtrack,_ Dorian’s instincts warned.

‘That’s a tad dramatic, isn’t it?’ he sneered instead, bitterly determined to see how far he could push Cullen before he snapped, before this all blew up violently in his face. Fuck it, if he was going to die soon anyway maybe he could just let Cullen fucking beat him to death, at least that would be more fun than sitting around trying to piece together this man’s life just so Dorian didn’t have to be revealed as a liar and break Cullen’s heart into a million pieces. ‘I’m simply saying your track record is hardly a glittering example of _kindness_ to mages, is it?’

Cullen’s anger seemed to manifest as a deep and terrifying _stillness_, a fine tremor running through him whenever he breathed. He wasn’t looking at Dorian, as though he didn’t trust himself to.

Dorian’s anger reached its peak… and then began to immediately decline. He felt stupid and fucking _guilty, _despite how ridiculous that was.

‘Fucking void, I’m…’ he dropped his head into his hand. ‘Cullen, I’m sorry.’ When Cullen remained silent, Dorian sighed. ‘I didn’t mean that. Cullen?’

Dorian lowered his hand slowly, concern taking the place of guilt at he watched the Commander for any signs of a reaction, but Cullen had gone from furiously silent to a living statue. His expression was worryingly blank, eyes glassy and if it wasn’t for the fact he was breathing, Dorian might have worried for his life.

What the fuck was this now?

_‘Cullen_,’ Dorian said, a little forcefully. ‘Can you hear me?’

The Commander remained unaffected. He was a blank slate, staring off at some unseen point to Dorian’s left. The mage swore and waved his hand in front of Cullen’s face, but those amber brown eyes remained vacant.

Dorian stayed still, not wanting to make any sudden movements and bring Cullen out of whatever the fuck this was in any state of alarm, but what was he supposed to do? What had even happened?

_You know what happened_, his inner voice spoke with disgust. _You hurt him and you did it on purpose._

Slowly, Dorian moved around the trays of food and put himself directly in front of Cullen on his knees. ‘Cullen,’ he said, aiming to sound as normal as possible. ‘I’m going to put my hand on you now.’

He was half expecting a non-reaction and really, if that had been the case, Dorian wasn’t sure what he would have done next, but when his hand touched Cullen’s shoulder, the contact seemed to send a deep ripple of sensory awakening through the man. He shivered at the touch and shook so hard it was like he forced himself to come back. Cullen took a sharp breath and when he blinked, two tears rolled down his face, still blank and painfully young looking.

‘Jassen,’ he said in a strange voice, eyes moving around the room slowly, like he was dazed. ‘Did I fall asleep again?’

‘It’s all right,’ Dorian said, keeping his hand on Cullen’s shoulder while something hot and viciously tight twisted in his lower stomach. ‘Everything’s all right.’ He tried to ignore the way in which reality came slowly and painfully for Cullen, wished he didn’t see age trickle back into those momentarily weightless eyes. Most of all he wished he hadn’t heard Cullen’s voice like that. He’d sounded younger; there was a clear lack of the clipped accent he’d acquired over the years. Dorian felt like he’d seen something he shouldn’t have.

He _burned_ to ask who Jassen was. The name was definitely familiar somehow.

When Cullen looked at Dorian’s hand on his shoulder, apprehension crept up the mage’s spine. He waited it out, determined to see it through, regardless of whether Cullen was going to break his hand for his trouble or maybe just throw it off in disgust.

‘I’m sorry,’ was what Cullen said and he placed his hand over Dorian’s, like they were friends, like… like they were lovers. ‘What were you saying?’

A tremulous laugh fluttered in Dorian’s chest, dancing wildly in the vestiges of all that faded anger. He felt almost hysterical; the relief that Cullen had returned and didn’t seem to even remember what Dorian had said was vile, but it was _real_.

‘We were discussing the unpleasant state of things with the guards,’ Dorian said, slipping his hand off of Cullen’s shoulder, but the Commander didn’t let it go far. He twined his fingers with Dorian’s and held it firmly. There wasn’t any visible trace of shame or anger, he just seemed _tranquil_ in Dorian’s presence.

‘Yes,’ Cullen said and he seemed to regain his footing somewhat. ‘Yes, I’m going to rotate the guards shifts and consider how best to move forward with an investigation. Do you…’ he cleared his throat with a frown. ‘Do you recommend any other course of action?’

‘The girl with child, she needs to be protected,’ Dorian said, thinking of the way Keenan had held Nalari’s hand, the same way he was holding Cullen’s right now. ‘We have to protect her,’ he repeated, but his focus was all on Cullen just then. _Cullen_ had to be protected, that was the pervasive thought in his mind.

‘Yes, we will,’ Cullen said earnestly. He brought Dorian’s hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of it. ‘I promise.’

There had been few times that Dorian had ever felt quite so unsure of himself but that was certainly one of them. He remained partially unconvinced that Cullen even knew who he was.

‘Sorry for being an absolute fucking moron,’ he said, watching Cullen closely.

The Commander broke into a small, wry smile.

‘You _are_ an absolute fucking moron, no denying that,’ he said and this time, Dorian believed he was Cullen, _his Cullen_, with no doubt whatsoever. ‘But you wear it well.’

Dorian leaned forward and kissed him then. Grateful to kiss him, grateful to have avoided that dark pit of uncertainty and skirted around it back to normality once more. It was just a kiss, a simple kiss but when Dorian withdrew, crossing his legs to sit in front of Cullen, he could feel tears stinging in the corner of his eyes.

‘Well, obviously,’ he said, picking up Cullen’s fork and spearing a potato. Cullen smiled to see him eat it. ‘I wear _everything _well. I mean, look at me!’

‘Yes, quite the specimen of perfection,’ Cullen chuckled, rolling his eyes as he selected the other fork and began picking at the untouched plate. Dorian didn’t like that they weren’t sharing the same plate anymore and when he took another piece of food, a parsnip, he made sure to take it from Cullen’s new plate, leaving Cullen no choice but to sigh. He handed Dorian the wine glass from before and the mage took it, something like warmth spreading slowly through him, starting in his middle. Cullen didn’t seem to notice the drying tear tracks on his own face or the fact that Dorian couldn’t look away from him. ‘Is there anything _else_ we should discuss?’ he asked after a few minutes of quiet, companionable eating.

‘No,’ Dorian said, pretending that Cullen was speaking only of the issues with the mages and nothing else. ‘No, that’ll do for now.’

Cullen nodded, setting his fork down. He hadn’t eaten much and Dorian almost wanted to insist that he eat more, but that would have invoked a level of hypocrisy so stunning that Andraste herself might strike Dorian dead on the spot for such a crime.

‘I _do_ want there to be change,’ the Commander said plainly. ‘My own prejudice against mages is born of resentment and… situational hatred. These are our allies.’ Cullen took a breath and looked at Dorian. ‘It’s time to move on from such old, decaying beliefs. Lavellan is right. Change is overdue.’

‘That was rather inspirational,’ Dorian commented, offering Cullen his wine glass, which the man refused politely. ‘You should repeat that for tomorrow’s rotation.’

Cullen hummed softly and wiped his mouth with a napkin. ‘Tomorrow will be tough,’ he warned. ‘It’s possible that the men who’ve been… hurting the mages are in this rotation. They’re all ex-Templars, most from Kirkwall. I want to be certain you’re not going to do anything to jeopardise the investigation or tip them off. We can’t risk them going to ground.’

Dorian shifted, moving his legs out in front of him, his thigh brushing against Cullen’s. This easy proximity should have been worrying.

‘What do you think I’ll do, fly off into a vicious rage? Wherever have you acquired such an impression of me, Commander?’

Cullen sighed, smirking. ‘Relegated to _Commander _once more, am I?’

‘You _are_ the Commander.’

There was something rather knowing in the way he looked at Dorian then. ‘And you are an Altus. A mage. Ser Pavus. You don’t want the measured distance of a title for yourself, but I’m to be kept at bay?’

_Exactly_, Dorian didn’t say.

‘But it’s rather fetching, no? _Commander_; it’s like a verb fucked a compliment and thus bore a title almost worthy of Cullen Stanton Rutherford.’

Cullen made a mildly pained expression. ‘Why do you know my middle name?’ he groaned.

‘Don’t you mean _how_?’

‘No, I mean _why, _as in, why must you know these things?’

Dorian laughed, nudging Cullen’s leg. ‘It’s a grand middle name.’

‘It’s a fucking _joke_ of a middle name,’ Cullen groused. ‘Do you know how much I was teased for that as a child?’

‘Such hardship,’ Dorian mock-sympathised.

Cullen placed the trays atop each other and shot Dorian a playful glare.

‘Must you know everything about me?’

*

** _Five Days Ago_ **

The second rotation of soldiers were belligerent and hostile, just as Cullen and Haynes had warned and the morning was extremely long. Dorian’s energy went into protecting his mages from _accidental_ Silences and Smites and not lashing out whenever he heard a voice that sounded like the ones that had threatened him that night.

But he _did _and it was mostly worth it.

Some of the soldiers, not all by a long shot, but _some_ of them seemed less hostile towards the men and women they’d trained with come days end. There was a clear _fiefdom _of soldiers who remained wholly unaffected, looking to their Commander every time Dorian even spoke. Their loyalty to him was unwavering, Dorian had to admit that much. Even when the order was something clearly abhorrent to them, they obeyed it without question.

By the time midday rolled around, Dorian felt positively _lashed_ by the sheer volume of heated, hate-filled glares he’d been given.

The mages seemed to expect it, to an extent. Dorian asked if they were all right as the soldiers left but none of them seemed any worse for wear, just resigned.

Cullen hadn’t acted any differently with his men, though he had kept his distance from Dorian in comparison to the morning previous. Dorian knew it was far beyond irrational to _resent_ that. Cullen was just trying not to provoke any man who might be on edge or unstable around the mages who were in Dorian’s care.

And that was when Dorian’s **_Great Plan_** was born.

‘That’s a terrible plan,’ Cullen told him, flat as a pancake, when Dorian finished breathlessly explaining the finer points of it. ‘One of your worst.’

Dorian huffed, swinging his boots up onto Cullen’s desk as he sat in front of the man currently drowning in paperwork. ‘How dare you? My plans are _fade touched_ and anyway, you know nothing of my previous plans.’

‘What about your plan to follow me around Skyhold and push for a reaction?’ Cullen muttered dryly.

‘Well, that certainly worked.’

‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘Ooh, careful,’ Dorian purred. ‘Such words will only get me all turned on and then I’ll have to fuck you on your desk.’

Cullen shot him a look. ‘This is _my_ desk, if anyone’s going to be fucking someone, it’ll be me.’

‘Can we please focus on my amazing plan?’ Dorian sighed in a put-upon manner. ‘Drag your sex-obsessed mind out of the gutter for just a minute?’

‘No.’

‘No, we can’t drag your—?’

‘_No_ to your plan.’

‘But it’s a _lure_, Cullen. A clever one.’

‘You don’t even know it’ll work.’

‘It will work, trust me.’

It was Cullen’s turn to sigh. He pinched the bridge of his nose and then knuckled his forehead with a slight wince. Dorian wondered if he’d caused the headache or just made it worse.

‘Tell me again, then,’ Cullen relented.

*

** _Four Days Ago_ **

Bull and Sera staged what Dorian could only internally refer to as an intervention. It was not well received and definitely could have gone better, perhaps if the pair hadn’t essentially _kidnapped_ Dorian.

‘This is silly,’ Dorian had said, looking back and forth between their determined faces as they shuffled him into a door leading down to the kitchens.

Bull took his time explaining to Dorian why it wasn’t silly. The basis of their concerns was that Cullen might have been - wait for it - _controlling Dorian with some kind of heretofore undiscovered Templar blood magic. _

Dorian really did need a good laugh, though it clearly wasn’t helping his case when he started to giggle rather hysterically as they watched with concern.

‘Well,’ Bull said moodily. ‘Even if that’s _not_ that case, you’re in deep with something, Vint. I overheard all that shit with Hawke.’

Dorian’s laughter dried up in his throat. ‘What? _How_?’

Bull shrugged unrepentantly. ‘I got my ways.’

‘Were you lurking around in the shadows?’ Dorian asked, trying to imagine Bull _fitting_ into the shadows, the fucking size of him.

‘I almost came to your rescue,’ he said, slanting a displeased eyebrow over his one eye. ‘But I wanted to see if you could handle it.’

‘I _did_ handle it.’

‘Like you handle most things.’

‘Hey now,’ Sera cut in, waving her hands at Bull. ‘No need to be all smug and parenty. Dor, we care about you and we just wanna be sure you don’t need any additional help, like more help than you normally need, cos… well, shit seems to be getting kinda crazy around you lately.’

Dorian assured them both that he needed no additional help. He didn’t even snap at them, which had taken a lot of self-control.

‘I do, however, need the regular kind of help,’ he added, smoothing an invisible crease out of his shirt. ‘I’m planning on staging an event that will hopefully lure out some of the most mage-hating guards in Skyhold. You can help with that if you like.’

Bull groaned. ‘Fucking void, Vint, please tell me you’re not using _yourself_ as bait.’

*

** _Three Days Ago_ **

To say that Cullen wasn’t happy would have been a drastic understatement. It wasn’t the staging part he was unhappy about; Dorian knew he didn’t care who saw them kissing or groping or probably even fucking.

It was, rather predictably, that Dorian was the bait.

Cullen had reacted badly when Dorian told him about the guards who’d threatened him that night, but it had finally been enough to make Cullen see sense in regards to the necessity of Dorian’s plan. _Great_ _plan_, at that.

The ramparts seemed like the best place given that this was where they were seen last time and that a repeat of the incident would hopefully piss off the men who’d warned Dorian away enough for them to do something drastic.

Then they would take them, question them and get the truth. Uncover the hidden foulness of what Dorian hoped was a select few in the ranks.

Cullen was taking the majority of it in his stride, following Dorian’s lead to an extent and… that was more than a little worrying, but Dorian had bigger things on his plate just then. Teenagers in need of help, corrupt men in need of spectacular defeat.

There had been no mention about the incident in Dorian’s room but the mage kept it stored away in his mind, unable to forget the name he’d uttered, _Jassen_. Cullen didn’t seem to remember it or if he did, had decided to simply pretend it hadn’t happened.

Cullen came to him nightly, sometimes he brought food with him. They fucked _a lot. _Dorian was starting to realise that the word didn’t always apply to what they were doing; it wasn’t always just fucking. Something impossibly weird was happening, creeping between them like swift growing vines. Cullen didn’t bite Dorian’s lip and he didn’t ask for his magic, but the mage knew it was a matter of time before he did. There were moments when they were kissing that Cullen took his bottom lip between his teeth, only just stopping himself in time.

Dorian hated the part of himself that wished Cullen would lose control.

‘I am _not_ happy about this,’ Cullen affirmed unnecessarily as they walked together to the same place as before. The air wasn’t quite as freezing as that night many weeks ago, but it was a Maker damned good imitation. ‘Bull is in place?’ he asked quietly.

Dorian nodded, forcing himself not to look and see who was around, who might have been watching them. His stomach was a ball of nerves, writhing and coiling.

For this to work, it needed to seem as though he really _did_ have Cullen under his control, completely enthralled. Though they’d briefly discussed the best ways to go about that, Dorian remained concerned about everything they _hadn__’t_ discussed; the vast chasm of things left unsaid in which Cullen’s unpredictability might become a problem.

‘It’s going to rain later,’ Cullen commented, looking skyward as they reached the top of the battlements, the same place they’d been last time. ‘Dorian, are you all right?’

Dorian was shaking, teeth chattering and not from the cold. ‘I’m…’ he started to say, but his throat closed up so he just nodded.

Cullen took his hand and pulled him closer, fingers slotting perfectly through the gaps of Dorian’s. ‘Don’t be nervous,’ he said. ‘I won’t let anyone hurt you.’ Dorian almost wanted to cry; _as if _that was the source of his worry. ‘And despite my not being happy about it, this is a good plan, I’ll admit.’

The Commander was waiting for Dorian to make the first move. The mage closed his eyes, focusing on the sensation of Cullen’s hand twined with his own before he exhaled shakily.

This was a good plan, the only plan.

He couldn’t bring himself to kiss Cullen first, though, so the Commander bent an inch and touched his lips to Dorian’s. It was soft and feather-light, nothing hurried about it. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered to Dorian between the slow, devastatingly gentle kisses. ‘So fucking perfect.’

Dorian realised he was coaxing him into it, trying to make him more relaxed or whatever the fuck it was he thought Dorian needed. The mage’s heart was pounding wildly and Cullen had been right, there was rain on the way. Best to get this over with.

He kissed Cullen back, letting his eyes fall shut. Cullen imposed a strict rhythm to their kiss, kept it slow and light. When Dorian tried, almost impatiently, to move things along, Cullen let out a little laugh against his lips.

‘Do I drive you crazy?’ he asked, lifting their entwined hands and pressing under his armour, over his heart. ‘Feel what you do to me.’

Cullen’s heart was beating almost as fast as Dorian’s, each thud hard enough to be felt from beneath his ribcage.

Dorian wished he could say that this level of intensity from Cullen was all for show, but in truth this was simply how Cullen was. Unwaveringly intense, never seeming to care that he was putting his heart on show, all of his innermost feelings and thoughts exposed. The kind of bravery Dorian could never, _never_ own.

‘Are you going to fuck me?’ Cullen breathed, hand squeezing Dorian’s, his muscles coiling and the space between them getting smaller. ‘Do you want me to beg?’

A bolt of heat and powerful _need_ smashed through some of Dorian’s hesitation and his breath stuttered in his throat.

_Take control_, Cullen was saying. _Take it from me._

And he did have to _take it, _Dorian knew. It couldn’t be handed over. Dorian had to be in control and it had to be enough to enrage onlookers. Dorian suddenly hated his plan and everything about it. Why hadn’t he just gone straight to Leliana, she had spies everywhere, didn’t she?

‘Dorian,’ Cullen breathed, their lips touching but no longer kissing. ‘Take control of me or I’ll say it.’

The threat was enough to jolt Dorian from his reverie of ill-timed regret. He pulled his hand free of Cullen’s and used it to yank Cullen’s mouth onto his, fingers twisting into the fur mantle. Cullen moaned and Dorian fucking plundered him, tongue exploring every part of that gorgeous mouth. He slid his hands up into Cullen’s hair and knotted them there, pulling Cullen deeper and closer, needing the man inside his very skin.

Had things progressed naturally from there, Dorian would have been begging Cullen to fuck him but as it was, the plan required _him_ in control, even if he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to have control over Cullen, not like this.

‘Get on your knees,’ he panted, wrenching their mouths apart.

Cullen dropping to his knees in front of him was so fucking hot, it punched a groan from his chest, made him momentarily dizzy. Cullen was in full armour, sword and all and it was so like that first night, Dorian wondered if he was actually dreaming. The only difference was that Cullen was on his knees willingly, unbuckling Dorian’s belt like an obedient plaything and that first night, Dorian hadn’t been secure in the knowledge that he would live to see sunrise.

‘You’re going to let me fuck that pretty mouth,’ he told Cullen, voice entirely steady which was a miracle unto itself. He threaded his fingers tightly in Cullen’s hair, those beautiful gold curls slightly longer now than he’d ever seen them before. Cullen wasn’t getting it cut so often, or at all. Maybe he knew Dorian liked it a little longer.

He couldn’t stop thinking about that, even when Cullen’s hot, wet mouth closed over the leaking tip of his erection. Dorian was very grateful for the wall behind him as he sagged against it slightly, guiding Cullen’s mouth up and down the length of his cock, dragging the movements using his hair. Cullen moaned and sucked, taking every thrust without trying to stop or move back for air. It was fucking obscene and Dorian wished they were in his room, _alone_.

But _fuck_, Cullen was so talented and after what was barely a minute, Dorian could feel his body careening towards an orgasm. He yanked Cullen back and the man looked up at him, lips wet and swollen, eyes swimming in black, blown pupils and it was a near thing he didn’t come over his beautiful face.

‘Up,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Against the wall.’

Cullen didn’t need to be told this, they always moved intuitively, but the little orders helped to ground Dorian in the role and it was a fucking _role_, no matter how similar it might have been to things they’d done before.

Their positions reversed, Dorian kissed Cullen again, shoving his hand down into leather breeches, taking his cock roughly and stroking it a few times for good measure.

‘I’m going to fuck you,’ he told Cullen in a voice that didn’t feel like his own, it was too steady and confident. He sounded… fuck, he _sounded _like Cullen. ‘And you’re going to take it, aren’t you?’

Cullen whined, ‘Yes,’ eagerly panting and squirming for more of Dorian’s attention. It was a stunning display and Dorian had to bite his lip to keep from blurting out silly things like how fucking crazy Cullen _did_ make him.

‘Good boy,’ Dorian said and Cullen let out a cry, whole body shuddering. Desire struck Dorian powerfully and though he knew he shouldn’t, he stroked Cullen harder and leaned in against his ear and said, ‘Such a good boy for me.’

Cullen came with a bitten off sob in Dorian’s hand and it was only with the utmost control that Dorian didn’t come too because seeing it nearly _wrecked_ him. He worked Cullen through his orgasm, the pleasure of making Cullen feel good had him verging on desperate to be inside the man. Cullen dropped his forehead onto Dorian’s shoulder, breathing shallowly and it was for the best that Dorian didn’t listen to all the things Cullen was saying because otherwise this was going to be over very quickly.

Dorian wanted to turn Cullen around, have him face the other way while he fucked him. He knew that was the right thing to do. It would degrade Cullen further in the eyes of any viewers and prevent any _mishaps_ that Dorian was worried about with Cullen giving away all his control.

But he couldn’t do it.

‘Strip off,’ he ordered, moving away so that Cullen could kick his boots off and his trousers. ‘Keep the mantle on.’

When Cullen was naked below the waist, Dorian felt his own control slipping dangerously. It was getting harder and harder to remember that this was a show with actual _purpose_ because just look what Cullen fucking Rutherford did to him. He drank kisses from the Commander, fingers trailing over his navel, down past his already half hard cock and underneath behind his balls; a slow path of teasing and warning.

_If you want to stop this, tell me now before I lose control_.

Cullen was shaking with need; his orgasm didn’t seem to do much besides take the edge off. ‘Dorian,’ he muttered against the mage’s mouth. ‘Dorian, Dorian, _Dorian_.’

When Dorian pressed his fingers inside, magical slickness easing the way, Cullen let out an undeniably slutty moan, mouth open and eyes drunk with lust.

‘Love your magic inside me,’ he panted, not caring to make it quiet and well, why would he? This was all a trap, a ruse or so Dorian tried to tell himself. ‘Fuck, _please_, I need more!’

Dorian thought of the way Cullen had looked at him once, with such loathing and hatred. How would _that_ man feel to know he was begging to be fucked by Dorian’s magic?

‘More what?’

‘More of you,’ Cullen gasped, his fingers digging painfully into Dorian’s shoulders. ‘M-more of your magic, _please_!’

‘No,’ Dorian said, but he could feel his resolve slipping. Taking control from Cullen was always going to be risky, but this was already veering into precarious territory. He wanted to say more, to tell Cullen that he would never want to risk him that way because he cared too much about him, but he couldn’t say_ that_ so he bit his lip even harder.

He was three fingers deep in Cullen when it happened.

Cullen’s quick intake of breath was what alerted him to it, not the pain because who cared about pain and really, his tolerance for it was through the roof at this point. No, it was Cullen who made him aware he’d bitten through his bottom lip.

The moment seemed to stretch on forever and Dorian knew they should stop immediately. They were both aware, or at least Dorian definitely was, that his blood affected Cullen in some way. Maybe they didn’t know exactly how, but it was undeniable that it did _something_ to him.

They didn’t stop, though.

Cullen was almost hyperventilating when he brought Dorian’s mouth onto his. The contact let lose myriad forbidden feelings and sensations and though Dorian badly wanted to be strong enough to stop him, Cullen’s pleasure was his when the Commander greedily lapped at the blood he’d so thoughtlessly spilled.

Cullen made a sound so fucking hot that Dorian couldn’t wait another moment to fuck him. With Cullen plastered to his mouth, there was no chance of turning him around anymore. He brought one of Cullen’s legs up, held it against his side and guided his aching cock into Cullen while the man writhed in his grasp.

He buried himself inside Cullen, pushing in deep without giving him time to adjust until he bottomed out. This wasn’t going to last long at all.

Dorian managed to wrench his lips away from Cullen’s, though the Commander tried to follow and Dorian actually had to clamp his free hand over Cullen’s mouth to prevent it.

Dorian had never felt so lost to sensation, _never_. What little thought he had was mostly shaped into Cullen’s name, the feel of him clenched tight around him, the way Cullen screamed against his hand. His magic was crashing around inside, pleading to be unleashed, threatening that if he didn’t, then it would find another way. Dorian kept it contained, held it at bay with what crumbling defences he had left. He wouldn’t channel it through Cullen, he would _not_.

Cullen was practically sitting atop the edge of the ramparts at this point. Dorian wasn’t strong enough to take his full weight the way Cullen could. It would have all been so much easier to take him from behind but Dorian Pavus didn’t do things to easy way, apparently.

His orgasm was building with every deep thrust into Cullen’s body; unbearable pleasure climbing higher and higher. It was perfect, so fucking beautiful he could have _cried_ for how the man made him feel. Blood ran down his chin and he kept it away from Cullen, never letting his hand move from the Commander’s mouth.

But in the three or four seconds before his orgasm smashed over him, something _else_ happened. Cullen’s hands were braced on his shoulders, fingers dug deep and no doubt bruising the skin but just before Dorian came, the pain on his shoulders turned white hot and sharp. He opened his eyes and saw light; purple energy crackling on either side of him and it was too late, far too late to stop _anything_ because he was inside Cullen and Cullen was fucking _everything_.

His orgasm hit like lightning and his magic flooded through Cullen, then back into him; a perfect circle of pain and pleasure. Dorian’s hand slipped from Cullen’s mouth and the man didn’t hesitate to return to the place he sought. He kissed Dorian and all the mage could taste was his own magic, pulsing through Cullen’s lips. Cullen tasted of _him_. His blood, his magic, his control.

Cullen came again, clenched around Dorian hard enough that the mage winced, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere else to be but inside Cullen.

It was where he belonged.

*

** _Two Days Ago_ **

‘I never thought I’d have to say this,’ Leliana uttered flatly. ‘But please stop fucking each other on the ramparts.’

Cullen was unabashed and, Dorian thought, entirely unashamed. ‘It worked, didn’t it?’

And yes, it _had_ worked. Mere minutes after Dorian had slid away into the darkness, making as if to return to his room, he’d been set upon by five men clearly intent on killing him. That’s when Bull, Cullen and, without Dorian’s prior knowledge of involvement, Blackwall had descended upon them before they’d had the chance to do anything but punch the mage squarely in the face and begin to drag him off.

The five wore masks which, when removed, revealed that they weren’t anyone Dorian recognised except one; a man from the second rotation. Cullen knew them all and he seemed to take it as more than a personal affront.

They’d been bloody and beaten when brought to Leliana’s work space, as Cullen called it. A simple room with shelves of potions and chains on the walls, trays of instruments nearby that Dorian tried to ignore.

And yes, the truth had come spilling out.

They knew who had been abusing Nalari, they knew all the men who abused their power and they knew them by name. Liquid persuasion elicited secrets from their mouths, unbidden confessions as they screamed and fought iron clad restraints. The truth was ugly and that was why Dorian trusted it, horrified though he was.

The squad that Cullen had hand-selected, his most trustworthy soldiers, were dispatched to round up the other twenty-eight men, named by their co-conspirators. It was swift and professional, only three causing serious trouble and Cullen had anticipated those. He’d accompanied his squad for all of the most difficult men.

The whole thing was done in less than a day.

It had been a frantically busy day and for that Dorian had been grateful because it left him little time to consider what had actually _happened_ up on the ramparts.

But now things were levelling out. The cells were full of rapists and traitors, his mages were safely guarded while they figured out what to _do_ with these men and Leliana had taken them both aside in the torture room, the air thick with the stench of fear-soaked sweat and drying blood, to essentially _scold_ them.

‘It worked in the same way killing someone with a rock would _work, _as in there are far better ways of going about it. Cullen, I cannot believe you agreed to such a spectacle.’

Dorian felt rather awkward, stood there in the same clothes he’d worn while fucking Cullen and then been subsequently attacked in. Cullen still had the faintest trace of Dorian’s blood around his mouth, his knuckles red and torn from beating the men who’d come upon Dorian. There had been a moment when Blackwall had to pull Cullen away by the arm because it was patently clear he would have beaten them to death otherwise.

‘I didn’t think there was time for subterfuge,’ Cullen said. ‘A girl’s life was at stake.’

‘No,’ Leliana said, crossing her arms with a narrow glare. ‘You couldn’t bear the thought of your own men committing these acts a second longer than necessary.’

‘It worked,’ Cullen repeated stubbornly. ‘We have thirty-three less rapists in our midst than yesterday.’

Leliana laughed bitterly. ‘Oh yes, that should do _wonders_ for our reputation. Have you given no thought to what damage control the Inquisitor will have waiting for her when she returns? This was beyond reckless, even for _you_.’

The last part she delivered with a stinging glare in Dorian’s direction. The mage crossed his arms and tipped his chin.

‘Reputational damage is severe and all, but we _were_ rather more concerned with the mages being attacked while in our care. I know Ellana Lavellan and this is what she would want. The quick and efficient removal of traitors, not the… other part,’ he hastened to add.

‘You should have come to me first,’ she insisted.

‘No,’ Cullen said, equally firm. ‘For this to have been occurring so long without our knowledge only proves that this was a well organised, deeply rooted conspiracy. We could not risk anyone getting wind of an investigation. They would have gone to ground, offered up a few of their number in apparent suicides to sate the blame.’

‘I am not arguing with you,’ Leliana said. ‘Merely pointing out there were other alternatives to provoking a reaction that could have cost Dorian his life and you your place within the Inquisition.’

‘Dorian was never in danger,’ Cullen said sharply.

‘Dorian is_ always_ in danger,’ Leliana scoffed. ‘Have you even _met_ him?’

‘Yes, Dorian is also standing right here,’ the mage reminded them politely. ‘And I’d really like to leave now, if that’s well enough with you both? I’ve a bath and a bottle of wine with my name on it.’

Cullen looked away from Leliana long enough to nod towards the door. Dorian was too tired to dredge up any indignation about being dismissed in such a way. At the door, Leliana spoke up and stopped him in his tracks.

‘You realise there is no way back from this now?’ she said. ‘People will know you two are involved. Our enemies will know. _Everyone_ will know, come next week. For all intents and purposes, you’ll be considered a couple.’

Dorian had a whole speech, despite his fatigue, about how people could have sex and not be a couple, especially when it was two men because men didn’t necessarily feel things the way women did and repeated encounters did not have to mean anything beyond simple stress relief and carnal indulgence.

But Cullen got there first. ‘Good,’ he said in a clipped tone and that was really the end of that.

*

** _One Day Ago_ **

** **

Dorian spent the day with the mages, his mages and the older ones with Fiona sitting quietly nearby, explaining about what had happened and how things were going to be from now on, namely that things were going to be different. It took a long time, everyone had questions and he did his absolute best to answer them. He noticed that Keenan remained quiet, watching the older mages warily. Nalari stayed at his side the entire time, Saffy and Landon close by. Overall, the older mages seemed to accept that things might be about to change for the better, but the younger ones remained sceptical. On the way out Dorian had _words_ with Fiona and while he managed to keep his voice low and controlled, he didn’t hesitate to let her know what he thought of her. She took his insults and his fury, bore it stoically and it did nothing to shift his low opinion of her any higher.

By the time Dorian got back to his room, he didn’t even feign annoyance that Cullen was already inside, laying on his bed reading a book.

He joined Cullen silently, kicking off his boots and lighting the candelabra with a flick of his wrist. He dropped heavily beside Cullen, unsurprised to see him reading _The Watchful Ambler_.

‘Long day,’ he informed Cullen, letting his eyes fall shut. ‘Read to me?’

Cullen snaked one arm under Dorian and pulled him close, the mage’s head resting on the Commander’s strong shoulder. Cullen read aloud to him from where he’d obviously left off, two chapters in. There was something enchanting about having Dorian’s favourite book being read to him by someone who _also_ loved the book. Cullen read aloud it the way Dorian always imagined it in his mind, pausing exactly where he should, lifting his voice to weave a flawless narrative.

When Cullen turned the page, he dropped a kiss into Dorian’s hair before he continued, his free hand resting over Dorian’s heart. Dorian placed his own atop Cullen’s and stroked the skin, tracing little circles with his fingertips.

It was the happiest Dorian had ever felt.

*

The moment Dorian saw her, he knew something was wrong. Lavellan seemed tired and weary. She had bad news; he could tell right from the off. She’d only been gone just over a week and yet so much had happened in her absence, both on her side and the Skyhold side of things. She carried herself as though there was more on her slender shoulders than usual and all Dorian’s ideas of asking for her help died in his throat. He went to her and offered a hug which she nearly collapsed into before righting herself.

‘I missed you,’ she said, giving him a wobbly smile. ‘Leliana sent word ahead of our return about the mages.’ Lavellan sighed and shook her head. ‘I’m so fucking _proud_ of you, Dorian.’

He blinked. ‘What?’

‘I leave them in your care for a week and look how much you’re already doing for them!’ she said, shaking him slightly. ‘Cullen was right; you were perfect for the job. I knew there was prejudice in our ranks, maybe even violent intent but I never imagined anyone in the Inquisition was capable of such grotesque abuse. You’re a shining example of what our mages could be, given the chance.’

Dorian didn’t know what to say so he just smiled and hoped it was enough.

‘I need to attend to the debrief,’ she said as though it was the last thing she wanted to do in the world. ‘And then I would greatly appreciate a meal with my friends and some wine. Think I might even provide a bottle of my own stash, what do you think?’ She slipped past with a wink and a squeeze of his hand. He watched her walk away, heart heavy.

‘We’re going to war,’ Hawke said, coming up behind Dorian. ‘People are going to die.’

‘That’s what happens in war, yes,’ Dorian said, his defences rising. Fuck, he’d almost forgotten about the unpleasantness that was Hawke’s general existence. ‘Maybe we’ll see more of your famed _Championy_ side. Can’t say I especially care for peace time Hawke.’

Dorian made to leave, but the man grabbed him and kept him there, features wound tight.

‘I was a complete prick,’ he said under his breath. ‘I’d say sorry if I thought it meant anything, but I know it won’t so…’ he hesitated and carefully relaxed his grip. Dorian stared at him with a flat expression.

‘So?’

‘So, I can help you out with your letter issue _and_,’ he added before Dorian could object. ‘I don’t want anything in return. Nothing. I uh… kept the ashes.’

Dorian’s lip curled. ‘You _what_?’

‘After Cullen burned the letter and the flower, I crept down there and I picked up the ashes. There’s this ritual Merrill showed me once, to save burned books. It’s a kind of spell and it should work to turn the ashes to ink and pour them onto a blank piece of paper. The letter will rewrite itself.’

Dorian waited for the catch.

Hawke sighed. ‘The issue is—’

‘It requires blood magic.’

The Champion of Kirkwall nodded. ‘Merrill was a blood mage. She knew her stuff, don’t get me wrong and this will work, but… you’d have to use blood magic.’

Dorian drew himself to full height, fixing Hawke with an unflinching stare. ‘You know, I really think I’d like it if you stayed away from me, Carver,’ he said.

Hawke laughed in a horribly self-deprecating way, backing off with his hands raised. ‘You and everyone else, Splendid.’

*

That night, after Lavellan told the Inner Circle about demon armies, enthralled Grey Wardens and the plan to move on the Adamant fortress, she had dinner with everyone. Wine and ale flowed freely and though the atmosphere was overwhelmingly pleasant, it was very clear that this was the last night they would have like this for a while.

Cullen sat four seats down from Dorian but that didn’t stop anyone from snickering into their ale cups whenever Cullen said anything remotely related to Dorian. The mage was relatively astonished when Varric casually asked their joint permission to write a love story about them, penning a title so ridiculous it made even Cassandra wince. Dorian replied with something rather scathing while Cullen merely pointed out what a terrible title it was.

Dorian felt keenly aware of Hawke’s presence the whole time, the man’s earlier offer burning a hole in his brain. Sometimes, during the overwhelmingly good-natured ribbing about Dorian and Cullen’s latest _show_, Dorian would look over at Vivienne only to find her already watching him with a cold, calculating stare that left him feeling uncertain.

Dorian wasn’t sure when he and Cullen had become a couple. It probably should have made him panic, sent him running from the room desperate for air, but in truth it barely touched him. It didn’t feel real. It _wasn__’t_ real.

It was all built on a lie.

So, that night he followed Lavellan to her room and she’d barely closed the door when everything came tumbling out. _Everything_.

He told her the truth about everything. His lies, his deception, his blood magic curse. Allowing Cullen to think he’d read the letter and then letting something build over the top of that lie. It spilled out of him like sand from a cracked hourglass.

He was sat on the edge of her bed, face in his hands by the end of it. She had her arm around him, silently listening to it all.

He finished how he started. ‘I’ve fucked up,’ he repeated. ‘I… if I don’t find out what was in his letter, I don’t know what it’s going to do to him and I can’t let that be my legacy here.’

‘Dorian,’ she said softly, sounding lost. ‘You’re not going to die.’

The mage shook his head slowly back and forth. ‘I am, believe me. I really am.’

‘Oh, Dorian, please don’t _say that.__’_

‘Ellana,’ he said. ‘I need you to tell me what was in Cullen’s letter. I am literally begging you.’

When he looked up from his hands, he could see the emotions flashing behind her eyes. She took his hand in hers and sighed.

‘I only know one thing,’ she said. ‘He only told me what it was, not what was inside the letter.’

‘Please.’

Ellana Lavellan closed her eyes and broke her promise.

‘It was a suicide note.’

*


	14. Fighting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amazing, perfect, beautiful fanart by my beloved Mdrop.

[](https://ibb.co/Vvcw2Mq)

‘You didn’t come to my room last night.'

Cullen glanced up at Dorian from where he’d been leaning over his desk, studying bits of paper that were likely essential to their upcoming siege of Adamant. Dorian peered nosily at them, trying to read upside down.

‘I assumed you were catching up with Lavellan,’ Cullen told him. ‘And unfortunately, there _is_ a rather astonishing amount of work to be done in preparation for—’

‘Is that your handwriting?’

Dorian tapped one piece of paper in particular, his other arm wrapped around his middle.

‘Can’t you tell?’

Dorian stared at that sheet of paper, letting his instincts take over where his nerve failed him. ‘I just want to see how much it’s changed in ten years, that’s all.’

‘Eleven,’ he corrected automatically. ‘Are you all right?’

The mage’s fingers were shaking slightly where he traced Cullen’s upside-down handwriting, unable to make out the words from the small, condensed and rather elegant scrawl. He hadn’t expected Cullen’s writing to look like that and from what little he recalled of Cullen's name scribbled into front of his book, it had indeed evolved. But somehow, the moment he saw it, he knew it was Cullen’s.

‘I’m fine,’ he said lightly, withdrawing his hand. ‘I know you’re extremely busy,’ he added, looking at Cullen. The Commander was watching him carefully, concern and curiosity warring behind brown eyes. ‘Perhaps I just missed you.’

Cullen snorted at that, not unkindly. He shifted his weight to one hip, hand resting on his pommel. ‘What’s on your mind?’

_You, always you. _

‘The siege, mostly,’ Dorian lied easily. ‘Lavellan is questioning the men in the cells today as well.’

‘I know, I’m helping her.’

‘Will they be executed?’

Cullen considered his answer. ‘It’s very likely,’ he said. ‘Their crimes are tantamount to treason and while other leaders might not place too much blame on men taking what they think they’re owed during a time of war, Lavellan is not one of them.’

Dorian’s hands were cold. He wished he could put them under Cullen’s armour and shirt, find that furnace of a torso and bask in the warmth of the man before him. ‘What do you recommend?’

‘Sentencing decisions will come later, once we’ve questioned them in the presence of the Inquisitor.’ He then added, a little quieter, ‘But my official recommendation will be execution across the board. Imprisonment will place strain on resources we don’t have. They’re experts with our locks and keys. They know our system and they know other guards. Even if none of that was true, their crimes are grotesque and unforgivable.’

‘Well,’ Dorian said with a small smile he didn’t really feel. ‘We’re on the same page for once, it seems.’

‘Just this once?’

‘Yes, I should… uh, I should go. I’m not exactly needed for drawing up military battle plans or anything else remotely useful so I’ll be doing what I do best which is spending vast quantities of money ordering things from Val Royeaux.’

It was needlessly petulant and pathetic, even to Dorian’s own ears.

‘Yes, I saw your list. The mages quarters will be a far nicer place once you’re done spending a small fortune, I believe. How long will delivery take?’

Dorian shrugged, trying not to look down at Cullen’s handwriting again before his mind started shaping all kind of terrible words in that pretty scrawl; things like _I’m sorry_ and _forgive me_. Things people tended to write in suicide notes. ‘A month,’ he answered. ‘Perhaps a week more.’

‘Hmm, well,’ Cullen said, moving toward his bookcase. ‘I noticed one of the books on your list was something I already had, so here.’ Dorian watched as he slid a book out from near where _The Watchful Ambler_ had once resided. He handed it to Dorian with a muted, brief smile. ‘It’s the one you swapped for my copy of _Ambler_. Did you forget and think you’d lost it?’

Dorian stared at the book Cullen was offering him, heart lurching painfully. It was the book he’d needed, the one that referenced the events of Kinloch Hold; _A Compendium of Forgotten Ferelden Customs. _This was Cole’s book, used for the swap? Fucking void.

‘Uh,’ Dorian managed, blinking hard. ‘Yes, yes I… think I did.’

‘Well,’ Cullen said, nudging it towards Dorian. ‘One less thing to buy.’

Carefully, Dorian took it. ‘Thank you.’ It was heavy and thick, heavier than _Ambler_ and Dorian’s mind was whirling with questions.

‘I wanted to ask,’ Cullen said, moving back to his table of endless paperwork. ‘If you would be agreeable to continuing the training sessions of a morning? I know things are hectic at present, both because of Adamant _and_ the scum residing in our cells, but I do think now more than ever is the time to strengthen unity and learn from each other. A demon army and enthralled Grey Wardens will present a challenge unlike anything our soldiers have faced before.’

Dorian was barely listening. ‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ he said and finally shook himself. ‘I’m agreeable.’

‘Excellent.’ Cullen looked down, frowning a tiny little bit. ‘It might be later than usual, but could I…? That is, would you be amenable to—’

‘Please come by tonight,’ Dorian blurted out, putting a stop to all Cullen’s ridiculous hesitant fumbling. ‘If you don’t, I’m going to start lurking around your freezing cold office again in the hopes of tempting you back to me so, yes. Please swing by my beautiful, spacious room. I’ll even make us a bath, if you like.’

Cullen was still looking down when he smiled. ‘Well, all right then.’

Dorian held the book tightly and tried to exhale all the bad feelings in his chest, to absolutely no avail. ‘Did you think because Lavellan was back that somehow I wouldn’t want you anymore?’

A slow, creeping blush trailed up Cullen’s neck. ‘No.’

‘You’re an absolute fucking moron, Commander.’

‘Impugn my honour, will you, mage?’ Cullen drawled, rubbing that neck and giving Dorian a dryly affectionate half smile. ‘You’re asking for trouble.’

‘I thought I was all out declaring my regard for you.’

Cullen chuckled. ‘Which is definitely asking for trouble.’

‘Indeed,’ Dorian said, wishing his chest didn’t feel so _heavy_ with things unsaid. ‘I look forward to later. I wish it was later already, in fact. Have a good day, Commander.’

‘Wait,’ Cullen said, moving around his table towards the mage. ‘How can I be expected to have a good day if I haven’t even kissed you?’

Dorian didn’t realise there were people in world who said such things.

‘Well, obviously you can’t but I was aiming for kindness.’

There was no hesitation when Cullen’s hand curled around Dorian’s neck and the space between them melted like ice shards in an inferno. Dorian’s heart skipped a beat and felt a surge of _longing_ that only Cullen could evoke. Maybe it was meant to be a quick, closed mouth kiss. A parting gift and nothing else.

That wasn’t what happened, though. Their mouths met in a smooth clash, desperation driving away finesse and all at once, Dorian’s anguish and coldness evaporated into thin air. He felt warm and safe and that _other_ word he rarely let himself think of. Cullen kissed him deeply, like he didn’t know any other way. Like they were alone in Skyhold, like they had time for such things.

Dorian moaned softly into Cullen’s mouth, tongue seeking out the Commander’s and fucking void, what this man did to him with nothing but a _kiss_.

Kisses had always been meaningless to Dorian. Kisses were the dull, perfunctory build up to sex. Dorian had never even really _liked_ kissing that much. It always felt like a lie. Kissing was for lovers and people who cared. Such had always been the way, until Cullen Rutherford.

Cullen kissed him like it was the only way to save the world. It was beautiful and frantic and painful, especially when Dorian knew they could _only_ kiss because they were on the brink of a battle where hundreds would likely die and every moment Cullen wasn’t focused, lives were put on the line.

‘I’ll see you tonight,’ Cullen said against Dorian’s lips, pressing slower, sweeter kisses there as the momentum between them eased and faded, content to wait for later.

*

‘Cole, get your meddling arse over here!’

Dorian looked around impatiently. This was Cole’s lurking corner of choice; dark and shadowy and high above all the merriment brought about by alcohol. He wasn’t there, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t nearby.

‘You found your book,’ the boy’s voice came from behind Dorian, practically in his ear, sending a shock of alarm ratcheting up his spine.

‘Fasta _vass_, boy!’ he growled, whipping about, hand on heart. ‘I’d like to live a little longer if you _don’t_ mind!’

‘I was certain the trade was unfair, but there’s no one to judge the quality of words when they weight heavy around your neck.’

Dorian took a deep, calming breath. He was not going to lose his temper.

‘Cole,’ he said, pleasantly. ‘Would you like to join me for lunch?’

The boy blinked slowly. ‘Oh, in your new room? Yes, I would like that. It’s pretty in there. His kindness and smile glow pink and when touched, they shimmer.’

‘Indeed,’ was Dorian’s go-to word when addressing the things Cole came out with, or so he decided. ‘Shall we?’

The journey to the tower was quick and Cole was mercifully quiet, save to point out things he liked; plants, certain bricks, an especially ragged banner. Dorian was the King of Composure; not to be riled by anything the boy said because this boy, he suspected, had _answers. _

Inside the room, Dorian realised he didn’t actually have lunch, _per se. _He did have wine, though and Cole had once seemed curious about the stuff.

‘Cole,’ Dorian said. ‘Would you like some wine?’

The boy was meandering around the room, staring at things with vague interest. ‘Yes please,’ he said absently. ‘I like this room,’ he added, trailing his fingers along Dorian’s chair. ‘There are little threads of happiness woven into the fabric. Keep me here, keep me happy and I’ll keep you warm, my love.’

Dorian sighed. ‘Here,’ he said, offering the wine glass to Cole. ‘It’s a nice vintage.’

Cole took the glass and sipped with interest. ‘This tastes of mellow.’

‘I didn’t know _mellow_ had a taste.’

‘You want to ask me things,’ Cole sighed wistfully. ‘You need to know all the bad things. See it like a map and find your way home. A shortcut isn’t always quicker.’

‘There are things I want to ask you, certainly,’ Dorian said. ‘But I don’t want to push you for anything you’re not comfortable discussing or revealing.’

Cole hummed, swirling the wine in his glass. ‘But you know I _can_ speak of some things relating to Cullen,’ he said slowly. ‘Because Cullen no longer cares what you know of him, save for a few small things. Throw open the doors and let him see, let him forgive and let that be enough.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said. ‘So, if Cullen has no issue with privacy then I could ask you questions about his… past?’

Dorian waited to see what the boy would say. He was a mercurial creature and much hinged upon his good mood and lucidity, the latter of which was often in short supply.

‘There are still forbidden areas; places he would not welcome your footprints.’

‘Right, but not to the extent of back when he hated me.’

Cole wrinkled his nose. ‘Cullen never hated you. You were just a reason.’

‘Mm-hmm, so I can ask then?’

‘You can ask,’ Cole said simply. ‘But it will not bring happiness, Dorian. Happiness is a dangerous thing for you to have in the first place. It is a thread you should not pull on.’

‘Your advice is noted,’ Dorian said, trying to organise his thoughts. ‘First, I would like to ask about this book.’

‘Yes, your book will be here soon. It’s going to be difficult, set atop all things pretty and shiny but he meant well.’

‘No, no, _this_ book, see?’ Dorian offered Cole the book Cullen gave him earlier. The boy blinked down at it.

‘Oh, yes. The prank. I remember. Cullen didn’t laugh.’

‘That’s right,’ Dorian encouraged. ‘I had a skim through it. Despite there being a staggering amount of waffle, there was a vague reference to something I need to know more about.’

‘You want to ask me about Kinloch Hold,’ Cole said, suddenly sounding _very_ lucid. ‘About what happened to Cullen. He thinks you know. He thinks you saw it all through his ink and despair. Demons stay a long time in your blood and when your blood creates demons, they consider you kin. Cullen has many kin. He bled well. The younger ones always do.’

‘Yes, see, right there,’ Dorian said, gesturing. ‘Could we backtrack slightly and have you explain that _marvellous_ observation to me in a way I might have a chance of understanding?’

‘It will be hard for you to understand, Dorian. You will not like it and Cullen will be undone; a thread pulled and a tapestry unwoven.’

‘No, that’s what I’m _avoiding. _If I can just… if you’ll just tell me what happened, I can avoid much of the un-weaving, such as it were.’

Cole frowned. ‘I’m not good at explaining things.’

‘No, I know that,’ Dorian said with an understanding smile. ‘So, I thought maybe I could ask you things and you could answer me with a _yes_ or _no_. What do you think?’

‘You can try.’

‘All right,’ Dorian began slightly pacing while Cole hovered near the glass doors, sniffing his wine. ‘Here’s what I know so far, or what I think I know. Cullen was a young, relatively fresh-faced Templar in Kinloch Hold, the Circle Tower in Ferelden eleven years ago.’

Cole dipped his finger in the wine glass and licked it. ‘Yes.’

‘The mages requested to grow flowers in windowsill boxes and Cullen permitted it.’

‘The boxes were a bad idea. Living things are not meant for—’

‘Ah-ah!’ Dorian corrected lightly. ‘Yes or no, remember?’

‘Oh.’ Cole nodded. ‘Then_, yes_.’

Dorian continued to pace. ‘The mages grew witchgrass in the boxes. They used it to sometimes drug Templars to protect themselves.’

‘No.’

Dorian halted. ‘No?’

Cole was blank. ‘No.’

‘Could you explain_, _please?’

‘They used it to make them sick; to sow weakness and illness through strong bodies and one by one, they fell. Uldred was waiting, watching them wither. He liked it when they blamed each other for not properly storing the meat. Not enough salt, not cool enough. They never thought to the blame the tea.’

‘Yes, it was in the tea,’ Dorian said eyes widening as things began to fall into place. ‘But it was killing them?’

‘Slowly,’ Cole said, watching his wine move around in the glass. ‘The younger ones were stronger. They could withstand more than the frail ones, but when Uldred and the others began splitting their palms, no one was strong enough to prevent it. No one can stand up to blood.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Murder and violence set against Uldred’s sense of humour. The Templars break like eggs, their blood is useful and their screams are music. Keep the soft one to the side. Let him see what his kindness has wrought.’

A stab of something terrible caused Dorian to falter. ‘Cullen,’ he said, a little breathless. ‘Cullen was the soft one.’

‘He cries beautifully, that one. Do not break him fast. Any mage who breaks him before me will be split in two. The soft one is mine to feed Lyrium; he will lick it from my fingers and beg for more. That is a good start.’

The instinct to tell Cole to stop was powerful, but Dorian had to hear it, had to make himself hear it.

‘So, Kinloch fell to an uprising of blood mages.’

‘Yes.’

‘It was technically Cullen’s fault.’

Cole seemed hesitant to give a one worded answer to that, but he relented. ‘Yes.’

‘Cullen was tortured and tormented for a long time.’

‘It felt like years.’

Dorian took another breath. ‘Who was Jassen?’ The spirit cocked his head and Dorian waved his hand impatiently. ‘You can explain that one.’

‘No,’ Cole said. ‘I cannot. There is a line here. I’m not meant to cross it. Cullen drew this line and I cannot balance atop it as I do the castle walls. Ellana shows me lines sometimes. They are to be respected.’

‘Cole,’ he said slowly. ‘I _need_ to know who Jassen was.’

‘Why?’

‘What do you mean, _why?_’

‘Jassen is a line, Dorian. He should not be fresh in your mind and faded in Cullen’s.’

‘Look, Cullen wants me to know these things, he just can’t tell me.’

Cole blinked slowly. ‘I don’t think that’s true.’

‘All right, well,’ Dorian said thinking quickly. ‘Just tell me very _basic_ things. Nothing personal, nothing I couldn’t find from official records if I had a mind to break into the Chantry archives.’

‘A warning is not a dare, my love.’

Dorian bristled helplessly. ‘Don’t quote my mother, please.’

‘You’re drawing a line.’

‘With regards to my mother, absolutely.’

‘I will respect it,’ Cole said with a determined nod. ‘The way you should respect Cullen’s lines.’

‘I can find this out myself, it will just take longer.’

‘You should leave Jassen alone. He is not yours.’

Something sickly and cold slid down Dorian’s spine. ‘Was he _Cullen’s_, then?’

‘They will choose a pretty stone, a shade that matches your eyes. It’s only a word, but it says more than words ever could.’

‘Cole, you can tell me basic information, that’s not crossing the line.’

‘I can try to balance, but lines are tricky.’

Relieved Cole had relented albeit slightly, Dorian seized upon it. ‘Was Jassen a Templar?’

Cole seemed reluctant to answer. ‘Yes.’

‘He worked with Cullen.’

‘Yes.’

‘He was hurt or… most likely killed when the Circle Tower fell to the blood mages?’

‘No.’

‘No, _what_? Not hurt, not killed?’

‘I don’t like this. It’s sharp and if I fall, I will pull all the red from your wrist and it will make Cullen’s name.’

Frustration crept into the mage’s chest. ‘Did Jassen die in Kinloch Hold?’

Cole looked away. ‘Yes. It was fast. Dreamless sleep and apologies in ink. I am so sorry, my friend. This is not how I would bid you farewell.’

‘How did he die?’

‘He made tea.’

It took a moment for Cole’s statement to sink in. Dorian was trying so hard to piece everything together, seeking cohesion in bloody riddles. It came upon him slowly. ‘Jassen made… tea.’ He looked at Cole, eyes wide. ‘He poisoned himself.’

‘Jassen always made good tea.’

‘He killed himself with the witchgrass.’

Cole said, ‘Yes.’

Dorian thought of what else Cole had said. ‘Apologies in ink… he left Cullen a note?’

‘He left space around the edges. Cullen filled it.’

‘With what?’

‘Reasons.’

‘Reasons for what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Cole, you know _everything_.’

‘I _don’t_,’ the boy insisted, somewhat defensively. ‘And I don’t like it here, underwater. There's a monster swimming around and it must remain undisturbed. It remembers the smell of blood, knows how to break the surface.’

‘I need you to tell me these things!’

‘Well I don’t _want_ to tell you these things!’ Cole yelled suddenly, causing Dorian to startle. ‘I cannot give everything I am, Dorian. I cannot take the sky in hand and pass it down to you.’

Dorian rubbed his eyes and tried to temper his frustration. ‘All right, I’m sorry. You’re right, Cole. I shouldn’t push.’

‘It’s your nature to push,’ Cole said quietly. ‘There is little compassion in you.’

The mage laughed dryly. ‘That’s true.’

Cole reached for Dorian’s wrist; his small, slender hand closing around it. ‘Do not follow this,’ he said. ‘Let it be unsaid. It’s enough.’

Dorian swallowed hard and shook his head, chuckling bitterly.

‘No, Cole. It will never be enough. Maybe if I didn’t know it was a fucking _suicide note_, I could have let it go. But now I’m bound to pursue it.’

‘To keep him here,’ Cole guessed. ‘Keep him safe.’

‘Yes.’

‘Your blood is a trap, though. A contract in the veins, demon made. I don’t think you can keep him here. It’s hard to light a candle underwater.’

Shrugging out of the boy’s grip, Dorian’s fingers dug into his upper arms. The leaden weight inside his chest had not abated. New knowledge only made things _worse_.

‘The other item in Cullen’s book… I asked you what it was once and you answered but I wasn’t listening properly. You said _tea_.’ Dorian heaved a painful breath, lungs heavy and slow. ‘Cullen was keeping a stem of witchgrass, Cole. He kept it with a suicide note because, if the day ever came, that was _how_ he intended to kill himself. The same way this Jassen killed himself.’

‘It is hard for you to abide boundaries.’

‘And do you know what caused him to burn the letter and the witchgrass? _Me_.’ It came out very hollow. ‘Cullen thought I read it. He thought I knew everything. It’s given him closure, fucking stability even. I _cannot_ let him find out that it wasn’t real. He sees a version of me that’s… well, that’s hard enough to live up to as it is. _This_ has to be real. This part must be made real even if I have to do something terrible to ensure it.’

‘You are real, Dorian,’ Cole said, quite plainly. ‘The hand that reaches for you is real, too. Cullen wants no more than you can give. He would never make you say it if you told him the reason why.’

It was probably the most logical thing Cole had ever said to Dorian. It made a painful amount of sense, but ever since Lavellan had told Dorian of what the letter was, all he knew was that once, Cullen had been willing and ready to die. Dorian could never again let that be the case.

‘Is there anything… anything else you _can_ tell me?’

For a while, Cole didn’t reply and Dorian, with his back to the boy, thought that maybe he’d vanished. When he heard the gentle sigh, a soft intake of breath, Cole said, ‘Anything I tell you now will only make things worse. I promise it is enough.’ Cole’s hand touched Dorian’s shoulder. ‘_You_ are enough. You are everything.’

The feather light pressure was gone and Dorian was alone once more.

*

When Cullen came to him that night, Dorian was well on his way to being drunk. The room was warm and quiet, stifling in many ways. Dorian couldn’t bring himself to open the doors and let in the cold, not until Cullen was there. He knew how much Cullen liked the fresh air. So, he sat on his rug, drinking steadily as he read Cole’s stupid book, _A Compendium of Forgotten Ferelden Customs _and obsessively reread the minuscule reference to Kinloch.

It was short, barely even worth reading. There had once been a custom for those who resided in and around Lake Calenhad to bring a small amount of fresh salt to the Circle Tower upon each visit. Salt for meat, intended to give the Templars strength. Typical fucking Ferelden bullshit, really. There was a single paragraph about how the custom had now fallen into disuse and obscurity. Dorian read it over and over. Nowhere in the brief, clinical outline of the mages uprising did it mention witchgrass or Cullen but the name Uldred was referenced twice confirming what Cole had told Dorian earlier, at least.

There was one detail which Dorian found noteworthy, in a horrible kind of way. It noted that the Templars inside the Tower had been trapped there for months, not weeks. Two and a half months was the best estimate.

_It felt like years_.

‘What are you reading?’ Cullen asked, sending a jolt of alarm skittering down Dorian’s spine. He looked sharply up from the book, half laying on the rug, propped up on one elbow, wine glass nearby. Cullen removed his boots and slid off the mantle as if he was home now. He had a basket of what Dorian could only assume was food.

The mage held up the book for Cullen to see. ‘_Forgotten Ferelden Customs_,’ he said, slurring only slightly. Cullen gave Dorian a measured look.

‘Did you learn more about Kinloch Hold?’ he asked, carefully hanging his mantle on a wall hook by the door. Dorian blinked slowly. ‘I glanced through it a while back. There aren’t many books that make reference to the fall of the Circle Tower,’ Cullen said in a shockingly normal voice, his back to Dorian. ‘Official Chantry records remain sealed and unavailable to civilians for at least another nine years.’ He turned and Dorian could see, even in his drunken state, that it took a lot for Cullen to _keep_ his tone normal. Dorian knew him well enough to notice things like that now. Could tell the difference between forced calm and the natural kind.

The mage’s reactions were slower than usual. The wine glass seemed to take a long time to reach his mouth. ‘What’s in the basket?’

‘Food,’ Cullen said. His full attention was on Dorian, leaving him wishing it was directed elsewhere. Cullen had a way of looking at him sometimes as though he saw right through him, straight to centre.

Dorian performed a languid shrug, dropping his gaze down demurely. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You’re drunk,’ Cullen said. ‘You don’t usually drink around me.’

Dorian laughed; a sparkling, pretty thing. The kind of sound he might have made at a party he hated. A distress signal in disguise, a dog whistle in a room full of hyenas. ‘Maybe I don’t trust myself anymore.’

‘I’m certain that’s accurate.’

Running his hands through the fur of the rug, Dorian didn’t look up at Cullen so he couldn’t see the man’s expressions. He preferred it this way. Hiding, avoiding, pretending. The fur was thick and soft. It had not been repeatedly exposed to the elements the way Cullen’s mantle had. It was sheltered and perfect. A decoration, an expensive one at that, but once it had belonged to an animal. It had been used for protection and warmth. Cullen wore his mantle the same way the animal before him had. Dorian’s was just an ornament.

‘Do you want me to leave?’

Dorian realised it had been a long time since he’d spoken but he couldn’t bring himself to look away from the soft, light brown fur his hand was buried in. ‘You probably should. I’m afraid I won’t be very good company tonight, Commander.’

Cullen didn’t leave. ‘Have something to eat, at least,’ he said, approaching with the basket. ‘There’s fruit.’

‘How did you learn that I liked fruit?’ Dorian asked quietly. ‘Did you watch me?’

‘Sometimes.’ Cullen sat opposite him on the rug. He placed the basket to the side and took Dorian’s wine glass. Dorian’s lips parted to object but then he realised Cullen was topping him up. When he passed Dorian the glass, an expensive and seasoned red, their eyes met properly for the first time. Dorian could see all Cullen’s strength in that moment. He could see it so fucking clearly. Cullen had been hurt; he’d endured terrible things but he hadn’t let it destroy him. He hadn’t gone down a path of vapid self-destruction the way Dorian had.

Cullen was right there, offering him wine even though Dorian definitely shouldn’t drink anymore.

He took the glass. ‘Why did you watch me?’

‘I couldn’t help it.’

Dorian smirked into his glass, shaking his head. ‘Is that why you read my letters too?’

‘Reading your letters was beneath me.’

‘You realise I don’t especially _care_,’ Dorian said, lips tingly and numb. ‘I’m not upset. I followed you around Skyhold for weeks, you know. I watched you everywhere you went. You reading my letters doesn’t mean anything to me. I just… why did you do it?’

Cullen considered his answer. ‘I wanted to know you better.’

That made sense to Dorian. Maybe to a normal person, such an invasion of privacy would be abhorrent but Dorian was far from a normal person. He could understand it all too well. Cullen couldn’t simply _talk_ to Dorian, not back then at least. Not like now.

Dorian dragged his hand across his eyes, laughing again. The room wasn’t quite spinning yet but it would be soon. It would whirl and dance and he would pass out, removed from reality for just a while. It was nice, being drunk. Risky and insanely stupid, but nice.

‘And now that you know me,’ Dorian said. ‘What do you think of me?’

‘You know what I think of you.’

_I love you too_.

He tried so hard not to think it, but Cullen’s words were always there, set to a backdrop of thunder and the faint taste of lightning.

Dorian moved his bottom lip back and forth between his teeth, basking in the lack of feeling. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know why,’ Cullen said after another pause to answer carefully. ‘I just do.’

More wine, more numbness. ‘Was that before or _after_ I turned you into a blood thrall?’

‘That’s not what this is, Dorian.’

‘Oh really? You’re the expert now, are you?’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘What did you learn from my letters?’

It wasn’t _quite_ awkward, this atmosphere. Maybe it would have been if Dorian wasn’t so drunk. It was strange; a brittle kind of intimacy, the only kind Dorian could tolerate just then. Cullen’s kindness and patience just made his irritation spark and flare. He drank the rest of the wine from the glass and wiped his mouth.

‘What did you learn, Commander?’

The blond held his gaze. ‘I learned there was something very wrong between you and your Father.’

‘That’s all?’ Dorian chuckled resentfully. ‘Weren’t your suspicions about me confirmed? Was I not revealed to be nothing more than a pampered Tevinter brat accustomed to fucking his feelings away?’

‘No,’ Cullen said simply and his forbearance was beyond vexing. Why was he always so strong when Dorian was spinning out of control?

‘Won’t you have a drink with me, Commander?’

‘Stop calling me that.’

‘Ooh,’ Dorian said, reaching for the second bottle which he’d cleverly placed nearby, and pulling the cork out with his teeth. ‘Such a _tone,’ _he purred, spitting it away with flourish. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me I’ve had enough?’

‘No.’

‘That’s generous. One would think you had ulterior motives for letting me get so drunk. Do you want me all vulnerable and laid out for you?’

‘You want to hurt me and it’s easier for you if you’re drunk.’

Dorian tried to keep his gaze fixed on Cullen, but it was difficult. ‘I don’t _want_ to hurt you.’

‘But you need to.’

‘That’s how this all started, isn’t it? You _sent _for me, remember? Brought me right to you so we could hurt each other.’

‘I remember.’

‘And now we don’t hurt each other anymore. We fuck, sure. You’re rough, I’m rough. You want me to make me bleed, but it’s not to hurt me. Why don’t you want to hurt me anymore?’

Cullen looked down. That moment of weakness felt like a betrayal. ‘I never wanted to hurt you.’

‘Liar.’

‘I wanted…’ Cullen swallowed and forced himself to look up again, jaw working. ‘I wanted you to fight back.’

Dorian laughed coldly. ‘You’re fucked up.’

‘Yes,’ Cullen agreed and Dorian pretended not to notice so many things, the brightness of Cullen’s eyes reflecting the candlelight most of all. ‘I am.’

‘Well,’ Dorian said, extending his arm up slowly, muscles and bones too relaxed to be anything other than useless. ‘I’m not exactly perfect either.’

‘You’re perfect to me.’

‘How can you say such things with a straight face? Hmm? Have you never had your poor little puppy heart broken before, Chantry boy? Rule number one: don’t offer it up with outstretched hands, it’ll get slapped to the ground.’

‘There are worse things.’

‘Like in your letter?’

That brought Cullen’s gaze back to Dorian’s, overcast and resigned.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Precisely like that.’

The numbness was such that Dorian couldn’t feel anything anymore. Not the thundering warning in his chest, not the cold, guilty shiver at the base of his spine.

‘We didn’t talk about it,’ Dorian said.

‘We can speak of it now, if you wish.’

Dorian laughed again, letting his eyes fall shut. ‘What I _wish_,’ he said, stretching the last word because it was so very lovely. ‘And what I _want_ are very different things.’

‘Why?’

‘Well,’ he said, settling back a little more. ‘I _wish_ I’d never met you,’ he said, reaching for his glass again. ‘But all I _want_ is to be with you every second of the day.’

‘You’re angry with me.’

Dorian’s face was masterfully blank, despite the alcohol but there was nothing he could do to stop that fucking _traitorous_ tear rolling down his face. ‘Yes.’

‘Tell me why.’

‘I’m angry,’ Dorian said, having to physically dredge the words up. ‘That you ever thought you could kill yourself.’

The silence that followed rang in Dorian’s ears. The wine was catching up with him now, his room starting off with a slow waltz and beckoning him to follow. He lowered himself down flat atop his fluffy rug and closed his eyes so he didn’t have to see any of the mess he was making.

‘I’m angry you kept something poisonous to kill yourself with. I’m angry that you wrote a fucking letter explaining why. I hate you for it, can’t you see that?’

‘Dorian—'

‘And I hate that you let silence speak for me. That you were so desperate to believe something good that you didn’t… didn’t stop to see exactly who it was you were piling these fucking expectations onto.’ He swallowed, breath coming faster. ‘I hate you for seeing a version of me that doesn’t exist. I hate that you’ve made me into a _lie_. That’s all I am now. A lie_._ A fantasy, due to expire. I fucking hate you so much.’

It took a while for Cullen to say anything. ‘You are not a lie.’

‘Look at your stomach, Cullen. Look at the scars there. You would have let me heal it, wouldn’t you? You would have trusted me, even though you despised me, but it was all a lie. I can’t keep anything alive; I just play around with dead things.’

It was so easy to speak like this when he was suspended in darkness, floating without feeling. There was a level of disconnect that made it all feel like a dream. He hoped that this would be how it felt to die.

‘You lied because you wanted to be close to me.’

‘You’re so fucking naive.’

‘I suppose I am.’

‘You see, I _wish_ you weren’t so painfully naive, but I _want_ to take advantage of it. You bring out all the best and worst in me.’

‘Does it make you happy to hurt me?’

‘If I say yes, does that mean you’ll keep on letting me?’

‘You can hurt me but you won’t break me.’

Dorian laughed again. ‘Want to bet on that?’

‘You should just tell me what you’re skirting around.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘I know you need to tell me something. Whatever it is, just say it.’

‘Oh, because you can take it, can you? You’re so fucking big and strong; Commander Rutherford, the military elite!’

‘What happened between you and your Father, Dorian?’

With difficulty, Dorian rolled onto his side and fixed his stare on Cullen as best he could. ‘Like I said, _so_ fucking naive.’

Cullen waited and when Dorian could only make out the shape of him with very few details, he knew he should stop this. He hadn’t meant to get so drunk and he was saying things that, come morning, he would painfully regret.

But tomorrow didn’t feel real. Only those moments, numb and protected, felt real. He was so tired of being silent. Of trying to hold everything together. It felt good to come apart. It always did.

‘Is this why you let me get drunk?’ he asked, lip curling. ‘So that you could draw truth from me without my consent?’

Cullen was stone. He didn’t crack, he couldn’t be hurt. ‘No.’

Dorian’s fingers luxuriated in the feel of his rug. ‘Maker, you’re so _dull_. You wear fur for warmth. You’re unfailingly honest. You don’t even drink, for fuck’s sake,’ he chuckled, cold and cruel. ‘You really are a perfect little Chantry boy, aren’t you?’

Dorian watched as Culled looked down at his hands and then spoke quietly. ‘I killed a red lion once when I was still very green. Everyone praised me for it and they insisted I keep the fur. I never told them it was already lame when I came upon it. I wear the fur every day because it reminds me that I wasn’t brave or strong. I just killed something that was already dying and I didn’t want it to go to waste.’ He cleared his throat before continuing. ‘I rarely drink anything unless I pour it myself from a sealed source. I try to be honest, but I struggle to be open_. _I betrayed the Chantry in every way, long before I broke from the Templars and from lyrium. I showed kindness to mages who used it to kill my brothers and sisters in arms. They died because of me. There was poison in Kinloch because of me.’

Sickness swirled patiently inside Dorian, warning him of what he had to look forward to later. ‘That’s…’ his breath caught in a wet, painful hiccup. ‘_not_ enough to kill yourself over.’

‘I know that.’

Dorian thought that maybe he’d said that wrong because it didn’t feel right at all.

‘That’s not a _reason_ to kill yourself,’ he tried again, frowning. This was probably not an area he should trust himself to speak on. ‘Reason,’ he said, shaping the word curiously. _‘Reasons_.’

‘Dorian—’

‘Reasons around the edges.’

‘I didn’t mean that, what I wrote about you,’ Cullen was saying. ‘I was lost to darkness for a long time. If anything, you mean quite the opposite to me now.’

Dorian looked back at Cullen. ‘Silly boy,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t _know_ what the fuck you’re talking about.’

Though it was hard to tell, Dorian thought he saw Cullen roll his eyes and scrub his hands over his face. ‘Of course you don’t, you’re too drunk. You should sleep, Dorian.’

‘I don’t want to sleep.’

‘Well, you’re not going to be able to stay awake much longer at this rate.’

‘Don’t want to die in my sleep.’

‘What?’

‘I might say it,’ Dorian slurred sorrowfully. ‘And then I’ll just never wake up. I know what you think of me, but I don’t actually _want_ to die. That’s funny, isn’t it? Dorian Pavus doesn’t want to die.’ He began to laugh when something shook him _hard_.

‘What the fuck does that mean? Why would you die in your sleep?’

‘Oh,’ Dorian said, frowning. Cullen had magically appeared right in front of him, gripping his arms hard enough to bruise. ‘No, mustn’t say that. That’s in the _shhh_ column.’

‘Are you… are you sick?’

Dorian nodded morosely. The wine was turning all his wonderfully solid anger into liquid sadness the way it always did. An unstoppable process. Entropy in a dark green bottle. ‘I am sick, Cullen. You shouldn’t be near me. What if you catch it from my blood? What if you die instead of me? You shouldn’t say it anymore. Never say it again. Blood curses could be contagious. How would we know?’

‘What blood curse?’

Oh, shit. Dorian tried to seem nonchalant. ‘Hmm?’

‘_What_ blood curse?’

‘Well,’ Dorian said, trying to stall. ‘Blood curses, in general, are quite mystifying, aren’t they? Blood magic is _putrid_, after all. Hawke can really go fuck himself for all I care.’

Cullen stood abruptly and Dorian wobbled for a moment, unaware of the extent to which he’d been leaning on Cullen. ‘Oh,’ he said, pouting slightly. ‘Yes, I suppose that was overdue.’

But Cullen didn’t leave and he hadn’t gone far. When he returned, it was with a small bottle in hand. ‘Drink this,’ he said, removing the tiny cork. He put the rim of the bottle close to Dorian’s mouth and the mage tasted the hiss of fresh, fizzing bubbles.

‘No,’ he said, turning away. ‘Stop it.’

Cullen didn’t take no for an answer. He tipped Dorian’s head back by the chin and poured the liquid into his mouth, thumb pressing carefully into the centre of his throat to make him swallow reflexively. It slid down like ice water through fire. It wiped away the fog, the dizziness and replaced it with stability and a flood of embarrassment so severe it took Dorian’s breath away. The room stilled, the dance ended and Thedas solidified.

The effects of the alcohol didn’t wear off completely, but he most definitely wasn’t drunk anymore. It was fucking horrible. Like kissing someone in a dark room only to have it suddenly filled with harsh light, revealing ugliness and bad judgement.

‘Oh, fuck you!’ he groaned, pushing Cullen away. His head throbbed and ached. His stomach felt revoltingly full and the desire to purge it was tempered only by the absolute burning sense of shame eating away at him, bit by bit. ‘_Fuck you_, you arrogant bastard!’ He kept his eyes shut, didn’t want to see Cullen or whatever he was feeling towards the mage. He wanted to be numb again, free to say whatever he wanted without a care in the world.

But it was all gone now, expertly dissolved by Solas’s talent.

There were hands on his face. Cullen was trying to make Dorian look at him.

‘Dorian, tell me why you think you might die.’

‘Don’t fucking touch me!’

‘_Dorian_!’

He shoved Cullen as hard as he could, sending them both backwards on their arses. Every bad feeling inside Dorian was crystallising into a point and it was aimed directly at the man who loved him. ‘Who do you think you are to me? You think you’re someone I fucking _care about_? As if you have any right to do that! You’re _nothing_ to me, no one!’ he spat, chest heaving. ‘I don’t even like you, let alone _love_ you!’

Dorian didn’t look at Cullen while he said this, didn’t dare. Cullen had gone still and silent; maybe he was pushing him too far just like before but Dorian didn’t want to care. He _didn’t_ care, Maker damn it! He would force himself not to care.

_Break his heart, do it fast, do it now. _Distance would protect him; distance might keep Dorian alive.

He didn’t want to die. He just wasn’t ready.

‘You’re nothing,’ he said, voice cracking. _‘Nothing!’_

It wasn’t clear that he’d been rocking back and forth until Cullen touched him and he jolted as if hit by lightning. Cullen’s hand was gentle on his face and when he opened his eyes, blurred with tears, Cullen wasn’t angry. The touch was entirely absent of violence, beautiful eyes filled with nothing but concern and sadness.

‘Well,’ Cullen said. ‘_You’re_ everything.’

When Dorian began to cry, Cullen enveloped him into a warm, all-encompassing hug. He fitted Dorian’s chin over his shoulder and held him fast, strong hands rubbing soothing circles over his back after he dragged Dorian gently into his lap.

‘Please tell me,’ he said in a desperate kind of whisper. ‘Please tell me so I can keep you safe.’

Everything was too raw, too exposed when Dorian drew back slowly, holding onto Cullen like he would die _without_ him, not with him. He had to be strong and keep this from Cullen like everything else. This was a part of Dorian that was diseased and disgusting. Cursed by his own kin, tainted for his arrogance and pride.

But Cullen had begged and he was waiting, staring at Dorian with so much fucking worry that the mage could _feel_ his concern like it was a real thing between them.

‘You can’t keep me safe,’ Dorian said, blinking tears down his face.

‘I _will_,’ Cullen swore fervently, wiping them away. ‘I’ll do anything.’

Dorian tried to smile. ‘I think you actually mean that.’

Strong hands moved up his back and into his hair, carding through it reassuringly. ‘I’d do anything to keep you safe. Please tell me. I can’t bear not knowing.’

A sentiment Dorian wholly empathised with.

Cullen deserved _some_ kind of truth, didn’t he? Even if it meant him wanting nothing to do with Dorian anymore. That was probably for the best anyway.

The mage closed his eyes and borrowed Cullen’s strength for a moment, imagining he was brave and strong just like the Commander.

‘My Father used blood magic on me,’ he began to say, each word costing him dearly. ‘Six years ago, he tried to use it to… change me.’ Cullen said nothing and Dorian was grateful, forcing himself to go on. ‘He wanted to make me normal. To carry on the family line. That was all that mattered to him, you see. His fucking _legacy.’ _He wiped his eyes and his nose. ‘But it didn’t work. He was so angry and I… I suppose I taunted him for his failure. The magic was still in place when he told me he’d see me dead before I was in love with a man.’

Cullen’s intake of breath was abrupt and shuddering.

‘He let me go,’ Dorian said, feeling impossibly wrung out. ‘He _apologised_, if you can believe that. Said we’d fix it somehow. I left that night. Alexius was kind and he was proud to have me live with him and his son, Felix. My father tried many spells to undo it, or so he said. The meeting in Redcliffe was the first time I saw him in over four years. More apologies, more attempts to bridge the gap but he got what he wanted, didn’t he?’ Dorian shook his head. ‘I felt the magic take hold when he said it. It burrowed into my skin, deep into my blood.’

‘Do you feel it still?’

‘Alexius performed a few tests but they revealed little I didn’t already know. It’s always there, sewn into me. It’s like…’ Dorian tried to think of how to phrase it, that monstrous thing lurking inside him. ‘Like a wire trap. It’s thin and invisible but it’s _there,_ waiting._’_

‘What triggers it?’ Cullen asked, voice low and cautious.

‘I don’t know. That’s the worst thing. It could be saying the words, it could be acknowledging the feeling. I really have no clue.’

‘We shouldn’t even discuss that part of it, then,’ Cullen said, abruptly concerned, holding Dorian tighter as if that would somehow keep him safe from such thoroughly intangible threats. ‘You should…’ he trailed off, face slackening with some kind of realisation Dorian knew he wasn’t going to like. ‘We shouldn’t be together,’ he said. ‘That’s the only way to keep you safe, isn’t it?’

More tears, more unbearable feelings. ‘See the brilliance of my Father’s curse? He says how he didn’t mean it but it worked out perfectly for him, didn’t it?’ He cleared his throat, blinking hard. ‘I don’t blame you for thinking it,’ Dorian said in a small voice. ‘It’s not like I can offer you anything.’

‘Dorian.’ Cullen sounded firm. ‘It’s not that and you know it. We can’t take the risk. _I_ can’t take the risk. If we knew what the trigger was, maybe it would be possible to navigate, but this is too dangerous.’ When Dorian said nothing, Cullen lifted the mage’s chin. ‘Do you hear me? _Too_ dangerous, Dorian. I realise when I say that, part of you hears a challenge instead of a warning, but if this is real—’

‘It is.’

‘—then I can’t risk losing you.’

‘I shouldn’t have told you.’

‘And _what?_ Let me push the curse to breaking point? How is that fair on me, on _yourself_? You did the right thing here. You were honest.’

‘Don’t say that, please,’ Dorian winced.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘If we’re breaking up, I probably shouldn’t still be in your lap.’

Cullen sighed and looked so dejected it hurt Dorian to witness. ‘No, you shouldn’t.’ He tried to move the mage away, but Dorian clung on.

‘Well, tough.’

Cullen gave him _a Look_. ‘Dorian.’

‘I’ve decided to never move from your lap.’

‘Dorian, please.’

‘You’re going to have to wage war with me literally in your lap.’

‘This isn’t fair.’

‘And yet here we are with a lapful of mage. A stubborn, sexy mage with impeccable grooming habits and questionable taste in Inquisition Commanders.’

Hands took hold of his wrists. ‘Dorian,’ Cullen said, sharply and maybe even a little panicked. ‘I can’t be the reason you die. _Please_.’

Dorian didn’t look away. ‘Well, I can’t live my life not being in your lap,’ he said, hoping Cullen understood. ‘So, there.’

Cullen mildly gawked. ‘This is fucking crazy, even for us.’

Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘I’ve survived this long in the face of your abundant charm, haven’t I? We can toe the line, I’m certain of it.’

‘Your certainty means literally nothing.’

‘I can say with _absolute_ fucking certainty that if you try to break up with me, I’m going to follow you everywhere to an even greater extent and start showing up naked in your office, wrapped in fur like some Ferelden name day delight.’

Cullen squinted at Dorian. ‘We don’t wrap gifts in fur.’

Dorian gave Cullen a thorough once over. ‘Well, what are _you_, then?’

That made Cullen laugh despite himself and when he lowered their hands, it felt like a fragile victory.

‘Feeling better, I see.’

‘Thank Solas for his amazing heal-all potions.’

The smile faded somewhat. ‘That was the last one in the box,’ Cullen told him. ‘I’m not going to hurt you ever again.’

‘Not even if I ask you to?’

‘You know what I mean. I’m not going to say _that_ ever again, either. I didn’t realise it was… well, I just won’t say it anymore.’

‘See? Lines are being toed already.’

The ex-Templar looked almost vulnerable when he said, ‘We can find a cure, somehow. We have resources at our disposal here and Lavellan adores you; there’s nothing she wouldn’t do for you.’

‘Cullen, it’s blood magic, there’s no undoing it.’

‘Promise me you’ll at least let me look into it?’

Dorian sighed. ‘Yes, all right, for all the good it’ll do.’

Cullen seemed pleased by that. He stroked Dorian’s face and the adoration was plainly written across his features. ‘I’m so sorry for what you went through. If you want me to, I’ll kill your Father.’

‘That’s kind,’ Dorian sighed, wiping his eyes again. ‘And slightly worrying because I think you’re serious.’

‘I really am. Is there anything else you want to tell me?’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said after a painful moment of deliberation. ‘Yes, there is.’

‘You can tell me anything.’

He tried. He really did.

‘I… slept with Hawke, a few weeks ago. It was literally nothing, he was just _there. _I was feeling low and it was a stupid decision but I didn’t… Cullen?’

Dorian had been rambling, trying to get it all out as quickly as he could because even this, a lesser truth, was awful but when he looked up at Cullen to check in on the man’s reaction, he was taken aback by what he saw there.

It was clearly not what Cullen had been expecting. Though Dorian wasn’t completely sober just yet, there was no way to miss the darkening of Cullen’s eyes, the flare of nostrils and the way his teeth were _ever so slightly_ bared beneath a curling, scarred lip.

Oh dear.

‘Cullen? Are you going to kill me? That seems counterintuitive to what we just discussed.’

‘You and Hawke?’

‘One time. It was entirely forgettable.’

‘When was it?’

‘It was before you found me in your bedroom.’

Cullen seemed to be mentally calculating what degree of violent death Hawke had earned himself based on those dates. ‘I… hate that you were with him,’ he said through gritted teeth after a long moment of Dorian watching the emotions play over his face, fascinated despite himself. ‘But thank you for telling me.’

Dorian half smiled, playing with Cullen’s hair. ‘You don’t look happy.’

‘I’m coping.’

‘With what?’

‘The nigh overwhelming desire to bite your neck and leave a mark.’

Cullen seemed grudgingly pleased to make Dorian laugh, nuzzling under his chin when the mage threw back his head and cackled gleefully. This was a _weird_ fucking night.

‘It’s fine,’ Cullen grumbled, when Dorian pressed a kiss to his nose.

‘You want to mark me?’ Dorian teased, fingers playing with those golden curls in a more specific manner now, the manner which made Cullen’s eyelashes flutter and a crackly little groan slip out without permission. ‘You want to sink your teeth in and _claim_ me, hmm?’

‘You know I do,’ Cullen said. Dorian could see his restraint. It was unfair to push. One of them had to be the adult, he supposed. ‘But not tonight. It’s late and we have to be up early.’

‘You’re always up early.’

Cullen gently lifted Dorian from his lap and got to his feet. ‘Perhaps there will come a day when sunlight will wake _me_, not the other way around. Come on, we can still eat before we sleep.’

_You_ can still eat, Dorian heard.

_‘Or_ we could play chess while we eat,’ Dorian suggested, reaching up so that Cullen could help him stand. His legs were still shaky and the dizziness had not entirely passed. ‘That’s a nice, safe, grown up thing to do, isn’t it?’

The Commander plonked himself down on Dorian’s bed and let out a hearty sigh. ‘Your bed is so _comfortable.’_

Dorian filled a metal jug with ice and then slowly melted it, retaining a few small chunks to keep it cool. Water was good, water was wise. He watched Cullen shuffle down atop his quilts and covers like a sleepy starfish.

‘How often do you sleep?’ he asked Cullen, pouring some water into a fresh wine glass. Tankards were revolting and to be avoided, no matter the cost. ‘Or better put, how _much_ do you sleep?’

Cullen’s eyes were closed, hands behind his head. ‘Occasionally,’ was his answer. ‘Obviously, I do sleep,’ he amended after thinking about it. ‘Just not much.’

‘Hmm,’ Dorian said, joining him on the bed. He would need to order furniture for himself from Val Royeaux, now that he thought about it. A bigger bed and an extra chair. Maybe a larger table too. ‘Is it nightmares?’

He asked in a matter-of-fact way, refraining from allowing pity to infiltrate his tone. Cullen didn’t open his eyes.

‘Sometimes. Usually, I’m concerned that I won’t wake early enough.’

Dorian chuckled, sipping his soothing, icy water. ‘The great Commander Rutherford, reader of skies and master of armies, worried about sleeping in?’

‘I worry,’ Cullen said, slow and calm. ‘That if I sleep, and it’s undisturbed, it will feel too good and I won’t _want_ to wake. When I was younger, I used to love sleeping. Living on a farm always meant being up before dawn but I could never wake myself. They say soldiers gain the ability to measure time by their bodies, but I can safely state that I did not receive this gift.’

Dorian stroked Cullen’s leg absently. ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re not a morning person? Because if so, we have that in common.’

Cullen smirked. ‘I know you’re not a morning person.’

‘Well,’ Dorian said, reaching for the basket on the bed. He flipped the lid and saw his favourite fruit inside with some cheese and bread. ‘If you stayed here, I could wake you.’

‘That’s kind,’ Cullen said, opening his eyes. He watched Dorian eat a grape and then looked down to where Dorian was stroking his knee, fingertips trailing lightly over the soft leather. ‘But I don’t especially trust your ability to wake before the sun reaches high noon.’

Dorian gasped. ‘You _wound_ me, Cullen. I was actually suggesting something a little less rudimentary.’ He lifted his hand and began to weave, drawing on his magic. It was intricate stuff, had taken years to perfect but he’d been the only one in his Circle to accomplish it and he was still a little proud, so many years later.

Cullen sat up, eyes bright and round with interest. ‘What is that?’

Dorian preened ever so slightly. ‘It’s an hourglass, the magical kind.’

His creation glowed faintly purple. A design woven of pure, self-sustaining ice glass, and contained within the upper slope, tiny grains of crystallised energy, sifting slowly through the bottleneck. It hovered nearby, creating a gentle tinkling sigh of white noise.

‘When the last grain falls, they combine to make a bright glow and it will wake us.’

The Commander’s fascination barely wavered when he echoed, ‘Us?’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, rifling through the basket to seem busy. ‘You can stay here and the hourglass will wake us at whatever Maker forsaken hour you deem appropriate.’

Cullen sighed and glanced sideways at Dorian. ‘This doesn’t seem to be toeing the line.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘I mean that…’ Cullen gestured towards the hourglass. ‘Doing wonderful things for me is _not_ toeing the line we discussed.’

A small, slightly mean part of the mage wanted to point out that allowing someone to sleep and promising to wake them on time wasn’t exactly _wonderful. _Basic human decency shouldn’t be something Cullen considered a threat to their agreed upon boundary.

But Dorian had been quite spiteful enough for one night.

‘Let’s see how wonderful you feel when forced to leave my warm embrace in the cursed hours of pre-dawn.’

‘How does it work?’ Cullen asked, still staring at the hourglass.

‘Well,’ Dorian said, swivelling slightly to look upon his creation. ‘The grains are tightly compacted energy. They are naturally brightest when together and so by separating them, you deprive them of their true glow. When they’re all together again in the bottom half, voila!’ Cullen placed his hand on Dorian’s thigh, never looking away from the floating object.

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘How does your magic work?’

Dorian grinned, slightly perplexed. ‘What do you mean? Did you skip your Templar training classes where they explained all about mages and magic?’

‘How does it feel? When you create something this beautiful?’ Cullen slid off the bed, walking slowly to the hourglass. He touched it with the tip of his middle finger, light and careful as though it might shatter.

Dorian watched him. ‘It took a long time to learn,’ he said, clearing his throat again and sipping water to ease the way. ‘But it… feels the way it looks.’

Cullen glanced at him, something resonating between them. ‘Incredible.’

There was no point in attempting modesty. ‘Yes, exactly.’

‘It feels like you,’ Cullen said. ‘It _is_ you, isn’t it? It’s your magic so it’s _you_. Your essence, your spirit. We were never taught that.’

‘I imagine few people in the South are,’ Dorian said, unable to make himself look away from Cullen’s childlike wonder and captivation. ‘That would make it harder to hate us all, wouldn’t it? Better to think of us as mere conduits for the Fade, little else.’

‘Magic comes from the Fade though,’ Cullen said, his fingertip sliding down the side of the glass, following the curve. Dorian restrained the urge to shiver, almost feeling the touch as if it were on his own skin.

‘It’s the source, yes. The supply, certainly, but my magic is my own. It responds to me when I’m angry, it seeks to defend me when in danger. Salt water from the sea, purified and filtered fresh into a stream.’

Cullen was still rather starstruck when he said, ‘I love it.’

Dorian snorted a laugh into his water glass. It drew Cullen’s attention and the man groaned, face creasing as he realised his slip.

‘Sorry,’ he said, wincing. ‘Sorry, _sorry_!’

‘It’s fine,’ Dorian said, still shaking with suppressed laughter as he wiped his chin. ‘Don’t fret.’

_‘Urgh_, no it’s not!’ Cullen insisted sternly. ‘I don’t love it, at _all_. It’s… very nice.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘No, really,’ Cullen said, leaving the hourglass and coming to Dorian instead. He dropped to his knees in front of the mage. ‘I didn’t mean that. Your magic is fine, nothing more.’

Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘My magic is fucking _jaw-dropping _and we both know it.’

‘It’s impressive,’ Cullen admitted, brow furrowed with determination. ‘But—’

‘You like it as a friend?’

‘I’ll try not to be so… taken with it.’

Dorian dragged a hand through Cullen’s curls, sighing contentedly, despite the demonstration of absolute failure on both their parts to even remotely adhere to the impossible rules set less than twenty minutes ago.

‘You can try.’

Everything about Cullen was plaintive as he ran his hands up and down Dorian’s thighs, kneeling before him. ‘I’ll do better.’

‘Of course you will,’ he said easily. ‘I like your hair like this, a little longer.’

A delicate blush stained Cullen’s cheeks. ‘I know you do.’

The mood was shifting, the atmosphere thickening slightly. Dorian could feel himself being drawn into Cullen the way he so often was.

‘We probably should sleep,’ he said as the other man leaned into his touch.

‘What happened to chess?’

‘You don’t want to play chess.’

‘I _want_ to kiss you,’ Cullen admitted, eyes dropping down to Dorian’s mouth. ‘But sleep is what I wish for.’

‘Then let’s do that.’

They undressed quickly and Dorian felt incredibly nervous all of a sudden. When had he actually _slept_ with a man without at least having sex first? Had it ever happened?

It hadn’t, he realised. But it was about to.

‘Can we…?’ Cullen stopped himself, throwing a hopeful glance in the direction of the doors.

‘Of course,’ Dorian said, opening them with his magic. Cold air rushed inside and the chill set Dorian’s skin on edge, but he compensated by creating a few heating orbs around the bed. The hourglass glowed like a soft lilac fire, gently cascading grains filling the air with white noise.

Dorian got in first, holding the covers open, inviting Cullen to follow. Stripped down to his smalls, Cullen slid inside and Dorian draped the heavy, warm quilt over them both as he doused the last of the candles. They faced each other, sharing the small space, awkwardly unsure of whether or not they should touch.

‘I feel like we’re hiding,’ Cullen whispered. ‘Like someone might catch us.’

‘You’re adorable.’

‘_Dorian_.’

‘Oh, right. You’re terribly dull and I hate you. How’s that?’

Cullen smiled, guileless and genuine, his eyes reflecting the colour of Dorian’s magic. ‘Much better.’

Dorian rolled over and reached back for Cullen’s hand, pulling it over him like a blanket and the man attached to it followed, his other arm moving under their shared pillow. They fit together perfectly; Cullen’s heartbeat purring softly against Dorian’s back. Fatigue came heavy and fast.

‘Please don’t snore,’ Dorian murmured, sleepiness seeping into the edges of his consciousness.

‘Mmmkay,’ Cullen said, slurred and drowsy. ‘Need to be up at three hours past midnight.’

Dorian sighed thickly. ‘’S revolting.’ He lifted his hand and adjusted the hourglass, focusing on the amount of grains and how long they should self-sustain for. ‘Done. Sleep now.’

Cullen pressed a kiss into his hair. ‘Night.’

Dorian shifted back against Cullen slightly, revelling in the warm weight draped over and around him.

‘Night, Cullen,’ he said and was answered with a tiny snore.

*

When the room filled with glittering purple light, Dorian’s brain roused from the dead sleep he’d been wrapped in. Cullen untangled himself from the mage and yawned.

‘Morning.’

Dorian groaned. ‘Barely.’

‘You go back to sleep,’ Cullen said. ‘I’ll see you at dawn.’

Dorian rubbed his face into the pillow. ‘No, I’m up.’

Cullen was already out of the bed and Dorian diffused the complex energy and shape of the hourglass. The light faded entirely and he lit candles to compensate.

‘You know,’ Cullen said. ‘I’m starting to think the reason Southerners dislike mages so much is rooted entirely in jealousy.’

Dorian snorted and rolled over. ‘Oh, you think so, do you?’

Cullen wasn’t yet dressed. ‘Do you know how much easier my life would be if I could light candles that way? Or draw a bath just by waving my hand?’

‘Do you want a bath?’

The Commander considered. ‘It would actually save me time to have one here rather than go to the Skyhold baths.’

‘Logic prevails,’ Dorian said, trying not to smile so much this monstrously early in the morning. It simply wasn’t right. ‘Quick bath, then tea.’

There was nothing quick about the bath.

*

‘You should keep some things here,’ Dorian said in an offhand way as they left his room, heading to Cullen’s cold, drab quarters in search of clean vestments for the day. ‘Shirts and smalls, maybe some socks.’

Cullen’s expression was very carefully neutral. He nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘Hmm. Good idea, that would be… efficient.’

They walked together in silence. Skyhold was bathed in darkness and stillness. Dorian felt like a nocturnal creature, seeing the world in a secret state he’d never been privy to before. Most residents were asleep. Lavellan most likely curled up with Sera. Varric with his manuscript. Cassandra with her sword. They were probably snoring and blissfully unaware of how exciting it felt to be walking with Cullen Rutherford in pitch black darkness, trusting in his ability to lead them anywhere because he probably had soldier’s night vision or something. Dorian felt important. He felt safe.

In Cullen’s quarters, Dorian waited for him. While Cullen changed up the ladder, Dorian shivered slightly and glanced around. He didn’t like this place. It was horribly work orientated. Everything circulated around that desk as if Cullen’s whole life was about nothing more than paperwork and then, if he was lucky, a journey up a rickety ladder into a bed under a _hole_ in the roof. It was all very basic and austere.

‘You can bring your books, if you want,’ he called out, examining the spines in dim candlelight. ‘The prettier ones, at least. Not this chair, though,’ he added under his breath, glaring at the inanimate object. ‘And definitely _not_ this desk.’

Cullen slid down his ladder, hands skimming the sides and landing with a controlled thump on his feet, brushing his hands off as he faced the mage.

‘Are you asking me to move in with you?’ he said with a hint of barely restrained amusement and affection. He gathered a heavily stacked pile of papers and affixed his sword to his belt, scabbard and all. He’d left it in his quarters all night, Dorian realised. ‘Because that’s _definitely_ not toeing any kind of line.’

‘No, I was just…’ Dorian trailed off. What _had_ he been asking, really? ‘I’m thinking in terms of military efficiency, is all. If the Commander is better rested and more organised, that’s a bonus for the Inquisition.’

Cullen nodded as if he was remotely convinced. ‘Ah, well that’s very generous of you.’ He wandered into his space, eyes moving between Dorian’s.

‘I like to think I’m a giving person,’ Dorian said feeling the urge to swallow as Cullen advanced. His proximity sent Dorian’s heart skipping into a worrying rhythm.

Cullen backed him into the book shelf. ‘You should remove your pauldron,’ the Commander commented silkily. ‘Let everyone see it.’

Dorian faintly groaned as Cullen’s possessive nature elicited a bodily reaction from him quite without his permission. Under the leather and straps of his shoulder pauldron, Cullen’s bite mark ached and stung and threatened to undo all his composure. The mere recollection of Cullen giving it to him in the bath, buried inside of him, shuddering as an orgasm crashed over them both was… more than a little distracting.

‘I hardly think that’s fair,’ Dorian managed to say. ‘At least not until I can give _you_ such a mark in return.’

Cullen held his position _just_ shy of pressing into Dorian.

‘That’s unnecessary,’ he told the mage. ‘Everyone already knows I’m yours.’ It took a few seconds for him to realise what he’d said and he sighed heavily, dropping his head onto Dorian’s shoulder. ‘_Fuck_, this is so hard.’

With admirable effort, Dorian contained his wit and patted Cullen’s head. ‘There, there,’ he comforted dryly. ‘It’s not your fault you’re a hopeless romantic at heart.’

‘I am _not_,’ Cullen protested, but it was entirely without heat. ‘Though you’re right; it’s not my fault; it’s clearly _yours_.’ He lifted his gaze to Dorian’s with an accusatory glare. ‘Your fault you’re so…’ he gestured rather wildly, papers fluttering as Dorian nodded sagely and waited. ‘So…so… _adequate_!’

‘Dorian Pavus; devastatingly handsome, tragically adequate.’

Cullen huffed. ‘Wholeheartedly irritating.’

‘Stunningly intelligent.’

‘Horrifyingly reckless.’

‘Spectacularly talented.’

‘Magnificently wicked.’

‘Ah-_hah_! You ran out of insults!’

_‘Wicked_ isn’t a compliment.’

Dorian chuckled. ‘It’s certainly not an insult.’

Cullen moved away, rolling his eyes. ‘Well, regardless. If you could just _stop _being so perfect, that would make this much easier, thank you.’

He was already opening the door for Dorian as the mage quietly muttered under his breath, ‘I never even started.’

*

Training began with a brief explanation about the operation to remove traitors from the ranks. Dorian listened to the way Cullen explained it. He’d tailored the speech ever so slightly to keep the emphasis on the fact that the men in question had broken laws and rules, rather than hurt mages. Dorian didn’t know how he felt about that but he trusted Cullen’s instincts. He knew these people; they were _his_ people essentially. Where Cullen led, they followed.

At the end of the morning, a few of the older mages, the ones Dorian privately acknowledged to be some of the more talented ones, approached Dorian and asked about the siege of Adamant.

When Dorian offered reassurance that Skyhold would remain well protected in their absence, the mages told him that they didn’t want to be left behind. They wanted to come and help fight, however they could.

Dorian was stunned by the offer and didn’t know how to respond in the moment. He said he’d consider it. One mage told him they would be proud to fight alongside him, as he had fought for them. It took Dorian an embarrassingly long time to figure out when he’d done any actual fighting as of late and realised they were referring to the removal of the abusers.

_‘Fiona never did anything,’ _the mage, Tommur, had told him._ ‘Said there was no point. You took a chance for us, for the younger ones. We want to help.’_

‘They’re not ready,’ Cullen said when he broached it. ‘Nowhere near.’

‘You have soldiers in your ranks who joined weeks ago,’ Dorian pointed out. ‘They’re not ready either. They’re still coming along.’

‘To be _runners_,’ Cullen argued. ‘To sharpen blades and polish armour.’

‘Mages can run too. We can also create shields and protect siege weapons, throw fireballs and rain lightning, all while behind range lines.’

When Cullen presented the idea to Lavellan, it was Dorian she smiled at.

*

Travelling, Dorian decided, was horribly fucking dull.

Moving across the land in such a huge mass meant they were only as fast as their slowest soldier. The level of organisation that went into such a thing - just the journey, not even the fucking battle - was truly staggering and Dorian wished he could be more in awe of it, but really, he was just sick of riding and walking. It was boring and cold and perpetually rainy.

He missed his room filled with his and Cullen’s things. In the two weeks leading up to their departure, Dorian had sent off his order to Val Royeaux for new furniture and other abundantly expensive items for his mages and, of course, for himself. It was absolutely unacceptable to share a chest of drawers with Cullen when the man so clearly needed his own. Dorian’s things were pretty and delicate and Cullen’s were all made of cotton and other rough materials that Dorian feared would damage his nicer shirts.

He missed his _bath_, but at least he wasn’t alone in that. Every night when they made camp on the way to the Adamant fortress, he would sneak into Cullen’s tent, larger than Dorian’s because being the Commander had _some_ perks, and the man would loudly complain.

‘I miss our bath,’ he would say and Dorian had long since given up trying to correct him that it wasn’t _their_ bath, because really, who the fuck was he kidding? ‘You’ve spoilt me with hot water and now I’m ruined for anything else.’

‘Yes, I did,’ Dorian would agree and then he would offer to massage Cullen’s aching neck and shoulders, adding flourishes of heat and magic wherever he felt a knot.

The nights were admittedly less dull, but still - travelling was fucking awful. Dorian was almost looking forward to the great, looming battle ahead of them.

_Almost_.

*

Some nights Dorian didn’t return to his own tent. He stayed with Cullen; the Commander wrapped all around him like a mantle of his very own. He let his clever magic wake them long before the sun rose and they had to pack everything away again and move out. Sometimes Rylen came in and left messages, sometimes he woke Cullen to discuss something important. He didn’t look twice at Dorian beyond a polite nod, even when the mage was sprawled indecently in Cullen’s bedroll, hair all askew, covered in love bites and finger bruises.

No one cared, Dorian realised. Well, _almost_ no one cared.

Hawke watched them like his namesake, cold jealousy plain to see whenever Dorian wasn’t quick enough to look away. The few times he saw Hawke speaking quietly with Vivienne were truly heart-stopping.

He forced himself not to think of it.

The night before they would reach Adamant, Dorian woke to find Cullen not wrapped around him. The gently glowing hourglass still had grains in the top half. Dorian draped himself in Cullen’s cloak and went to find him.

The Commander hadn’t gone far. He was outside the back end of the tent, facing away from camp. When Dorian stood beside him, Cullen sighed.

‘Tomorrow we’ll arrive,’ he said quietly. ‘Half a day’s travel, maybe less.’

‘How do you feel?’ Dorian asked.

Cullen frowned slightly, considering the question. ‘I feel a great many things,’ he answered at length. ‘But mostly I’m… afraid.’

Dorian looked away, staring out at the horizon of inky blackness, scattered with stars and the two distant moons. He didn’t ask why Cullen - _courageous, daring Cullen _\- was afraid.

‘I’ll keep you safe,’ he said, nudging him slightly.

Cullen was quiet for a while before his fingers found Dorian’s.

‘You see how pitch black the sky is,’ he said. ‘This is the darkest ebb.’ Dorian nodded. ‘And there, see the smattering of light?’ He pointed at a few streaks to his left. Deeply red creases in the otherwise flawless dark. _‘That’s_ false dawn.’

‘Oh,’ Dorian said. ‘How can you tell the difference?’

‘Aside from gauging the time and position of the moons, false dawn is always too bright, too fast; like false hope.’

Dorian glanced sideways at Cullen. ‘That’s a tad gloomy.’

Cullen didn’t look away from the sky. ‘True dawn comes slow. It hurries for no man.’

‘Everything is going to be all right.’

‘People are going to die.’ Cullen’s breath caught slightly and he shook his head. ‘I’ll give orders and they’ll follow them and some will die.’

Dorian squeezed his hand. ‘And when we stand victorious, the people of Thedas will sleep a little safer.’

‘Promise me you’ll stay safe,’ Cullen said tightly. ‘Wherever possible.’

‘Cullen—’

‘Say it. Say you promise me.’

Dorian sighed and closed his eyes. ‘Cullen, that’s unfair. You can make me no such promise in return.’

‘Just… promise me you’ll try.’

Dorian swallowed. ‘I promise to try and stay safe, wherever possible. I promise to do everything I can to come back to you.’

He knew that was what Cullen really wanted to hear. The Commander’s thumb rubbed over his knuckles absently as he let out a shuddering sigh.

‘This is the last time we’ll be alone until after the battle.’

‘Come be with me inside, then,’ Dorian bade. ‘Keep me warm.’

*

War, Dorian decided, was absolutely fucking terrifying.

It wasn’t like fighting or battling. Sealing rifts and taking down demons was almost fun by comparison. The enormity of such a thing; this monstrous, groaning _push_ into a fortress… it was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Not like Haven, which had been a frantic rush to survive and save whoever they could. _Keep them back, keep them off the trebuchets. _

_Just make them work for it. _Dorian would never forget Cullen saying that.

The siege of Adamant was a full scale, all-out assault and they were leading it. Machines aimed, mages and soldiers at the ready, swords and magic sharpened and coiling. Breech the castle, not the sky.

Dorian was _terrified_ but he had a promise to keep and friends to protect.

He didn’t see Cullen until they were at the front lines of the attack. He almost couldn’t bear to look at him, afraid it would be the last time. Hawke seemed eager to get inside, to provide cover along the top of the battlements. Lavellan’s twin blades twirled in her hand, Cassandra, Stroud and Blackwall standing with Dorian as they waited.

The first impact of the trebuchet rent the air with a thunderous crash and the fortress didn’t flinch. Dorian heard Cullen’s voice, steady and strong, ordering the next to fire. Four throws later and a crack appeared, followed by swaths of demons and enthralled Wardens, raining arrows and fire from the battlements. Cullen instructed the mages to protect the trebuchets. Dorian felt the prickle of combined magic flood the air; a humming vibration as magic protected machinery, though was unable to reach the front lines.

Lavellan was to stay back until there was a clear path inside. Dorian watched the first line of soldiers approach the walls in with ladders and battering rams. He couldn’t understand how any of them moved forward when they must have known they were going to die.

Fire and arrows pelted them from above, some of the Grey Wardens even dropped rocks. The few that came near Dorian ricocheted off the shield, but the soldiers in front of the fortress had no such protection.

Cullen ordered a second line to move in and pick up where the dead left off. He called for cover fire and the monstrous, great trebuchets brought down clusters of demons and ancient stone walls, built to withstand the blight, not besiegers.

It seemed like a long time spent watching people die before the doors gave way. Lavellan started forward and Dorian’s legs almost failed him, some mad reserve of strength breaking through the inertia at the last second. As they got closer, the shields erected by the mages to protect them faded. Whistling arrows pierced the air and Dorian threw up a roaming shield of his own as they ran. They were through the mangled doors when Cullen caught up with them.

Dorian could barely hear what Cullen was saying to Lavellan. All around him, demons were screeching and howling, men and women were falling and fire spread merrily.

Lavellan told Cullen not to take risks. Dorian knew Cullen would likely ignore that. The outcome was what mattered, winning was what mattered.

They spoke of battlements and ladders and all Dorian heard was Cullen’s words in back in Haven. _Just make them work for it_. How did anyone survive a battle and ever go _near_ another? How could anyone remain functional when people were dying everywhere and it just had to be _ignored_?

‘If you can clear out the enemies on the battlements, we’ll cover your advance,’ Cullen said to Lavellan. She nodded and Cullen made to move away, but before he could, Dorian reached for the Commander. He dug his numb, shaking fingers into that mantle and pulled Cullen flush against him. The kiss was brief and hard; no finesse, all fear. He felt Cullen’s hand on his face before the Commander tore away without a word and Dorian made himself look back at the fortress.

Blackwall gave Dorian a bracing back-slap. ‘Chin up, son,’ he said, glancing at the battlements Cullen had mentioned. ‘Maybe after we win, you two can celebrate up there.’

Lavellan smothered a laugh while Cassandra rolled her eyes.

‘Maybe after we win,’ Dorian said, fingers wrapped tightly around his staff. ‘You can get a fucking life, Blackwall.’

*

It was a labyrinth of blood and death; falling masonry that crushed demons and men indiscriminately. Dorian could barely keep track of where they were, trusting better people than him to navigate. He killed as many demons as he could, mana painfully, excruciatingly low. His lungs burned and the bones in his hands screamed in protest. Everywhere they went, someone was dead. Dorian tried not to look at any faces, dreading when he would inevitably see someone he recognised from the morning rotations.

Lavellan gave the Wardens a chance to flee wherever possible. She was dauntless and fucking incredible. She tore through demons like an anchor ripping through sea bed. Covered in blood and ichor, fearless and unstoppable, she led them onwards.

The ritual was monstrous. Blood magic and the bodies of good people, drained. Clarel, shock white and grim, seemed determined that she was making the right call. Erimond said what she needed to hear, his slimy ways making the right path indistinguishable from the wrong one like so many talented Magisters before him. Dorian despised him; considered him the epitome of all that was rotten in his beloved homeland.

Hawke warned of the dangers of blood magic, which Dorian found pretty fucking ironic. Stroud spoke of not wanting to kill men he’d trained himself. Clarel heard only the false Calling, saw only false dawn.

_Let Cullen be all right_, Dorian found himself thinking, watching Lavellan beg in vain a final time. She always gave people so many chances.

Then came the dragon.

Clarel was fucking _fast_ for an older woman. Dorian had a stitch that made it almost impossible to breathe. The dragon, or _whatever_ it was, circled the fortress and struck at them whenever they were forced to the outskirts.

There was a moment when the dragon collided with the fortress, claws digging into stone and its head swung towards them. Dorian felt the foul, molten heat of its breath, jaws wide and gaping. They were skidding right into it, unable to stop, but a burst of magic blasted the dragon back. Dorian looked past it and saw a group of mages, some wearing armour, some not, led by Olan. The dragon screamed but was forced to push away and take flight, having lost its hold on the walls.

Dorian was still on his knees when Lavellan screamed something. It wasn’t loud enough or quick enough. Olan and the others were incinerated by the dragon’s furious, retaliatory fire. There one moment, gone the next. Blackwall dragged him up by the scruff, shoving his staff back into his clumsy hands. He was saying something to Dorian, but the mage couldn’t hear it.

Dorian nodded anyway and they kept moving. More death, more screaming. Fallen soldiers, men and women Dorian had seen Cullen train. Some had laughed when Dorian made witty comments. Some had only smiled. They would never do either again.

_Let Cullen be all right, please._

By the time they caught up to Clarel, Dorian was certain he was going to die. The dragon snatched Clarel up and then spat her out, broken and torn as though she was a displeasing snack. It was coming for them now, for Lavellan. Her mark was firing, crackling amid the flood of clashing magics. Clarel’s final bid to kill the beast, the dragon’s awful, rumbling eruption of corrupted energy and red lyrium, shattering the air and everything around it. Lavellan’s bright, sharp green stood out clearly to Dorian. They were going to die, but she was determined to go out fighting. She’d lost one of her blades; a serious cut on her arm sent blood cascading down the remaining one dagger, painting it red. Cassandra stood right beside her, shield raised and Dorian knew the Seekers was preparing to die for Lavellan, to protect her.

Dorian decided that he would be proud to die for her too. His promise to Cullen could only take him so far. He hoped it would be a quick death and not some slow, terrible descent into that creature’s throat and stomach.

And then the edge of the fortress battlements was crumbling and Dorian’s legs were slow, as if wading through treacle to get to where things were steady.

The ground gave way with a sickening lurch. Dorian fell alongside his friends, down, down into a burst of green light, wishing he could tell Cullen he was sorry.

*

‘Is this… are we in the _Fade_?’

Dorian groaned while Hawke rubbed his head and both mages answered, ‘Yes.’

Lavellan helped Cassandra up, staring around with wide eyes. Cassandra made a noise of shaky disgust. Blackwall swore with impressive fluency. Stroud was distressed, but Dorian saw him shoulder it, like so many warriors often did.

‘This is really not good,’ Hawke said. ‘If we’re actually _inside_ the Fade, I have no idea how we get out.’

‘For now, let’s patch each other up,’ Lavellan told him, tossing a healing potion which he caught with blood-drenched hands. ‘Plenty of time to panic when none of us are bleeding.’

Dorian was surprised to see that Hawke knew some fairly complex healing magics. He helped Lavellan, quiet and intent on healing her arm in a way that didn’t make sense to Dorian.

‘You all right?’ Blackwall asked him roughly, yanking him sideways to sit on a slimy, tepid rock while the bearded man patted Dorian down for injuries. ‘Dorian? Can you hear me?’

Dorian blinked slowly. ‘I… yes.’

‘You’ve caught an arrow here,’ he pointed out, nodding at Dorian’s shoulder to where the stalk had been broken off, leaving the metal head burrowed inside. ‘Not too bad, but it needs to come out before you drink a potion. Might get stuck under healed skin otherwise.’

When Dorian didn’t say anything, Blackwall sighed, a frown rumpling his forehead. ‘You did good, son. Saved a lot of our people, killed a lot of bad ones. Battle like that, fucking awful thing. Its normal to be in shock.’

‘’M not in shock,’ Dorian tried to say, but his lips were numb and useless and it felt like there was a living thing in his stomach, wriggling up and out of his throat. Blackwall swerved expertly, hand on Dorian’s back pushing him down as the mage vomited the contents of his stomach. It was painful and it burned. Blackwall rubbed his back and said kind things about how normal that was too, despite the fact that absolutely no one else was throwing up.

When it passed, Dorian felt a little better. Blackwall gave him water to gargle and spit.

‘Needs to come out,’ he said, looking at the arrowhead. ‘You want me to do it or—’

‘Not Hawke,’ Dorian said quietly.

Blackwall used a small dagger to dig it out. The pain was white hot and Dorian knew it should have been unbearable, but really, it felt good. It grounded him, made him remember he was still alive.

Maybe he could get back to Cullen. Maybe Cullen was still… no, _of course_ Cullen was still alive. Anything less than that was unthinkable.

‘There,’ Blackwall said and Dorian looked down at the bloody, vicious thing he’d dug out of Dorian’s body. ‘Drink the potion now, you’ll be all right.’

When Lavellan was healed, she stood with Stroud and Hawke speaking in low, serious tones. Miles ahead was the Black City, their path likely strewn with foulness and demons. There was no way out but through.

They hadn’t been walking five minutes when Lavellan jumped, reflexively grabbing her remaining blade.

‘What is it?’ Cassandra asked, dropping into a protective stance.

‘No, it was…’ Lavellan shook her head. ‘Just, if anyone else is hearing voices in their head, don’t panic.’

The voice, when it came for Dorian, was deep and rich, purring in his ear as if standing right beside him.

_‘How will your thrall survive without you? Will he wither and die like a flower in darkness? _

Dorian’s full body flinch didn’t go unnoticed by Lavellan. She hung back.

‘You all right?’ she asked, taking his hand in hers. Her eyes swam with worry, with kindness and Dorian tried to make himself sound normal when he assured her that of course he was fine. ‘Whatever it’s saying, don’t listen. It’s telling us all terrible things, trying to bring us down. We’re together and we’re going to get out. Back to Sera,’ she dropped her voice and squeezed his fingers. ‘Back to Cullen.’

There were monstrous things waiting for them. Lavellan saw spiders, but Dorian saw dead bodies, twisted into things that skittered and clawed. Their mouths gaped and they groaned, eyes wide and unseeing. He fought them back and that voice purred again.

_‘You should fight harder, Dorian. If you don’t return to Cullen, he’ll never survive without your blood.’_

In the Fade, his mana was abundant but that didn’t make it any easier to fight them off or pretend he wasn’t hearing that voice.

_‘Did you actually believe he loved you? A dog loves his master so long as he’s fed daily. The Commander is no different. Maybe your death in this place will be good for him. Maybe he will wean himself from your thraldom as he did with Lyrium. Are you an addiction he can survive, Dorian?’_

Everywhere, things were coming at them. Creatures and demons, memories and answers to questions that Dorian wished he cared more about. The shadow of the Divine led them through the drenched, rocky landscape and Hawke and Stroud argued at every turn. Hawke was especially tense, lashing out at Stroud with spite and unnecessary cruelty. He hated it here, Dorian could tell. He was afraid of it.

_‘Cullen has only ever loved one man, and it wasn’t you, Dorian.’_

When both Hawke and Dorian winced at the same moment, Blackwall frowned. ‘Did it speak to both of you?’

Hawke looked back at Dorian warily, lips parted to speak, but there wasn’t time. More waves of frightful creatures, personalised horrors and splintered fragments of Lavellan’s missing memories.

‘_You know why Cullen is so drawn to you, Dorian. You’ve known it from the first moment your blood touched his tongue.’_

Dorian invoked chain lightning, walking horror; cast spell after spell, trying not to hear it.

‘_The curse that dwells inside of you has grown impatient. It calls to one who would make you fall. Pulls him close and mimics love, in the hope that you will be stupid enough to believe it. Blood magic is the only sway you hold over him. It is all you will ever have.’_

‘SHUT UP!’

_‘Cullen loved another and it was nothing like this. He is unnatural with you. Everyone sees it, everyone knows he is not like himself. You have changed him. Your blood has altered him, made him nothing but your slave.’_

Horror, walking bomb, spirit mark and lightning _everywhere. _Dorian was losing control, his magic flowing freely in distress. It became hard to lock onto targets, there were so many.

_‘Deny it all you want.’_

Chain lightning.

_‘He doesn’t love you.’_

Flashfire.

_‘A month ago, he despised you.’_

Stormbringer.

_‘He could never love you.’_

Flashpoint.

_‘And when this spell breaks, he will look upon you no differently than the blood mages who enslaved and violated him in Kinloch Hold.’_

Pyromancer_. _

_‘He will remember _why_ he hates you and that, above all else, might be reason enough for Cullen Rutherford to finally kill himself.’_

‘Dorian! _Dorian_, that’s enough!’

They were all dead. Every single demon and vile creature had been obliterated, leaving behind only globs of viscera and warm sludge. Dorian’s ears were ringing and his nose was bleeding.

Cassandra was the one who had yelled, but they were all staring at him apprehensively, even Hawke.

‘We have to move,’ the Champion said, looking away from Dorian first. ‘We’re almost there.’

Stroud fell into step with Dorian.

‘I saw Cullen not long before we fell,’ he said, offering the mage a small, bracing smile. ‘He was fighting them back, looked well enough to me.’ Dorian managed to nod and forced a faint smile. Stroud patted his back. ‘You’ll be out of here soon and then we can all go home.’

_‘Home to your blood slave.’_

The mage cleared his throat and wiped his nose. ‘Yes, that’ll be… that sounds nice.’

Stroud sighed wistfully. ‘Nothing beats a hot meal and a cold drink, eh?’

_‘Oh, I don’t know,’_ the voice purred. ‘_Does it compare with raping an obedient, broken thrall? One who begs like a whore but smiles like a love-struck virgin? That’s hard to top.’_

Stroud prattled on, clearly under the impression he was helping. Dorian had neither the heart nor the energy to correct him.

*

Ellana Lavellan was not chosen by Andraste. She was Herald of circumstance and timing, nothing more. Dorian had never once cared about that. It wasn’t why he’d followed her, not why he joined the Inquisition.

But he could see the way it crushed her a little, to have that taken from her, despite her heritage. Dorian would have died for her anyway; still would, still might.

Comforting her made him feel a little more alive, gave breath to a spark of hope. She hid her pain well, seeking to make light of it as soon as his hand touched her shoulder. When she closed her eyes, he knew the Nightmare had wasted no time in exploiting her disappointment, likely saying terrible things to draw out the worst of her self-doubt and insecurities.

Dorian tried to think of things to say to her. Ways to make her smile and laugh, shrug off the pain and be the strong, unstoppable Ellana he knew and loved.

‘I suppose that makes you one of Sera’s _little people_,’ he said, as they waded through mucky waters. ‘Imagine her delight.’

She smiled at him with tear filled eyes and managed a small, weak laugh.

‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘She never cared and neither did you.’

Dorian didn’t miss her hesitant glance ahead as Cassandra plodded along, shoulders drawn and ready for the next attack.

‘We’ll be home soon,’ Dorian said, finding only Stroud’s well intended words of kindness to offer. ‘And everything will be all right.’

*

Dorian’s gravestone had the word _TEMPTATION_ engraved upon it. There was no time to stare. They were ankle deep in a shallow ocean of despair with demons slithering around nearby, but the word flashed before his eyes repeatedly, carved into the flesh of his memory. One single word, but it slid between his ribs and found that most precious target.

Ahead, the Black City loomed and where six had entered, only five would leave.

*

Dorian landed hard and all his breath was punched out of him. His bones felt like they were shattered, mind firmly informing him that this was it - this was the point at which it could take no more. No more pain, no more guilt, no more horror.

But the world wasn’t green anymore. It wasn’t slimy and fetid. The air in his lung was cold and it tasted of smoke. The sky was black and dark, the ground firm beneath his wet boots.

‘Maker!’ someone gasped. ‘You’re… you’re _alive_!’

It wasn’t Cullen and because of that, Dorian couldn’t make himself look up from where his hands were braced on the stone floor of the fortress. He saw scorched claw marks. This was where the pride demon had landed before. Where Clarel had been performing the ritual.

All around them, the fighting continued. Soldiers and demons, mages and shades. Cassandra hauled Dorian up and roughly pushed his staff into his hands.

‘Save as many as you can,’ she told him, avoiding his eye. ‘That’s all that matters now.’

He incinerated a shade, watched it burn and threw shapeless lightning at another. The air tightened and contracted, Fade magic seizing the remaining demons and killing them instantly. Dorian spun and saw Lavellan, grimly determined. Hawke was behind her, face like thunder.

Some of the soldiers cheered. Dorian turned on the spot, desperately seeking blond hair and dark mantle, finding only bloodied helmets. Nearby, Rylen was staring at Dorian, slack jawed with wide eyes. Actually, now that his senses were returning, he realised a good few of them were staring at him.

‘Get the Commander,’ Rylen said, nudging the solider to his left. ‘Right fucking _now_!’

The solider broke into a sprint, vanishing behind a pile of rubble and into a right turn.

Dorian’s heart leapt right up into his throat. The _Commander_. Cullen… was alive! Well, of course he was alive, nothing in Thedas could kill that man. Cullen was fucking lethal, after all. It broke through some of the horror, gave him hope that the world around him was real and not a trick of the Nightmare, not false dawn.

‘Cullen’s alive,’ he told himself. ‘He’s alive.’

Rylen was still staring at Dorian. ‘We all thought you were dead. The… the rear battlements were decimated. Whole chunks fell into the Abyssal Reach. There was no chance of anyone surviving.’

Cullen thought he was dead.

Rylen was spattered with blood and untold viscera but he stared at Dorian as if he was the Herald himself. ‘We had to stop him going down there,’ he said, shaking his head, swallowing slightly. ‘Took six of us.’

Lavellan was speaking to Hawke, the pair quietly and intensely conversing. It seemed almost like Hawke was about to do something incredibly stupid like lash out at her and Dorian was more than ready to knock him flat on his cowardly arse.

But everyone turned when they heard the smack of footsteps running flat out and before he even saw him, Dorian knew who it was.

Cullen skidded to a graceless halt just on the outside of the circle of rubble. Behind him, the runner Rylen had sent was jogging to catch up. Cullen scanned the area and when his gaze landed on Dorian, his shoulders heaved and the breath that escaped him was a heavy, disbelieving thing.

Dorian hadn’t really known what to expect. This whole time, his only thought of Cullen had been to let him be all right, let him survive.

The Commander was almost translucent, such was his pallor. He looked fucking terrible while still managing to be absolutely beautiful. His face wasn’t covered in blood the way Rylen’s was, but his hands were red and black, the stains reaching up to his wrists.

Dorian didn’t even realise he was moving towards Cullen until he stumbled on some rock, managing to catch himself for once. The motion broke Cullen’s trance. He ran to Dorian, actually _ran_. They were barely six feet apart and Cullen ran, like if he got to him in time, everything would somehow be all right.

Their impact was colossal. Cullen’s arms clapped around Dorian so hard it almost winded him again. He pulled the mage against him, embracing him tightly and lifting Dorian clean off his feet, moving slowly in a circle as he held him. Dorian clung to Cullen, arms wrapped around his neck, face pressed against his cheek.

Cullen smelled of fire, he tasted of salt and he felt like home.

When the Commander set him down, Dorian badly wanted to protest. Every fibre of being demanded to stay there, safe and held, encircled in the arms of the man who’d clearly suffered his loss in the time they were trapped in the Fade.

Dorian could almost feel how much it cost Cullen to leave his side and go to Lavellan. The two spoke very quietly. He grasped her hand, maybe expressing his relief that she was alive, albeit in a friendly, _normal_ manner and then he stepped away, returning to Dorian quickly.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asked, eyes roaming over the mage, zeroing in on his shoulder. ‘What happened there? Did you heal it?’

Dorian said, ‘I’m fine,’ and in that moment, it was true.

The Grey Wardens had fought alongside the Inquisition against the demons. When they asked after Stroud, Hawke scowled and stormed off. Lavellan didn’t watch him go, but she explained that Stroud offered to bravely sacrifice himself to aid their escape. Dorian had barely known the man, but he felt his loss rather keenly. He’d been there with them all throughout the Fade. He’d been kind to Dorian, laughed about hot food and cold drinks and now he was gone. Left behind to fight the good fight and die.

Lavellan was all about the second, or maybe _third_, chances. The Wardens took her up on the offer that time. Cullen could barely take his eyes from Dorian, one hand always touching him, even if it was to subtly feel for injuries.

It was clear that there was enormous work to be done. When Lavellan approached Cullen and Dorian, the soldiers began to dissipate. They started shifting the rubble, searching for their dead, Dorian supposed.

‘How many?’ she asked without preamble.

‘Losses are estimated to be less than a quarter.’

She nodded and ran a hand through her raven hair. ‘That’s good.’ Was it? To Dorian, it sounded like almost a quarter of their entire army had been slaughtered in a brutal and bloody battle. ‘No demon army for Corypheus.’

Cullen’s voice was very tight when he asked, ‘What happened?’

‘Clarel tried to kill the dragon,’ Lavellan told him. ‘The overhang was compromised and it crumbled. As we fell, I opened a rift.’

‘You were in the _Fade_?’

‘We’re back now,’ she pointed out quickly, because Cullen had actually managed to turn a shade paler, his grip on Dorian’s wrist almost unbearable. ‘Stroud saved us all.’

‘Not like he had much choice,’ Dorian muttered under his breath.

Cullen frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Leave it, Dorian,’ Lavellan said tiredly. ‘We’ll discuss everything later. For now, head back to camp and get cleaned up, eat something, maybe try and sleep. You too, Commander,’ she added sternly, eyes fixed on Cullen. ‘We can spare you for an hour.’

Perhaps it was a mark of how much Cullen had been through that he didn’t even protest.

The way back to camp was strewn with death and destruction. It was jarring to Dorian, who could still recall the screams of these men and women as they’d died, not hours ago. Everything was still and quiet now. Clean-up was in progress. The search to find and honour each loss while tending to the wounded. He saw a couple of soldiers retrieving weapons and shields, stacking them on a cart. Things Dorian couldn’t even fathom doing as he walked with Cullen, leaning heavily against the man. Cullen bore his weight easily, held him upright and guided them to his tent.

‘I thought you were dead,’ he told Dorian in a voice the mage barely recognised. ‘I saw the battlements fall and you with it.’

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Cullen said nothing else until they were inside. The curtain fell and Dorian realised he was shaking, teeth chattering slightly. He could feel rolling waves of something cold and juddering. Tremors wracked his body violently, jaw locking tight.

Cullen steered him over to a chair and sat him down, kneeling before him as he stripped Dorian slowly and carefully.

‘It’s perfectly normal,’ he said, pulling off Dorian’s soggy boot. ‘Excess adrenaline in your body. Do you need to vomit?’

Dorian laughed, though it was alarmingly shaky. ‘I already d-did that back in the Fade.’

‘I… I’m glad you’re all right.’ Dorian could tell he wanted to say other things, so many other things, but their agreement prevented him from doing so. The line they couldn’t, or at least _shouldn’t,_ cross.

‘Wh-what about you?’ Dorian said, shuddering. Cullen rubbed his feet briskly, trying to move the blood around his body. ‘Were you h-hurt?’

He sounded so fucking stupid, stammering like a schoolboy but he couldn’t control it. It was like standing atop the centre point of an earthquake.

‘No,’ Cullen said, reaching up to pry Dorian’s arms from his chest. Dorian let out a soft whine and Cullen shushed him. ‘I know, I know,’ he said, warm brown eyes filled with understanding. ‘I know you feel cold, but we need to get you out of these clothes and into the bath.’

Dorian closed his eyes and let Cullen undress him further. His muscles were screaming to be allowed to coil tight, wrap himself in a ball and never emerge. By the time he was naked, Dorian’s every breath was punctuated by full body shivers and his limbs were so stiff, he didn’t think he would ever be able to walk again.

Cullen lifted him bodily, one arm behind his back, one under his knees and carried him over to the bathtub. Dorian burrowed into what little of Cullen’s skin he could find. The man was warm, oh so fucking blissfully _warm_ and hot to the touch. Dorian pressed his palm greedily to the flesh of Cullen’s chest once he got under all the armour, other arm wrapped about his neck like a benign snake.

The tub was already filled with water, but it was obviously cold. 

‘I’m going to kneel down so you can touch the water and make it hot,’ Cullen said, carefully lowering himself without ever compromising the way he carried Dorian. ‘Can you put your hand in the water for me?’

Dorian turned his face into Cullen’s neck and tried not to cry. The water was going to be freezing and he couldn’t stand it. He was already so cold that he felt like he was dying. His hands were the only part of him that were remotely warm, pressed hard against Cullen’s skin and he couldn’t bear the idea of making them cold again.

‘It’s all right, love, it’s fine. We’ll just - I’ll get someone else and—’

‘No,’ Dorian choked, panic tightening in his chest. ‘N-no one else. No one c-can see me like this.’

‘Dorian, you need to get in the bath and it needs to be hot.’

‘You do it,’ Dorian pleaded weakly, eyes firmly shut. ‘You do it, please.’

The bout of silence that followed made Dorian realise what he’d said. He’d requested it without thinking. His body could barely focus on anything besides the pain of the rolling tremors and the icy tightness contracting more and more by the minute, crushing his bones and squeezing the life right out of him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he croaked. Even his tears felt cold. ‘I’m sorry, Cullen, I d-didn’t mean that.’

‘Do it,’ was what Cullen said. He adjusted his grip of Dorian to extend his hand into the bath, fingers dipping beneath the surface. His gaze was even and steady, looking at Dorian with nothing but acceptance and… and that _other_ thing they weren’t supposed to say. ‘I’m ready.’

Dorian, simply put, was not strong enough to say no.

His hands were already plastered to Cullen’s skin and it was easy, so fucking _easy_ to summon his magic, heat that would flow into the water and bubble, and then simply _push_ it into Cullen.

The effect was instant and he could feel just how well it worked. There was a hollowed-out place inside of the ex-Templar; a decade long excavation carved by lyrium use and Dorian’s magic slipped inside, flowed beautifully. Cullen _was _a conduit. He channelled Dorian’s magic perfectly. There was no resistance, no awkward scrape or struggle to get it where it needed to be. Cullen was like an extension of Dorian himself and his magic recognised him as such.

Dorian sighed because it felt undeniably _good_, despite his awful state of adrenaline-soaked shock, but Cullen’s reaction was far more intense. His head tipped back slightly, eyes rolling once and then closing as his lips slackened, helplessly releasing a guttural moan. It took barely five seconds to heat the water, but Dorian found it hard to stop. The feeling became addictive; an electric pull between them and _fuck_, Dorian wanted to let more of himself pour into this man. He thought he could pour it all; unleash himself into Cullen and Cullen could take it, was _made _to take it.

_Your magic was made to fit inside me, _Cullen had once said and now Dorian could see it was the absolute truth.

Cullen was the one who forced it to end, though. He withdrew his hand from the water and carefully dislodged Dorian’s palms from his skin. The mage sobbed at the loss, but he didn’t have much time to grieve because Cullen was lowering him into the water. It was perfect, scalding agony and it took only a few seconds for his body to begin to level out. The adrenaline melted away, the heat took hold, offering to soothe him if only he would relax his muscles a little.

Dorian took a breath and sunk beneath the surface. Equilibrium began to settle through him like a lover’s caress. The silence was good, it helped a great deal and knowing that Cullen was waiting for him, that helped too.

When the desire to breathe threatened to become painful, he resurfaced, pushing his hair out of his eyes and blinking a few times. He was warm and the last of the shivers were fading.

Cullen was leaning against the cramped, metal tub, watching him intently.

‘It helps,’ he said, fingers idly playing with the water.

‘Hmm,’ Dorian said, mostly because he wasn’t sure what else to say. Now that he was feeling more normal, the shame of what they’d just done began to gnaw at him. ‘I—’

‘Stop it,’ Cullen said abruptly. ‘If there was ever a reason to do such a thing, this was it. I thought you were dead.’

He said the last part as if it explained everything.

‘I…’ Dorian’s throat closed up and he had to clear it, swallowing over the painful lump. ‘I kept my promise.’

Cullen flicked his eyes up at Dorian for a brief moment. ‘What happened with Hawke?’

Dorian looked off to the side, grimacing. ‘I’m sure Ellana will fill you in.’

Cullen didn’t push. ‘Stay in there, I’ll get you some food and drink.’

‘No!’ Dorian blurted out. ‘Please… please just stay close.’

‘Of course,’ he said calmly. ‘Whatever you want.’

For a few minutes, Dorian just sat there, basking in the radiant heat and Cullen’s presence, but he never did well with silence for long.

‘I’ve decided I don’t like war.’

‘Most people don’t,’ Cullen said. ‘It’s long and drawn out but the few battles and,’ he waved his hand vaguely at the door of the curtain. _‘Sieges_ are always painfully memorable. Thank you for keeping your promise. It means a lot to me.’

Dorian settled his head back against the tub, knees bent awkwardly and closed his eyes. ‘Watch out for _the line_, Commander,’ he warned, trying to make it sound like a joke and failing dismally. Calling Cullen by his title instead of his name was, at this point, nothing short of an insult but he needed that little bit of space; minimum safe distance. Without it, they were in dangerous territory again. Always headed there, always avoiding it only by inches.

He felt Cullen’s wet fingers stroking along his forearm.

‘Always, my beautiful mage.’

*

There was trouble outside and well, _obviously_. Outside of Cullen’s tent, there was death and rubble and bodies and the remnants of a horrific battle. But what made him open the flap and peer outside wasn’t any of those things; it was raised voices and yelling. Hawke’s voice carried far and the way he was shouting, Dorian knew there was trouble.

Cullen was changing into something less filthy when Dorian slipped out of the tent, wordless and quiet. It was still dark, the sky not yet glowing with any trace of false dawn that Dorian could now identify, thanks to Cullen. He followed the noises, detected Cassandra’s voice battling with Hawke’s and realised he’d left his staff in the tent.

It was already a scene before he got there. Hawke and Cassandra were standing toe to toe, soldiers and even a few mages gathered uncertainly around them. Dorian glanced around hopefully for any sign of Lavellan but camp was a good ten-minute walk from the fortress and she was probably still there, searching for bodies or survivors.

‘… telling them the fucking truth, which they _deserve_!’

‘I don’t know why anyone calls you Champion, Hawke, I really don’t. You’re a disgrace to the title and your continued presence here is an _insult_!’

‘Oh please!’ Hawke scoffed loudly, sneering at Cassandra. ‘You’re just sore because I had the sack to do what none of you did back there!’

‘What you did _back there_ was disgusting! To think I defended you, dozens of times! People came to me and said you were not credible, that you’d followed a dark path and lost yourself. Maybe I just didn’t want to see it!’

‘Oh, and you see it now, do you?’

‘You told that man he was worthless as anything other than a sacrifice!’

‘I gave his last moments some fucking meaning!’

‘You’re a _coward_!’

Hawke punched Cassandra in the face.

Dorian shoved past the soldiers and managed to put himself between them.

‘All right,’ he said, trying to push Cassandra away who was not unlike stone wall. ‘Everyone is tired and horrified, let’s leave it for now, eh?’

‘No, Dorian,’ Cassandra said, meeting his eyes. She was trembling with outrage. ‘He’s been going around the camp telling people that Lavellan wasn’t chosen by Andraste. Our dead are not even all accounted for and he’s sowing discord for his own means!’

‘These men and women fought and won this battle, Seeker!’ Hawke yelled, his naturally loud voice reaching far and wide. ‘They deserve to have a leader worthy of their bravery!’

Cassandra swung for him and Dorian managed to hold her back with great effort. ‘Go find Lavellan,’ he told her sternly. ‘Get her here now, she’s the only one who can deal with him.’

The Seeker scowled violently, but relented in a furious about-turn, leaving Dorian to face Hawke.

‘You should go and rest,’ he told him, wondering where all this glowing fucking magnanimity was coming from. ‘Nobody wants to do this.’

‘I do,’ Hawke said, his fingertips tapping manically against his staff. ‘I definitely do.’

Rubbing his face, Dorian sighed. _‘Really_? Some of us are tired, Hawke.’

‘Yeah, well, not all of us get to shack up in the Commander’s tent.’

Dorian opened his eyes. ‘Careful.’

‘Or _what?’_

‘No one wants to fight with you,’ Dorian said flatly, his eyes narrowed in distant disgust. ‘No one cares enough. If all you can do is scurry around like a rat, planting rotten seeds of doubt about the woman who risked her life for every single one of us - _despite_ not having the Holy Touch of Andraste’s Blessed Pinkie Finger or whatever the fuck - then our dear Seeker is quite right. Lavellan may be the Herald of no one, but you’re Champion of _nothing_!’

It was easy to see it coming, in truth. Hawke’s anger was volatile and every instinct in Dorian’s body informed him the man was spoiling for a fight. The smart thing would have been not to play in to it. Walk away, walk back to Cullen.

But all that anger needed to go somewhere, didn’t it?

Hawke threw a blast of magic at Dorian, only not to push or shove. It was razor sharp, his magic, and it struck Dorian like a whip tail. White hot pain sliced through his cheek and the corner of his mouth, followed by a burst of wet, hot blood.

‘Better to be Champion of nothing than the Commander’s _consort_!’

The moment Hawke’s magic had struck Dorian, some of the soldiers began to move forwards to help. Dorian immediately warned them away. He pressed his hand over the wound which, by the feel of it, was unpleasantly deep and would require stitches, if not healing magic, lest it scar. The soldiers stepped back warily and Hawke waited to see what Dorian would do, tongue running over his bottom lip, eyes flashing.

The energy in the atmosphere was thickly charged; magic swirling in anticipation of a clash between two mages.

‘I really don’t think you want to do this,’ Dorian said and the edge of his words was slurred somewhat, his lip torn in the corner, pain vibrating through his face like a burn.

‘Why not?’ Hawke asked breathlessly, eyes so very alive and wide. ‘Maybe if I _hurt_ you enough, you’ll let me fuck you again.’

Dorian’s magic was in the tips of his fingers. Hawke’s staff glowed, anticipating the fight he was obviously desperate for and Dorian prepared himself. He didn’t have his staff but he wasn’t going to stand for that. _Imagine_ if Cullen had heard it, that would be—

Oh.

Fuck.

The _Silence_ dropped like a dragon landing from a deep roll. It struck the very earth hard enough to set it trembling and the reverberation was incredible, like being inside a gong. Dorian stumbled aside. Cullen’s _Silence_ was well contained, aimed squarely at Hawke, but he could feel the effects of it anyway, such was the power of it. His mana scrambled to avoid being drained and detached from the Fade. It was unlike anything he’d felt before. More powerful that any Templar ability he’d ever encountered. Hawke was on his knees and he was _screaming_.

The air shimmered and hummed. Cullen’s hand was outstretched, palm raised and when Dorian looked to his face, something cold plummeted all the way down to the very base of his stomach. Those brown eyes were dark, almost black and there was a faint line of disgust twisted about his mouth. Cullen wasn’t looking at Hawke like he was an annoyance or someone to be dealt with. His gaze was fixed upon the man as if he was an enemy. As if he was _prey_.

Dorian realised there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

Cullen was going to kill him.

*


	15. Reasons Around the Edges

_It was the bedroom where Dorian and Felix had spent many lazy hours reading to one another, boldly stating their ambitions for the future and taking each other very seriously up until a certain point where Dorian’s arrogance and vanity would always tip Felix into uproarious giggles. Felix’s tastes hadn’t ever really evolved from when he was younger, not like Dorian’s. The room was the same. The Alexius Estate was much the same, but Dorian was not. _

_‘I don’t want to take your room,’ he said, glancing back to Felix who hovered in the doorway. ‘A guest room will be—’_

_‘You’re not a guest,’ Felix said firmly. ‘Anyway, we can share, silly. Like we did when we were younger.’_

_Dorian frowned slightly. ‘Oh, of course.’_

_Felix laughed gently and shut the door behind him. ‘Did you think I was offering up my room to you like you were a damaged maiden? You can sleep on the couch.’ He took out a few neatly folded garments of clothing and handed them to Dorian. ‘Just for tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll make up a proper room for you. You can have your things brought here.’_

_‘No,’ Dorian said, taking the clothes with a brief, grateful smile. ‘That’s… I can’t go back there.’_

_‘We can send servants to—’_

_‘No,’ Dorian repeated, staring firmly at the nightshirt. ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s all gone.’_

_‘All your things? Dorian, you can’t let him—’_

_‘He paid for it,’ Dorian said, walking to the bed. ‘None of it was mine.’_

_The mage sat on the bed and Felix followed. ‘How are you going to survive without his support?’_

_Dorian huffed. ‘Look, just because we’re both spoilt rich boys who rely on our Fathers’ abundant coin doesn’t mean I’m incapable of starting fresh on my own two feet. I’m versatile.’_

_Felix looked doubtful. ‘You’re high maintenance.’_

_‘Well, those days are gone now.’_

_‘You have expensive tastes, Dorian.’_

_‘I can live thrifty. Earn honest coin somehow. Build myself from scratch.’_

_‘Well,’ Felix patted his hand. ‘That sounds like a grand scheme.’_

_‘You’ll see,’ Dorian said, nodding to himself, talking himself into it. ‘Yes. I have plans, Felix. Good plans.’_

_Felix paused before asking, ‘Do you want to talk about it?’_

_Dorian felt like a bucket of ice water had been upended over his head. ‘No,’ he said, perhaps too harshly, but Felix just nodded like he understood. As if he could. Gereon would never stoop to blood magic for the sake of family. ‘Not yet. I still can’t… I don’t even really know the extent of what he’s done to me.’_

Yes, you do,_ a voice in his mind spoke softly. _You can feel it_. _

_‘Well, whatever it takes, we’ll find a way to fix it.’ _

_Dorian didn’t believe him, but the gesture was kind. ‘Thank you.’_

_‘I’m sorry about your things, though. That’s awful. Not even your book? I could break in somehow and steal it, I’m sure.’_

_Dorian laughed, shaking his head. ‘Had I a coin to my name, Felix, I would pay it to see that.’_

_‘You’re not the only one with schemes, you know,’ Felix said loftily. ‘And I’m certain you’ll make your own way in the world. I’ve no doubt at all. Your talent is beyond compare. Maybe I’ll even come with you.’_

_Dorian sniffed. ‘Felix, you’re not ready to face the world.’_

_‘How would you know? You’re still wearing your family crest.’_

_‘I’m planning on selling it,’ Dorian lied coolly. ‘And the dangers of Thedas are not suited to one so sweet and soft as you, gentle friend.’_

_Felix chuckled and lightly whacked Dorian’s head, purposefully mussing his long hair. ‘Gentle friend my _arse! _Who was it who had your back when you challenged Bregaine Caulldors to a duel?’_

_‘Bregaine Caulldors _cheated_ at that duel!’_

_‘What about when you snuck off with Willern Taine? Who covered for you in elemental theory?’_

_‘I repaid that favour handsomely by covering for _you_ when you were gallivanting off with Starla Omagnussen!’_

_Felix sighed, smiling faintly. ‘I know you did. You’re a good friend, Dorian. I’m only teasing of course. You’ll do great things in this world, I’ve no doubt.’_

_Dorian couldn’t quite bear Felix’s kindness just then. A cold, terrible concern had been lurking in his mind. What if loving Felix killed him? Never mind that Felix was straighter than an Avvar arrow, he had no idea what this fucking curse actually entailed. _

_Perhaps tomorrow, Gereon would have some answers. Until then, best to remain disconnected and cautious. _

_‘Don’t try to ingratiate yourself that I might include you in my whirlwind tour of Thedas. When I leave, I will be a lone wolf.’_

_Felix snorted. _‘Wolf_?’_

_Dorian glared. ‘I could be a wolf.’_

_‘Could you? I feel like you’re much too pretty to be a wolf.’_

_‘Wolves can be pretty!’_

_‘Whatever you say,’ Felix sighed patiently. ‘In the meantime, let’s change for bed. I’m tired and you tend to keep us up all night with your incessant prattling.’_

_Felix began to change and Dorian politely turned away, grumbling under his breath, though really it was a welcome distraction from the cold sickness swirling within. No amount of bathing had removed the touch of that blood. No amount of scrubbing made him yet feel clean. _

_‘I may allow you to accompany me,’ Dorian said, slipping off his black silk shirt and the necklace with it. He placed it atop Felix’s bedside table, trusting it to be safe there. He wanted to keep some small part of his mother with him, if only in spirit. ‘As my faithful bard.’_

_‘Bard?’ Felix spluttered with laughter. ‘To do what?’_

_‘Sing songs of my greatness, document my achievements, immortalise my bravery. Bard stuff.’_

_‘I think it far more likely my job would be protecting you from the mass of trouble you tend to cause wherever you go.’ Dorian winced slightly and Felix turned quickly, eyes wide and apologetic. ‘I didn’t mean—’_

_‘You mean luring young, bored husbands away from their naive wives?’ Dorian purred, not missing a beat. ‘Because you are useful for that. You keep the women very distracted with all your waffling.’_

_Felix smiled, grateful for Dorian’s easy reassurance. ‘Either way, Dorian, I’ve got your back.’_

_‘That’s kind,’ Dorian said, staring down at his hands. There were still red marks around his wrists from where he’d pulled at the restraints. ‘But the last thing I need is a protector.’_

_Felix threw a slipper right at his head. ‘Famous last words, Dorian.’_

*

The collective silence was broken only by Hawke’s screams which evolved slowly into furious, animalistic roaring. Dorian couldn’t move. His magic was strangled, the atmosphere rent apart by the sheer force of what Cullen had unleashed. The mage tried to imagine how it felt to Hawke, who had been the true recipient of the cast. Hawke’s raw, absolute _fury_ seemed rather indicative.

Cullen unsheathed his sword in one smooth motion and it triggered Hawke into action, defensive or otherwise. He got to his feet; eyes fixed on Cullen with murderous rage.

‘Ser Pavus,’ came a hurried female voice, hand pawing at his arm. Dorian saw Haynes, her neck bandaged and her eyes trained on Cullen. ‘What should we do?’

Dorian looked between the two men, clutching his stinging cheek. ‘Get everyone away,’ he said, throat closing in mild panic. ‘Now.’

‘Move back!’ she yelled, starting to push and shove. ‘Davidson, help me get them back.’

The circle around Cullen and Hawke widened, but it wasn’t really dissipating. Dorian couldn’t blame them; he found it hard to look away too.

When Hawke let out a strangled snarl, his chest heaving wildly, Cullen’s strange magic began to shore up once more. An oppressive swell of something immense, coiling within Cullen, ready to be detonated.

Whatever it was, it was going to hit like a fucking _meteorite_ and Dorian couldn’t let that happen.

‘Cullen, _stop_!’ He threw himself between Hawke and Cullen, arms raised as if that would remotely help anything. ‘You have to stop!’

He tried to get Cullen to look at him but he was very much the _Commander_ just then and he had Hawke in his sights.

‘Move aside.’

‘Cullen,’ Dorian tried in a quieter voice, taking a step closer. ‘You _cannot_ do this.’

This time Cullen glanced at Dorian for a beat before he blinked and looked right back at Hawke. There was a level of focus in those eyes that made Dorian turn cold. ‘Wrong.’

Dorian had no idea who yanked him aside by the hand but he wasn’t prepared for it and he staggered awkwardly, falling amongst the soldiers and mages. He landed hard on his side, scrambling to get back up. Tommur, the mage, helped him. He’d somehow managed to get between the two of them and pull Dorian away before…

_Oh fuck. _

Cullen’s hand was raised again, his magic taking a big breath before the crushing exhale, but Hawke threw something at Cullen. It was a dagger, pulled from his boot; sharp and glinting, it sliced through the air. Cullen dodged it impressively but the movement interrupted the build of his whatever he’d been about to cast and that was all the delay Hawke needed.

The Champion of Kirkwall yanked a sword from a nearby soldier’s scabbard and twirled it once, shoulders rolling.

‘Come on then, _Templar_!’ he spat as Cullen shook off the disorienting effects of the unused cast. ‘Come get me.’

The first time their blades smashed together, the resulting clang made Dorian’s arm hairs stand on edge. Hawke was nimble but Cullen was able to match his speed and the two moved faster than Dorian could keep track of. It was a flurry of swinging, clashing metal.

Cullen _commanded_ the space like he owned it. He drove Hawke where the Champion was unsteady on his feet, moved him like a chess piece and never hesitated to swing his blade. He circled expertly, steady on his feet, every single movement calculated and born of instinct.

Hawke was underhand and breakneck, putting everything he had into each movement, trying at every turn to throw Cullen off. He used whatever opening he could find to his advantage but he was delaying the inevitable. This was Cullen’s arena and Hawke was barely able to stay in one piece, let alone land a blow on Cullen.

Though Dorian would never say it aloud, he suspected Cullen was ever so slightly _toying_ with Hawke.

Shakily, Dorian tried to call upon his magic, intending to separate the two, but it was weak and fractured by the _Silence_. Still there, just not strong enough to guarantee success that wouldn’t inadvertently give Hawke an advantage over Cullen. He couldn’t risk making things _worse_.

Cullen’s sword was larger and heavier than Hawke’s and therefore just a fraction slower in long swinging arcs. Dorian could see the moment that Hawke realised it too, recognised an opening and threw his full weight into Cullen, shoving his shoulder into his chest, knocking him off balance. It was the first time Dorian realised that Cullen wasn’t wearing any armour.

Cullen grunted and drove the hilt of his sword down against Hawke’s head with a sickening crack. The Champion went down like a puppet whose string had been cut and tried to crawl away but he wasn’t quick enough. Cullen swung his boot into the mage’s face. It collided with a wet smack and sent a spray of spit and blood off to the side.

He raised his sword and didn’t hesitate even for a moment before he drove it down, the edge of his blade aiming for Hawke’s neck.

Hawke threw a handful of dirt at Cullen’s face and rolled at the very last second. The sword caught his shoulder instead. Dorian couldn’t help but wince. The long blade came away with a streak of blood as Cullen staggered back, furiously rubbing his eyes into his forearm. Hawke was already on his feet, clutching his shoulder hard as blood poured thinly over his hand.

When he made a dash to grab his sword from where it had fallen, Cullen was after him right away. Cullen had no shield and it was obvious he was used to fighting with one. There was a clear and worrying opening on his left that even someone like Dorian could see and someone like Hawke could exploit.

Hawke didn’t get to his sword, but he feinted to the side dramatically, causing Cullen to swing at the air. He kicked hard at Cullen’s leg, trying to drop him, but Cullen twisted in anticipation of this, allowing his leg to be bent the only way it would permit without breaking at the knee.

The Champion almost skidded when he grabbed his sword from the dirt and he barely had time to raise it in defence of Cullen’s downward strike. Metal clashed loudly and the force of the blow sent Hawke reeling slightly. Dorian was astonished Cullen’s sword didn’t break Hawke’s clean in half.

He was losing, constantly on the back foot. Cullen was going to kill him unless someone intervened or…

Dorian’s magic was solidifying. The _Silence_ was fading.

He scarce had time to draw breath to warn Cullen before Hawke pivoted abruptly, pelting back to where his staff lay a few feet away. Once more, that strange grinding sensation flooded up Dorian’s back, though it was altogether more familiar that time, and he knew Cullen was about to cast another _Silence _in anticipation of Hawke regaining his magic.

Hawke denied him the chance. He threw fire at Cullen, as much as he could manage. Although it was weak, nowhere near enough to kill or even hurt Cullen, it knocked him down. It bought Hawke enough time, a few short seconds, to heal his shoulder as best he could and catch his breath.

‘What will you do _now_, Templar?’ Hawke panted loudly. Cullen tried to get up but Hawke threw a burst of force at him, knocking him down once more. ‘When was the last time you faced a mage who could actually fight you back?’

Hawke’s staff glowed, gearing up for a stronger attack, and Dorian knew he needed to do something, but just… _couldn’t_. He was losing a lot of blood from his face and it was weakening him. Were it not for Haynes’ grip around his arm, he might have already fallen.

Cullen was on his knees when Hawke’s staff sent a thick, blazing stream of fire at him. Dorian screamed and threw his hands forward, trying desperately to do something, do _anything_ because Cullen had no shield and no armour and he was going to burn right in front of him.

The Commander didn’t turn away from the fire, he faced it head on, hand thrown out in front of him to protect him face. Something swirled around him, a kind of _shimmer_. The shimmer collected and solidified, forming a shape around Cullen’s outstretched hand.

It was a glowing shield and it deflected Hawke’s fire just in time. It wasn’t a very strong shield, barely enough to protect Cullen at all, but there was no doubt whatsoever that Cullen had used Dorian’s magic. It was like his signature, his handwriting. Dorian would know his own magic anywhere, never mind the fact it just came out of a _human_, a fucking ex-Templar at that. It wasn’t quite his colour, too pale to be his true shade of lilac but that made no difference.

It was _his_ magic and Cullen had cast it.

The Commander was on his feet before Hawke could wipe the look of astonishment from his face.

‘Did he…’ Tommur gasped on Dorian’s left. ‘Did he just use magic?’

Dorian’s vision flickered severely and his legs threatened to give out.

Haynes sounded worried as she adjusted her grip of him. ‘Shit, he’s losing _way_ too much blood.’

‘I can help, hold him upright. Did you see it too? The Commander—’

‘Just heal him if you can, mage.’

Everything was a little wobbly. Dorian was trying really, _really_ hard not to pass out but his body didn’t seem to like having no blood inside it.

Hawke’s magic wasn’t fully restored, not after the force of that first _Silence_ but he could use it in short bursts. He had his sword to block Cullen’s blows when the Commander tried to cut him in half and now, he was on the offensive, gaining on Cullen or at least making it a fairer fight.

Tommur was working a weak brand of healing magic to help Dorian and Haynes had one strong arm around his chest, keeping him from collapsing into a bloodless heap. He could just about make out the two clashing figures. Commander and Champion, battling it out.

Dorian tried to see better and Tommur tutted, readjusting the hand pressed to Dorian’s face.

‘Stay _still_!’

‘Need to stop them,’ Dorian tried to say, but his lips were numb and useless.

After an especially loud clang of metal on metal, he heard Hawke say something, voice loud and carrying, full of derision.

‘Do you know how much he begged me to fuck him, your little whore?’

The air was rent apart by a blast that sent everyone sprawling back. Haynes wrapped her arms around Dorian and cushioned his fall but it still winded him slightly. He coughed repeatedly, gasping for breath.

‘Maker protect us,’ someone wheezed. Dorian blinked dust out of his eyes and struggled to see in the gloom. The explosion or whatever it was, had blown out the torches, leaving only the moons above to shine light on what had happened.

In the centre, the place his eyes were immediately drawn to, he saw the pair, distance between them, scrambling to get to their feet before the other. Dorian was practically sitting in Haynes’ lap.

‘What the _fuck_ was that?’ she growled. ‘You alright, Ser Pavus?’

Dorian tried to clear his throat, swallowing thickly and coughing helplessly every few seconds. ‘I really think… under the circumstances you might… consider calling me Dorian.’

Cullen was up first, clutching his left wrist to his chest, shaking himself. Hawke was significantly worse off. He couldn’t get any higher than his knees and his arm seemed to be severely broken. He tried to stand but, being unable to brace himself, his shaky legs gave out. Cullen approached, gripping his sword tightly, the blade whistling through the air as he rotated it once.

‘Get up off your knees,’ Cullen said roughly, hauling Hawke up by the mage’s undamaged arm, his non-magic one, Dorian recognised. When the mage was on his feet, expression clenched with cold resignation, Cullen stepped back. ‘The Champion deserves to die like a man, doesn’t he, _Garrett_?’

Hawke lowered his head, waiting for the blow of judgement and Dorian was crawling, fucking _clambering_ to get there in time because there was no coming back from this, no matter how well protected Cullen was.

Cullen allowed Hawke no final words. He swung his sword up like a pendulum and let it fly down.

Where it collided with something in thin air.

The same thin air that shimmered darkly purple and black, the shade of rogue trickery.

Lavellan.

It was _Lavellan_ and… she’d caught Cullen’s blade mid-air, clapped it precisely between her clever, elven hands as she stared up at Cullen, eyes blazing.

*

Dorian could have cried with relief when Tommur told him that his face was not going to scar with the proper healing magic.

He could also have cried when Tommur explained that the only mage in the entire camp with enough healing talent to perform such complex magic was, of course, Carver Hawke.

‘He’s not going anywhere _near_ you!’ Cullen spat at no one in particular as he paced up and down in his tent.

‘Lower your voice,’ Lavellan warned him with no small amount of authority. ‘And if that’s what it takes, then we have no other option. Skyhold is over a week away and by then, not even Solas will be able to remove the scar.’

Cullen stopped and gaped at her. ‘He’s the one who caused the scar in the first place!’

‘I know that,’ she said, crossing her arms. ‘Perhaps I could have been consulted before you passed a death sentence upon him, though.’

‘I was defending Dorian!’ Dorian had never seen Cullen speak like this to Lavellan, for whom the mage knew he harboured an enormous amount of respect. ‘He attacked him out in the open, in front of our own soldiers!’

‘Which was after he’d made the rounds spreading discord and slander among those same soldiers,’ Cassandra added grimly. ‘Cullen may have acted rashly, but his instincts cannot be faulted.’

‘Does anyone care what I think?’ Dorian asked, raising his hand and getting to his feet. Cullen marched right over and pushed him back down carefully onto the stool.

‘You lost an enormous amount of blood,’ the Commander said, almost _growled_. ‘Sit down until you’re better.’

‘I feel fine.’ Dorian spoke gently, seeking to make meaningful eye contact with Cullen. ‘Really.’

Cullen’s hand moved from his shoulder to his face, thumb carefully tracing over the wound that had been healed, but not to the extent of removing the long, thin scar left behind. Cullen frowned; corners of his mouth turned down.

‘He could have killed you.’

‘Well, you would have done a wonderful job avenging me.’

Lavellan watched their interactions. ‘So, who’s going to tell me about the explosion?’

Cullen moved away from Dorian; his expression was heavily shuttered. ‘Hawke’s magic is highly volatile.’

‘And what of _your_ magic?’

‘Ellana, I used faded Templar abilities—’

‘Not so faded from what I hear.’

‘—to attempt to subdue the man who seeks to usurp you as Inquisitor and who tried to kill Dorian.’

‘He wasn’t trying to kill me.’

Cullen shot Dorian an impatient look that plainly said, _traitor_.

‘He split your face open!’

‘He lost control.’ Dorian rather wanted to punch himself for taking this position, but he couldn’t help it. ‘He was noticeably traumatised after what happened in the Fade. He’s volatile, you’re right about that but I don’t think he meant to kill anyone.’

‘Which is more than we can say for you, Commander,’ Lavellan added dryly. Cullen crossed his arms, digging in.

‘If I overstepped my bounds, Inquisitor, then I apologise to you and no one else. I saw a man attacking one of our own and I acted.’

Lavellan sighed and rubbed her face. ‘Look, you know optics mean precisely fuck all to me. Josephine handles that side of things and I’m quite happy to leave her to her mastery, but this is bad. And _no_,’ she added swiftly, when Cullen opened his mouth to object. ‘_Not_ because you attacked him but because he attacked us. Hawke is still the Champion of Kirkwall. His name means as much throughout Thedas as does the Hero of Ferelden’s.’

For some reason, Cullen shot Dorian a distinctly nervous look and though it only lasted for a split second, Dorian felt a sharp stab of worry. Cullen very rarely succumbed to nerves like that, especially in front of Lavellan.

It was gone before Dorian could make anything of it and Cullen nodded jerkily.

‘I understand.’

‘Tell me about the magic.’

Cassandra, who was thus far doing a bang-up job impersonating furniture, gave a long sigh and said, ‘There’s something between them.’

Lavellan rolled her eyes. ‘Well, no shit.’

‘No, I _mean_,’ Cassandra went on, pushing away from the main beam of the tent. ‘Cullen’s old Templar abilities are all tangled up in Dorian’s magic. It’s been evident for weeks now.’

‘It’s not evident to me,’ Lavellan said, squinting between Dorian and Cullen doubtfully. ‘Cullen seems fine; better than I’ve ever seen him, in fact.’

The Seeker nodded. ‘Indeed.’

‘Templar abilities were specifically created to act _against_ mage abilities though, am I right?’

Cullen rolled his eyes. ‘You could ask me; I’m standing right here.’

‘I _did_ ask you,’ Lavellan said, shooting him an unimpressed sideways glance. ‘You were shifty.’

‘I was _not_—’

‘It’s the lyrium,’ Dorian interrupted. ‘His body has been conditioned to channel magic, or at least the Chantry’s bastardised version of it. There’s…’ Dorian trailed off, wondering how best to phrase the words he needed to sufficiently explain. ‘Well, it’s like a predestined vein inside of him, giving him the ability to use magic to a certain degree without negative effects.’

‘I’ve heard of blood mages using humans as conduits,’ Lavellan said slowly, looking between them with a frown. ‘It’s meant to be incredibly dangerous; sometimes the hosts don’t even survive.’

‘That’s not what this is,’ Cullen denied quickly. ‘Dorian is right. It’s where my body was conditioned by lyrium for so long.’

‘That can’t be right. We have hundreds of former Templars in our ranks. They’re not absorbing power from our mages.’

‘They all still take their lyrium, though,’ Dorian pointed out. He searched Cullen’s expression for any hint of direction, wondering if he should tell Ellana about the whole… blood issue. The moment he even considered it, a sick, icy feeling trickled down his spine and the Nightmare’s voice resonated at the back of his mind.

No, definitely not.

Lavellan was pacing slightly, rubbing her eyes. She must have been so tired; still covered in blood and Fade ooze, for Maker’s sake.

‘Cassandra,’ she said. ‘Go keep an eye on Hawke please. Dorian and I will be along in a moment.’

Cullen stiffened visibly, but he was smart enough to keep quiet.

Only when Cassandra left did Lavellan allow her shoulders to drop. She sighed and her expression almost, but not quite, crumpled.

‘Maker’s fucking _breath, _you two!’ she said in a pained voice. ‘I’ve tried to give you both space to work things out and look! _Look_ at the mess you’re making all over that space!’

Dorian leaned forward. ‘Ellana—’

‘Don’t _Ellana_ me!’ she warned, glaring with exasperation. ‘And _you_!’ she added, turning to Cullen with far more heat. ‘You were going to kill Hawke in cold blood out there! Deny it all you want but this is not like you, Cullen.’

_Everyone sees it, everyone knows he is not like himself. _

‘It was hardly in cold blood!’

‘Hawke is the Champion of Kirkwall! You can’t just execute him!’

‘Well, you saw to that, didn’t you?’

Dorian leapt up off the stool, feeling that his skills as mediator were once again being called to use.

‘Come, now,’ he said, using his sternest voice. ‘Can’t have my best friend and my… Commander at each other’s throats. You two are the pinnacle of the Inquisition, after all.’

He placed a hand on each of their shoulders, hoping to temper their twin glares.

‘Why are you defending him?’ Cullen demanded of her fiercely.

‘I know he did bad things in Kirkwall. He’s just trying to make his way through the world now. Sometimes people falter. They make mistakes.’

‘You’re too trusting.’ Cullen abruptly shrugged away from Dorian’s hold. He faced away from them both, taking what Dorian suspected was a calming breath. ‘He hurt Dorian.’

‘And that’s not something I’m just going to ignore,’ she said. ‘But this was an enormous slip in your judgement; one I would _not_ be able to forgive again. Do you understand me, Cullen?’

When he turned back, there was no trace of emotion; her consummate soldier once more. ‘I do, Inquisitor.’

‘Good. I’d like a full casualty report and travel estimations as soon as they’re ready please, Commander.’

Cullen nodded politely as if the temperature between them hadn’t plummeted into frosty, brittle professionalism. Dorian wondered how they could bear to be this way. He knew how much each cared for the other. It was painful to see and made his stomach twist miserably.

‘By your leave, Inquisitor,’ Cullen said and swept from his own tent when she granted it with a curt nod.

‘He was protecting me,’ Dorian told her when they were alone.

‘I know he was,’ she said tiredly. ‘That’s the problem, Dorian.’

*

Hawke wasn’t furious and chained the way Dorian imagined. He wasn’t even _restrained_. He sat at a small table, picking at some bread and cheese in Lavellan’s tent. Cassandra was standing guard nearby and that was about it.

‘Shouldn’t he be…?’ Dorian gestured vaguely.

‘I told Cullen he was restrained,’ Lavellan said. ‘But there’s no need.’

Dorian scoffed. ‘My face might disagree.’

Carver Hawke chose that moment to lift his magic hand and wave it at Dorian, showing off what seemed to be heavyset field dressings and bandages.

‘Can’t do much damage with these,’ he said, cheese and bread rolling around in his mouth in such a way that Dorian, well-mannered and generally averse to such barbarism, couldn’t help but wince at. ‘And anyway, your Commander beat me fair and square. Not a chance in void I’d be able to stand up to whatever new powers he’s got going on.’

Dorian crossed his arms. ‘How are you going to heal me, then?’

He could feel Hawke’s eyes trailing over the scar on his face. The scrutiny felt like a physical touch that Dorian wanted to squirm away from.

‘Healing magic takes nowhere near the mana of offensive magic, you know that. I can heal it; I just need to concentrate.’

‘I’ll be right here,’ Lavellan said, watching Hawke with a stony glare. ‘Try not to do anything monumentally stupid _again_.’

Hawke held up his bandaged hand and Cassandra unrolled it none too gently. ‘Not to worry,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I got all the stupid beaten right out of me.’

Dorian shook his head. ‘You’re not seriously _buying _this, are you? He was trying to turn people against you, Ellana!’

‘No, I wasn’t,’ Hawke said quite conversationally, smiling at Lavellan. ‘I was telling them the truth. Not a single soldier I spoke to reacted badly. They all said they didn’t care where you came from. That you fought with them and _for_ them and that was enough.’

Cassandra’s eyes moved to Dorian’s, the pair sharing a moment of quiet incredulity.

‘I told them they were lucky to have a leader worthy of their bravery,’ Hawke went on, his strong voice filling the tent. ‘I do genuinely think there was a misunderstanding and I was completely out of order. I take all the responsibility for it,’ he added, nodding earnestly. ‘I shouldn’t have pushed Cullen like I did. The man has been on the ragged edge ever since Kinloch, or so I’ve heard. It was beneath me.’

Dorian’s mouth was set in a thin line, fingers digging hard into his upper arms. ‘You _believe_ this?’ he asked Lavellan through gritted teeth.

Ellana Lavellan rolled her head in Dorian’s direction, wearing a deadpan _as if_ kind of expression. ‘We have absolutely no evidence to the contrary. You yourself defended him back there and if we try to—’

‘Oh, that was kind of you,’ Hawke said quickly, flashing Dorian a smile so wide and bright that it was mildly alarming. ‘I feel terrible about your face. Come on, let me fix it.’

His hand was free of the bandages and Dorian’s breath caught in his throat. Hawke’s magic hand, from the tip of his middle finger all the way to his elbow, was blackened and charred. It looked _dead_, save for the fact that it was moving.

‘Yeah, not so pretty eh?’ Hawke commented lightly, examining it as he moved his fingers. ‘Hurts like a bitch.’

‘We were low on healing potions,’ Lavellan said. ‘But I think we have a spare one now.’ Allowing Hawke’s pretence to stand meant he also had to swallow hers.

‘That’s good, because I _will_ need it healed to be of any use,’ Hawke said, still smiling faintly. All of Dorian’s finely honed instincts were screaming at him not to trust this man, not to go anywhere near him but… fucking Maker, he wasn’t having a scar of this magnitude across his face, he just _wasn’t_.

Lavellan nodded at Cassandra who fished around in a satchel behind her. When she gave Hawke the potion, he downed it in one go and smacked his lips. Slowly, the black, crispy skin turned redder and softer. It didn’t heal completely. His arm was marred with dark reddish-purple lines running rampant across the surface of his skin. Dorian noticed that the lines looked like something had blasted his hand, reaching up his arm.

Hawke’s fingers wiggled, index and thumb weaving a kind of mana friction, luring his magic down into his arm. Dorian got the distinct impression that Hawke’s magic was _wary_ at best.

‘Well?’ Cassandra bit off impatiently. ‘Can you make him pretty again or not?’

Hawke smiled. ‘It would take more than a scar to make Dorian Pavus _not_ pretty, but yes, I can.’

‘Are you not going to heal yourself?’ Lavellan asked, gesturing to the horribly scarred state of his arm.

‘Ah, I never heal my own scars.’ He dropped a wink at Dorian. ‘Character building, they are.’

‘I think you may have met your quota there,’ she told him wryly.

Hawke acted like he hadn’t heard her. ‘Shall we, then? It’ll take a little while longer than usual. I’d get a chair, if I were you, Splendid.’

The nickname grated. Hawke’s sense of entitlement was simply astonishing and Dorian regretted even remotely defending him earlier. Lavellan kicked a stool towards Hawke. The mage sat in front of the Champion with a fair amount of hesitation.

‘Don’t look so scared,’ Hawke whispered, stretching his fingers and rotating his wrist. ‘I’m here to help.’

Dorian took a calming breath. ‘You can see where we got confused, though.’

Hawke just smirked. He held Dorian’s face with his other hand and the mage couldn’t help but bristle slightly. If this had been Cullen, if Cullen had hurt him like this, he would have _asked_ Dorian if he could touch him. Waited for a sign of assent and permission. Hawke didn’t wait. He took his chin in hand and gripped it steady like Dorian was a child getting a haircut. His fingers were a fraction tighter than necessary.

‘It’s going to hurt,’ Hawke said in a pleasant, intimate voice. ‘But I’m sure _you_ won’t mind that.’

Dorian didn’t blink, didn’t swallow. He stared at Hawke and smiled.

‘I doubt I’ll even feel it.’

*

_‘You’re so fucking hot.’_

_‘Well observed.’_

_‘I see you everywhere, watch you as you walk.’_

_‘Ahh—yes, that’s very nice.’_

_‘Maker, you’re just so—’_

_‘Will you please just _shut up _and fuck me already?’_

_Hawke’s expression darkened and a low tendril of adrenaline wound itself up Dorian’s spine. He felt almost _irritable_, wanting to get it over with already. Hawke was going too slow, speaking _far_ too much and that was making it harder to pretend. _

_To pretend so many things. _

_‘Make me shut up.’_

_Dorian blinked, chest clenching tightly in response to Hawke’s invitation. Good, if that’s what he wanted, then fine. Violence was what Dorian preferred, what he knew. Violence was _safe_. _

_He hit Carver across the face, barely more than a slap. It couldn’t have hurt that much. Dorian didn’t quite trust himself and Hawke recognised it. _

_‘You can let go with me,’ he said, pressing his erection down over Dorian’s as he pinned the mage’s hands down into the bed almost painfully. _Almost_. It was like tickling an itch instead of _scratching_. ‘You don’t have to hold back.’_

_Dorian nodded and the nod was a lie. He already knew well enough to hold himself back to the usual extent with this man. Hawke, he knew in the bottom of his stomach, was not trustworthy. Good enough to fuck, definitely. _

_Anything more, not so much, _

_Hawke wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Dorian_ letting go_ and _not letting go._ He didn’t know Dorian, he never would. _

_That didn’t mean this couldn’t be fun, or at least Dorian’s definition of the word _fun_, which in the past meant being fucked against a rough, unforgiving wall with a hand over his mouth while the man, taller and bigger, paid absolutely no attention to what Dorian wanted and simply took. _

_Dorian liked it that way. He enjoyed being used. There was something strange and darkly arousing in it. He liked being stalked like prey, being noticed and then shoved somewhere dark and private. It felt like a secret, like the biggest and best _fuck you_ to the entire world. Even the times where the man didn’t touch Dorian’s cock, didn’t care if he got off, Dorian always came. He came hard when the pain reached a threshold that brought tears to his eyes. _

_He never cared that when they pulled out, they immediately pulled _away_. _

_This would likely be no different and that was just fine with Dorian. _

_Hawke kissed him hard, tongue exploring eagerly. Dorian disliked kissing, but he tolerated it, doing everything he could to keep his mind of off the last time he’d kissed someone. That area was best avoided entirely. _

_But fucking Maker damn it, once the thought occurred to him, it refused to budge and not only that, it _blossomed_. Suddenly his mind was brimming with _Cullen _this__ and _Cullen _that_._ Cullen’s warm skin on his, Cullen’s teeth in his neck, Cullen biting his lip, the mage’s blood around his mouth and the drunken, penetrating way he beheld him, even in near darkness. Cullen touching his cock, the way Cullen stared as Dorian had slicked his own in return. Cullen inside him, Cullen kissing him, Cullen dragging his tongue—_

_Fuck. No. _No_. _

_‘I’m gonna fuck you so good you’ll forget your name,’ Hawke was saying and oh, really, Dorian had _never_ heard that before. It all felt very wrong but that didn’t mean anything. Once something was started, it needed to be seen through. _

_There were things Dorian could have asked for. Things Hawke could do to make him feel good, things the other men rarely cared enough to intuit. _

Things Cullen had intuited_, his mind supplied helpfully. _

_He didn’t ask for those things. Didn’t ask for Hawke’s hand around his throat or teeth to make him bleed. Didn’t ask to be held tight enough that his ribs might groan in protest. _

_He really didn’t want to think about _why_ he wasn’t going to ask, even when he was relatively certain Hawke would have happily obliged. _

_He regretted this already and Hawke wasn’t even inside him yet. _

_‘Get on top,’ Hawke said breathlessly, yanking his shirt over his head and throwing it aside. Dorian’s room was small and that was a generous assessment. Dorian realised his sheets were going to smell of Hawke after he’d left. A cold frisson of _wrongness_ had him shaking his head to dislodge it, but it was no use. _

_‘No, you get on the floor,’ Dorian said, pushing him off. Hawke let himself be pushed, let himself fall. His eyes flashed, he liked that. _

_‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’_

_Dorian wasn’t going to strip off all the way, decided it wasn’t worth it. He eased his trousers down around his knees and then kicked them away. He followed Hawke down onto the floor. It was cold and hard, his beautiful rug on the far side, but like _fuck_ was Dorian getting it dirty. It cost a fortune and he was very firmly attached to that rug, thank you very much. _

_Dorian straddled him, fingers digging into the meat of his bare chest. Hawke had roughly the same number of scars that Cullen did, minus the newest across the Commander’s abdomen, courtesy of the demon. _

_Hawke had a long, thick, curved one ranging from his armpit to his naval. Dorian could tell that whatever it was, it had almost killed him. Upon closer inspection, Dorian saw it was actually three lines that ran perfectly alongside each other. _

_‘What did that?’ Dorian asked, idly tracing his fingertips along them. ‘A gauntlet?’_

_Hawke looked up at him, eyes glassy. Dorian didn’t miss how he swallowed. _

_‘Sounds about right.’_

_‘Is there an impressive story behind it?’ Dorian didn’t know why he was even asking, why he was still touching the scar. It had almost cut Hawke’s heart clean out of his chest, barely missed by an inch and even then, Hawke had almost been split in two. _

_Hawke breathed in deeply, hands on Dorian’s hips. ‘I don’t think impressive is the right word, but there’s a story behind every scar, isn’t there?’_

_‘Is that why you keep all yours?’ Dorian asked, eyes roaming over the expanse of torn skin. ‘Keeping all your stories about you?’_

_‘Like a walking Tale of the Champion, I suppose.’ Hawke looked down at his chest, eyes following the long curve of the scar as if it were a map that led somewhere important. ‘I think they build character,’ he said after a beat of silence and Dorian was almost disappointed that the man fell back on an easy lie, a quick dismissal. For a moment, Dorian had wanted to know more. _

_But the moment passed. _

_Dorian helped Hawke get his breeches down and reached for oil from his bedside table. It was a little bit awkward and Dorian doused a few candles, making it darker in the room so Hawke wasn’t just _staring_ up at him while he prepared himself. _

_He rushed it as a result, didn’t really care enough about his own comfort or ease. He drenched Hawke’s cock in oil and couldn’t help but wince when he ran his hands up and down the length of his erection, remembering all too well the automatic comparison to a certain other man._

_‘Why didn’t you use magic?’ Hawke grunted, eyes closed and body taut as Dorian slicked him up and got him as close to the edge as possible. It would be quicker that way, he hoped. _

_Dorian had no answer for that. The oil was for his hands; an expensive, luxuriant kind, scented with lavender. He couldn’t tell Hawke the reason he didn’t want to slick him with magic. _

_Hawke probably knew anyway. _

_He positioned himself above Hawke, holding the man’s cock steady as he lowered himself. He wanted it to be painful, so he wasn’t careful. _

_It hurt so much that tears formed in the corners of his eyes and _oh fuck, yes, please yes make it hurt, make it hurt enough to forget.

_Hawke’s head was thrown back against the stone of the floor, gasping as he entered Dorian’s tight, almost entirely unprepared entrance. When he was fully inside of him, he panted heavily and fixed Dorian with a gaze that the mage could barely interpret in the low light. _

_‘Hurt me like Cullen hurt you,’ he gasped. ‘Please.’_

_Dorian’s body was still radiating pain from taking Hawke too soon, too deep and maybe because of that mild delirium of blissful agony, he didn’t think before he spoke. _

_‘I don’t _want_ to hurt you like that.’_

_The candles were low, but that did nothing to hide from Dorian the way Hawke’s expression flashed with some strange combination of distress and sadness. There was only a second before it turned cold. _

_Hawke grabbed Dorian’s hair and wrenched him low. ‘I wasn’t fucking asking.’_

_And _this_… this was territory so familiar that Dorian almost wanted to cry. Partly with relief, partly with genuine sorrow. He was good at this role and he would play it exactly how Hawke wanted. _

_But it was a role. It had always been a role and up there on the ramparts with Cullen, that had been something brand new. Something improvised by the two of them together. Dorian’s role had simply been to _be there.

_Hawke wasn’t Cullen, though. No matter how many candles Dorian doused, no matter how tightly he shut his eyes. He didn’t fit into the space Cullen had carved out in Dorian’s chest. _

_‘Be careful what you wish for,’ he said, letting all his familiar mannerisms slip into place, letting him fall into the guise. If this was what Hawke needed, then who the void was Dorian Pavus to deny him?_

_*_

One thing was for certain, Dorian could definitely feel it. The magic was extremely painful and impossibly slow. It was like being tortured. The white-hot point of Hawke’s magic concentrated on the recently healed injury was fucking _horrific._ He was sweating profusely, mouth dry and jaw aching from being held so hard.

Hawke worked with incredible focus, starting at Dorian’s mouth first and making his way slowly towards the ear where the scar began. Every now and then, he would look up and meet Dorian’s eyes. Sometimes Dorian thought he saw a flicker of regret, but it didn’t stick around long enough to be real.

Lavellan and Cassandra chatted to fill the silence, spoke of mundane things that no one cared if Hawke knew. Weather forecasts for their journey back, horse numbers, cart integrity. Dorian appreciated their efforts.

‘Doing all right?’ Hawke asked him very quietly.

‘Go fuck yourself,’ Dorian said, barely moving his lips.

Hawke grinned slightly, refocusing his attention on the magic. ‘Looks like I’ll have to from now on, doesn’t it?’

Dorian didn’t dignify that with a response.

‘Interesting show Cullen put on, I’ll give him that,’ Hawke continued under his breath. ‘I’d love to know how that works. Did he _take_ your magic or did you imbue him with it? I thought things like that were outlawed, even in Tevinter.’

‘Whatever you need to tell yourself. Apparently _defeated_ isn’t really your colour either, is it?’

A runner ventured inside and Cassandra joined Lavellan by the entrance, the three speaking in hushed tones.

‘Well, the Commander is definitely _your_ colour, isn’t he? I’ve never seen a human use magic like that unless they were enthralled.’

‘Stop talking.’

‘But he can’t be _enthralled_ because that would mean you’ve used blood magic.’

‘If you don’t shut up—’

‘And I don’t believe you’d do that,’ Hawke said, eyes meeting Dorian’s. ‘You’re a good man. I don’t believe for a second that you would use blood magic unless you absolutely had to.’

‘I would _never_ use blood magic.’ Dorian despised the way the pain made his voice weak, because he wanted _that_ \- if nothing else - to be crystal clear to this man. This man who played in the murky waters of undiscussed boundaries and things left unsaid. It sounded _weak_ and Dorian hated himself for it.

‘I believe you,’ Hawke said, dark eyes focused on Dorian’s face. He’d moved his hand, now bracing Dorian’s uninjured cheek and holding him steady that way. This close, Dorian could feel his breath moving over his neck. ‘Cullen would likely never forgive you anyway.’

Dorian jerked slightly, couldn’t help it. ‘What did you say?’

‘Stay still.’

‘If you mention his name again, I’ll _dismember_ you and since I don’t know how to dismember a chicken, let alone a man, it’s going to take a long fucking time.’

Hawke’s eyebrows were raised an inch higher than normal as he nodded respectfully. Dorian allowed him to resume the magic, feeling that pinpoint agony in the middle of his cheek now. Halfway there.

‘You love him,’ Hawke said.

‘I absolutely _do not _love him,’ was what Dorian said in reply. ‘But I do respect him, which is far more than I can say about you.’

‘That’s bold to say to the man who’s healing your face.’

‘Considering you’re the one who tore it open, not really. Righting a wrong isn’t performing a favour although, to you, I can see how that would be confusing.’

‘Respect isn’t worth much.’

‘Spoken like a man who had it once and squandered it.’

‘Your Commander is well respected, that’s true,’ Hawke said, eyes narrowing on Dorian’s face as he pretended to focus extra hard. ‘But he’s hardly the darling little _Chantry boy_ everyone thinks he is.’ Dorian’s hand curled up in a tight fist, nails digging into his palm. ‘I moved around a lot in Kirkwall, hid among Templars sometimes. I heard things about him, Meredith’s _prodigy_. The name he made for himself in Kirkwall was one that mages didn’t dare to whisper. His brutality was legend.’

‘He was following orders.’

‘Of course,’ Hawke allowed lightly. ‘That’s the difference isn’t it? Violence and cruelty to mages while under orders is worthy of a commendation, of a promotion even. But without those orders, without the safety net of being _told_ what to do by someone more powerful, that’s where things get muddled.’

‘Maker’s balls, you’re so fucking _boring_.’

‘He and Fenris used to go on raids together, you know?’ Hawke mentioned in a would-be casual tone, ignoring Dorian’s insult. ‘Mostly slavers, which I respect,’ Hawke said with a hint of that fucking grin. ‘Sometimes they went after bands of apostates. If there was even a hint of a blood magic, though,’ he shook his head, whistling. ‘Well, then you’d _really_ see something.’ He nodded down at his own arm. ‘That’s one more thing they have in common, I suppose. Both being _upgraded_ by a Tevinter mage.’

Dorian thought of the time so many years ago, before his own father had mutilated him with blood magic, when he’d seen that elf walking behind Magister Danarius. Decked out in black armour, hands hidden by impressively sharp gauntlets. Dorian had mistaken him for a bodyguard at first, but there was no mistaking the submissive body language. Danarius ordered him to strip off in front of everyone, completely naked. They’d crowded around curiously, Dorian among them, as Danarius showed off the lyrium lines. Fenris had been expressionless, a blank slate entirely void of emotions. The elf’s body had been met with a round of mild applause, Danarius basking in the praise. Dorian didn’t even want to recall what had happened next.

‘Both fell in love with mages,’ Hawke was saying. ‘Despite _hating_ mages. Both tormented, broody types. They’re hard not to fall for, eh? Dark pasts drenched in blood magic and slavery. Hmm, I suppose it’s only a matter of time before Cullen catches up and they’re even again. You know,’ he said, looking Dorian right in the eye. ‘When you betray him like I betrayed Fenris.’

It was too much. Dorian shoved him away and the agonising healing magic ended immediately.

‘Oh, bloody void, it was a _joke_!’

Dorian was on his feet, face throbbing, chest hot and unbearably full of terrible things. Lavellan and Cassandra came over, looking anxiously between the pair.

‘Are you all right?’

‘What did he do?’

‘Come on, let me finish.’

Dorian shook his head to all three of them. ‘I’m done.’

*

_‘You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?’_

_Dorian shrugged, finger running around the rim of his drink. The tavern was noisy and dark, teeming with big, dangerous men. Well worth spending his last three coins on the most watered-down excuse for _wine_ he’d ever tasted. _

_‘Am I?’ he mused, leaning back slowly and facing the man standing by the bar. He was drastically taller than Dorian, who was certainly no slouch in the height department. He was visibly strong; his upper arms were the width of Dorian’s thigh. He wasn’t ugly either. Short brown hair, defined chin, nice eyes. _

_Those were just bonuses really. Dorian didn’t come to places like this to find someone he could bear to look at every day from then on. It would be dark, wherever they went and then if he was lucky, he would never see him again. _

_‘Yeah,’ the man said. ‘I think you are. Pretty things in here get lots of attention. You dress like that for attention, do you?’_

_Dorian finished off his watery piss and turned on the stool, dropping one shoulder, tongue playing with his top lip. ‘I don’t know. Did it work?’_

_The man took in Dorian slowly, from boots to barely concealed shoulders. Dorian felt like a whore, like he was being evaluated for his worth and how much pleasure he could bring. _

_It was intoxicating. _

_‘I’m surprised you weren’t jumped on your way in here, to be honest.’_

_‘Well, slow night so far,’ Dorian smirked, holding the man’s eye contact. ‘Maybe it’ll get better.’_

_The man was quiet for a moment, studying Dorian in a way the mage didn’t especially like. He preferred it when there was as little rational thought going on as possible. _

_‘My friends said your name’s Dorian.’_

_‘Did they? Were you too shy to ask me yourself?’_

_It was the kind of thing that usually riled a man up. This one didn’t quail easy, though. _

_‘Do you want to go for a walk, Dorian?’_

_Sliding off the bar stool, heart thundering loudly, Dorian gave him a sweet, almost saccharine smile. ‘Thought you’d never ask.’_

_Outside it was pitch black and the air was tepid. These parts of Tevinter never quite reached the warm heights that Dorian had grown up in, but it was still warm. No breeze, no reason to wear any more than basic decency dictated and even then, a few strips less. They walked in silence while Dorian slowly got more and more worked up, increasingly turned on. _

_The thrill was addictive, the risk was overpowering. _

_They didn’t go far and that was fine. Dorian didn’t care if the man went back into the Tavern again afterwards. Dorian certainly wouldn’t be. _

_A flutter of genuine nerves was buried beneath the churning, violent ocean of impossible, unfulfilled need. The man guided him into an alley, lightless and narrow, behind a closed apothecary. He smelled crushed elfroot and stewed embrium. It was quiet, so very quiet, when Dorian felt himself pressed into the alley wall. _

_The man kept him there with his body, no hands on wrists yet. Just pressing against Dorian, letting him feel the hardness there against his own. _

_‘You know I’m human, right?’_

_‘Obviously.’_

_‘Does that make it better?’_

_Dorian rolled his hips against him. ‘What do you think?’_

_‘Getting back at Daddy by fucking someone without any magic, are you?’_

_‘Ooh, you’re a clever one.’ Dorian’s hand moved over the impressive bulge between his legs, sliding and grinding and making friction. ‘You must be the cleverest field hand in all of Tevinter.’_

_‘Are you trying to goad me into hurting you? Because I’m not going to unless you beg, all pretty like.’_

_Dorian didn’t want to beg, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t. _

_‘I want you to hurt me,’ he said. ‘I want you to…’ his breath gave out, some distant part of him turning away in disgust and Dorian _hated_ that part of him so much he could taste it. The part of him that was weak and kind and had trusted his fucking father. He would make that part _feel_ everything, even if it refused to watch. ‘I want you to choke me.’_

_‘Suck me off well enough and I might.’_

_Dorian fell fluidly to his knees, the wall so close behind him that he wouldn’t be able to move back for air if he needed it and well, that was the whole point. He took out the nameless man’s cock, thick and heavy in his hand. He wrapped his lips around it and above, he heard a firm gasp. _

_He was good at this, good at all of it, but especially this. So much so that he often had to tone himself and his natural talent down lest it all be over much too soon. _

_His instincts were dead on, though. After only a few seconds, the man stepped forward slightly, crowding Dorian back against the wall as he began to fuck his throat. Dorian didn’t gag and he didn’t control his breathing. He let himself become breathless, starved for air as his body slowly panicked. It was gorgeous feeling and he treasured it. _

_The man pulled back when he decided he wanted more. _

_‘Give me that pretty arse.’_

_Dorian got to his feet, panting and slightly dizzy from the rush of oxygen returning to his bloodstream. He made short work of getting his trousers down around his ankles, but not all the way off. He wasn’t taking his boots off and anyway, it would be tighter this way, more painful. _

_‘Face the wall.’_

_Dorian obeyed. A thick, muscled arm slid around his neck like a snake, wrapping all the way and then _squeezing_. Dorian moaned, eyes rolling. Yes, yes, fucking _yes_. _

_‘You like that, do you?’_

_Dorian reached back with one hand, applying what little magically generated slick he could to the blunt head of that huge cock. It was going to split him open and he was shaking in anticipation of it. He only used enough to make it physically possible to get it inside him. _

_And then… oh fuck, then it _was_ inside him. _

_Pain radiated up his spine, jarring every other thought in his head. He had no preparation whatsoever but it was magnificent. He fucked himself back as much as he could and then the arm tightened viciously around his neck and he was just fucking _gone_. _

_*_

When he stumbled into Cullen’s tent, Dorian was relieved to see that the Commander had been working himself into a frenzy fit to match Dorian’s own. He took in the sight of Dorian, brow furrowed, blinking rapidly.

‘What happened?’ He touched Dorian’s face gently, thumb tracing over what was left of the scar. ‘Why didn’t he… what happened?’

Dorian didn’t have any words. He leaned forward and gave Cullen a kiss, needing that point of contact, needing _Cullen_. When the Commander put his hand over Dorian’s heart, the mage realised he was breathing too fast, almost panting.

Cullen read him intently, eyes moving between Dorian’s. ‘You’re safe,’ he said after a moment of silence. ‘I’m here.’

The second kiss was almost too heavy to be borne. Dorian felt like he was dying and Cullen was the cure. They were too close to clash, already too wrapped up in each other for the closing of distance to create impact but Dorian didn’t care. He didn’t _want _it to be violent. He just wanted _Cullen_; however he could get him.

Cullen’s arms wrapped around Dorian, making walls against a world Dorian could hardly stand to live in sometimes. Their mouths moved against each other in perfect synchronisation; every slant, every twist of their lips was flawless and achingly familiar. They’d done it a thousand times by this point. Cullen knew how Dorian wanted to be kissed. He knew how to hold him, how to make him feel like he was the centre of the world. He’d _learned_ and paid attention to all the little things Dorian liked and he offered them up freely, not holding them at a distance and bartering like he could have. Cullen never traded, never bargained. If he could make Dorian feel good, then he would. It was heartbreakingly simple and it came from a place that neither of them could examine too closely.

Cullen was selfless with Dorian. He gave whatever he could and asked only for Dorian himself in return.

He kissed Dorian deeply, letting the mage’s hands cling wherever they needed to. Dorian felt displaced, like he was falling and Cullen was a fucking rope-ladder. He knotted his hands in Cullen’s hair and pressed against him, wished he could melt into him and become something resembling a good man. _Become_ Cullen, leave everything of himself behind.

Hawke’s words had dug in deep, hurting more than the magical whiplash, marking deeper than the scar. There were so many words in Dorian’s head, all in deeper voices and tones than his own. He wished them gone.

Cullen moaned softly into his mouth and it spoke so loudly of how he felt, that Dorian almost couldn’t take it. That bittersweet ache in his chest would one day twist too far and snap and what would happen then?

‘Let me take care of you,’ Cullen said, but it was really more of a question, seeking permission the way no other man ever had before. Dorian nodded, not trusting himself to say a single word but trusting deeply that Cullen knew what he needed.

Cullen knelt in front of Dorian, fingers fiddling with his belt. The mage let his head fall back, fingers roving through Cullen’s hair as the Commander took his hot, hard flesh deep into his mouth and throat. He was so good at that now. He’d _learned_, just like he’d learned whatever of the mage Dorian allowed him to. Cullen wanted him body _and_ soul and fuck, it was just too much for Dorian whose soul was locked away behind a gate of blood magic and paper-thin survival instinct that waned a little more every time Cullen kissed him.

_Kiss me like you love me_, Cullen had begged once. He hadn’t known then that he could kill Dorian that way. He would never say it now; wouldn’t dare endanger Dorian but he still kissed him the same way. Kissed him, sucked him, fucked him like he loved him. There was _love_ writ large in every touch, every point of contact. He could fuck Dorian hard enough to make the mage’s eyes roll, to make him swallow down screams and pleas and other crazy things. He could press and hold and drive air away, make Dorian’s vision threaten to black out. Inflicting pain, drawing blood, painting bruises. He could do all these things… and Dorian could still feel how much Cullen loved him.

_Look at me_, he might say. _Stay with me_, he often bade.

Of all the men Dorian had encountered, only one had ever _wanted_ to look at Dorian and really see him. Only one had ever wanted him to stay.

If there were tears running down his face when he spilled down Cullen’s throat, he was beyond caring. He didn’t _have_ to care when he was with Cullen. He could let go, anchored by the man on his knees before him, swallowing his spend, drawing pleasure from him expertly, fucking _lovingly_.

The pleasure rendered him boneless, his spine replaced by molten warmth. Cullen stood and once more encircled the mage in his strong arms.

‘So beautiful,’ he told Dorian, stroking the remaining line of the scar. His lips were red and swollen from his devout ministrations. Cullen never did anything by halves. His voice was rough and raspy from how deep he’d taken Dorian into his throat.

‘I…’ Dorian said and for a moment Cullen’s expression tightened with alarm, like he was considering clapping his hand over Dorian’s mouth to keep in potentially dangerous things. Dorian shook his head, clearing his throat and said. ‘I want you to know I don’t care about anything you’ve ever done.’

Cullen’s panic faded. ‘We haven’t talked about it properly.’

‘We don’t need to,’ Dorian blurted out with a wince, trying to control himself better. ‘I literally don’t care about anything, fucking _anything_, you’ve ever done,’ he told Cullen with a quiet fervency that belied the maelstrom of sentiments within him. ‘I don’t… maybe that’s not right, that doesn’t sound right at all, but… you understand, I hope?’

Cullen was staring at Dorian as though confused, like he couldn’t quite trust what Dorian was telling him. ‘Do you really mean that?’

‘I do. The past is the past and every day with you is…’ _is a_ _gift_, was what Dorian had been about to say but couldn’t bring himself to. ‘Is more than I ever expected or hoped for. I accept your past,’ he said, pressing his hands firmly to Cullen’s armoured chest. The metal was cold and battle-worn. It had protected Cullen from certain death many a time, he was sure. ‘If you can accept mine.’

When Cullen didn’t say anything for a long, tortuous while, Dorian began to panic and turn all that frantic energy inward. He shouldn’t have said anything, what was _wrong_ with him?

‘I do,’ Cullen said hoarsely. He let his hands trail down to Dorian’s, lightly gripping at his wrists. ‘Although the two are hardly comparable, I accept your past entirely if you… can indeed, accept mine.’

He was still wary of Dorian; the mage could tell. Despite what Dorian had intended, this vast well of things _unsaid_ and _unknown_ remained between them but in those moments, Dorian was certain it didn’t matter. Hawke didn’t matter, the Nightmare didn’t matter, Halward didn’t matter.

‘Good,’ Dorian said, breathing a little faster. ‘Because I want you to mark me again. Make me yours and remove away any trace of _him_ from me.’

It was like Dorian had cast a spell. Cullen’s entire demeanour shifted jarringly, went from gentle and wary, to predatory and possessive. He gripped Dorian’s wrists harder and crowded the mage slightly, moving towards him with intent. Dorian relished it, fucking _keened_ to see that flash of his dark Commander again.

‘You _are_ mine,’ he growled. ‘And I would have killed him for you. You’ve only to ask and I still will. He can’t touch you; you’re _mine_.’

It went very quickly in a southern direction, all that violence and heat and fucking _passion_. He and Cullen dealt in extremes. There would rarely be any moderation with them, tepid moods few and far between.

‘I saw it,’ Dorian said, slowly exposing the line of his neck to Cullen who went right for the mark that had long since healed by now, nosing at the skin he found there. ‘I saw what you did to him.’

‘For _you_,’ Cullen rumbled, one hand curling around Dorian’s back to press there and get a better grip of him. ‘It was only for you.’

‘My strong Commander,’ Dorian teased, but it couldn’t reliably be called _teasing_ when his heart was beating this fast, his voice trembling slightly. ‘You protected me well.’

Dorian was mesmerised by how much this kind of talk was affecting Cullen. The Commander’s pupils were blown so wide that only a thin rim of amber remained at the edges, his breathing coming thick and fast as a gorgeous flush moved up his neck, flooding his pale cheeks with insistent colour.

_‘Fuck,_ but what you do to me, Dorian.’

Dorian leaned close, brushing his lips over Cullen’s too quickly for the other man to take them. ‘Show me,’ he whispered.

Cullen reached down and grabbed Dorian’s thighs, hoisted him up like it was nothing and arranged the mage all around him, arms over his shoulders, thighs about his waist. Only when they were like that, did Cullen kiss him. Stuck his tongue halfway down Dorian’s throat, was more like it but really, Dorian was _hardly_ objecting. He clung to Cullen, pulling on those curls at the base of his neck and making Cullen moan deep into his mouth. Capable hands gripped the base of Dorian’s arse, moving him up and down like he was an extension of himself, grinding Dorian over his erection.

‘I want to claim you from the inside out,’ Cullen growled.

Dorian let out a stuttered groan, his own cock stirring to life again so soon due to the insistent nature of Cullen’s friction and possessive demands. At this height, Cullen was at eye-level with the column of Dorian’s throat, pressing demanding kisses to the mage’s pulse point and dragging his tongue where Dorian knew the Commander was a little obsessed.

Dorian had never been _obsessed over_ by anyone, not like this. No one had ever wanted to claim him beyond fucking and then discarding him. Even Bull had always made it clear that anything between them was stress relief.

But Cullen… Cullen looked up at him like he wanted to eat him alive.

‘Are you going to bite me, Cullen?’ The blond choked out a half-strangled whimper, half warning snarl. Dorian knew he loved to be called by his given name and the mage absolutely revelled in driving him that little bit wilder. ‘Do you want to claim me again so everyone knows who I belong to?’

Cullen’s eyes creased and his mouth tightened, but he didn’t stop grinding Dorian against him. ‘Careful,’ he warned.

Dorian tangled his hands in Cullen’s hair, pulling it as he pleased. There wasn’t time for them to fuck and they both knew it. There was barely time for this; fully clothed, rubbing against each other in the middle of a _tent_ with the entire world outside waiting for them. Their mouths were close, Dorian’s need coiling like a spring as Cullen’s grinding got harder and more intense.

‘Make me come,’ Dorian husked, pulling Cullen’s hair hard enough to make those pretty eyes flutter and roll. All that heat was twisting and tightening, pulling lower and lower. ‘Make me _yours_.’

Cullen dropped to his knees for the second time in less than an hour, gripping Dorian’s arse cheeks so hard there would be deliciously achy bruises there come morning. Dorian wrapped his legs tighter around the man, riding him as best he could. The friction wasn’t enough, it wasn’t anywhere near enough, but it was all they had and when Dorian threw back his head, so fucking unbearably close, Cullen took the invitation for exactly what it was. He bit down savagely in that place, that curve of skin and muscle between shoulder and throat that simply _belonged_ to him. The pain was a gift and it tore jaggedly through Dorian; hot and sweet and fucking _magical,_ it made him come so hard, his vision greyed at the edges.

Cullen made a sound against Dorian’s skin that might have been a howl, but it was thickly muffled and Dorian was, quite frankly, unable to care about anything beyond the shock-waves of that second, bone deep orgasm shattering through him.

The Commander pulled away and immediately kissed Dorian again. It was tremulous, broken by need and raw emotion. Dorian tasted just the smallest hint of blood between them but didn’t let himself acknowledge it. He held Cullen’s face in his hands, gifting slower, sweeter kisses in the few seconds they had before reality came calling once more.

‘You realise,’ he murmured as Cullen trailed kisses along his cheek, his jaw, to where that small scar remained. ‘You’re quite _literally_ waging war with a lapful of mage.’

He could feel Cullen smile against his cheek. A small huff of warm breath, a very Cullen-esque laugh, made him smile in return.

‘Don’t get any ideas,’ he said, stroking Dorian’s lower back. The mage pulled away, just enough to see him. Flushed and sweaty, sated and radiant.

‘I think we both know,’ Dorian said softly. ‘It’s far too late for that.’

*

‘It suits you,’ Lavellan commented with a small nod.

‘Fuck off,’ Dorian groused affectionately, automatically reaching up to press at the scar with his fingertips. It _was_ small, admittedly. Barely three fingers width from his ear to his cheekbone. ‘My perfect face, _ruined_ forever.’

‘You could have let him heal it, there was still time yesterday.’

Dorian heaved a sigh. ‘Yes, well be that as it may, there are _worse_ things than having a scar and one of them is apparently letting Carver fucking Hawke anywhere near me ever again.’

Lavellan was walking slow, hanging back with Dorian on the fourth day of their journey to Skyhold. Yesterday, sand had gradually given way to grass and they were in the strangely pleasant middle ground between the sweltering heat of the Approach and the blistering chill of the Frostbacks. It was nice. The air didn’t burn his lungs or freeze them. He knew Cullen longed for the snow of his homeland, but Dorian didn’t mind this in-between place; a no man’s land of extreme weather.

Ahead of them, their armies marched, horses trotted, waggons were drawn. The trebuchets were packed down; a feat which still rather astonished Dorian. The remaining mages were spread out, not huddled together as they were on the journey _to_ the Approach. Dorian smiled faintly, watching Tommur chat with Haynes and a few other soldiers.

‘He’s leaving,’ Lavellan said, drawing his attention back to her as she walked purposely slow to match his speed. ‘Hawke. When we get back to Skyhold, he’s leaving.’

‘Why is he not just _leaving _now_?’_ Dorian asked somewhat testily, not liking the idea of Hawke being anywhere near Skyhold.

‘It was at my request,’ she said, looking out over the hills. The sun was high in the sky, a few clouds obscuring it.

Dorian narrowed his eyes. ‘You don’t want him roaming around unchecked.’

‘Not especially, no. If he’s with us, then he has to be _with _us. Out here, we’re exposed. At least back at Skyhold we’re safe.’ She smiled and shook her head. ‘From attacks, I mean. Not slander.’

She looked so suddenly sad that it wrenched Dorian’s heart.

‘I know the impact of slander, my love,’ Dorian said, slinging an arm around her small frame. ‘And I know how deep it cuts to give anyone a reason to slight your name. Therefore, I appoint myself defender of your great name.’

‘My name is hardly great anymore.’

‘Now, now, I’ll not have you slandering your own name. I may have only held this position for ten seconds, but I’ve a reputation to uphold - yours. You are the Inquisitor and the Herald - no, don’t look at me like that. You’re still our Herald but this time, you’re the Herald of the _people_.’

‘It’s not only that,’ she sighed, swinging her arms a little. ‘It weakens my authority, my ability to negotiate.’

Dorian snorted. ‘No one who saw you catch Cullen’s sword would doubt your authority and negotiating is a delicate art in which you are bountifully supported by one Lady Montilyet. Even so, you yourself are amply skilled at negotiating. For a rogue elf, anyway.’

She gave him a wonky smile. ‘Thanks.’

‘Only doing my duty.’

‘I’ve been meaning to speak with you for the last few days,’ she said as the pair walked together, receiving more than a few confused looks from soldiers. ‘I wanted to make sure things were well between us. You’re my best friend in the world,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve never really had a best friend before and, well… I don’t want things like _duty_ to come between us in that respect.’

Dorian nodded. ‘Cullen.’

‘Cullen,’ she agreed. ‘I know you think I was overly harsh with him. It’s important, now more than ever, to keep order within the Inquisition. Cullen has always been so steady in regards to his duties until recently.’

The mage felt a lump in his throat form and did everything he could not to swallow over it. ‘He seems the same to me.’

‘I imagine he does, but there’s an evident shift in his… hmm, priorities?’ she said, casting about for the right word. ‘I mean only to say that Cullen is the Commander of my armies and essentially my second. If I died, he would take over. When he steps out of line, I’m obligated to reprimand him.’ She leaned her head on his shoulder as they walked. ‘Not everyone can be given special treatment, unfortunately. I reserve that only for you.’

Dorian dropped a light kiss atop her head. Such weight on her shoulders, this slender, small framed young woman, not yet twenty one.

‘You’ve nothing to assure me of, Ellana,’ he said. ‘Believe it or not, I am capable of toeing a line if it’s drawn deep enough.’

Someone came jogging back, headed with intent for Lavellan. The pair separated easily and she accepted the note, not breaking her slow stride.

‘Thank you,’ she told the solider. ‘Tell her we’ll perform a full count when we camp.’

The soldier nodded. ‘Your Grace.’

Dorian watched him leave. ‘Full count?’

‘Hunting supplies,’ she explained. ‘Food rations are low and we’ll need to dispatch hunting parties throughout the rest of the journey back.’

‘I could help with that. The mages too. Magic has many uses.’

‘Good,’ she said lightly. ‘Though if you’re going with Cullen’s party, try to exert a little self-control, yes? I think there are still three or four people in the Inquisition who _don’t_ yet know the full range of sounds you two make.’

She shot him an unmistakably mischievous grin.

‘Damnable minx,’ he complained.

When her smile sobered somewhat, he tried to ready himself. They hadn’t spoken of it until now. He knew she’d spoken to Cullen about it, but not Dorian himself.

‘Tell me about the magic sharing,’ she requested gently.

He sighed and narrowly avoided tripping on a small grassy knoll. ‘Tell you what? I’m sure Cullen gave you a very factual debrief.’

‘He did. I’m not asking for a factual debrief from a subordinate. I’m asking my best friend what’s happening with his magic.’

‘To be honest, I’m not actually _sure_ what’s happening.’

‘It is… do I need to be worried?’

He kept his gaze very firmly on the horizon. ‘I hope not.’

‘It makes a certain amount of sense, with the lyrium,’ she granted him. ‘But I’ve still never heard of it without the use of blood magic.’ The last two words were like a knife to the gut. He kept his composure and bit the inside of his cheek. ‘In Tevinter, is it common?’

‘Not especially common, but it’s known to happen.’ He left out the end of that sentence; _between master and slave_. ‘Though nowhere near to this extent.’

‘What is it used for?’

‘It… there’s no _single _use, per se. Overall, the process is less for practical purposes than pleasurable.’

‘Is it addictive?’

He didn’t look at her. ‘Cullen is _not_—’

‘Cullen has an addictive personality,’ she said with implacable calm. ‘Among his myriad other issues, he was addicted to lyrium for a third of his life. I’m within my rights to ask.’

‘I know you are. I just… don’t want to talk about that.’

‘All right. Does it pose a risk to you?’

‘No.’

‘That’s very absolute.’

‘It poses _absolutely_ no risk to me whatsoever. It was accidental, did he tell you that?’

‘He did, most fervently. He said you would never do anything so brash and he still isn’t sure how it happened but that it was likely to do with the Fade over-imbuing your mana and spilling over to him.’

‘Well, there you have it.’

‘What about… the other thing? Are you being careful?’

‘What do you mean?’

She glanced around cautiously. ‘Your Father’s curse.’

Dorian blinked, stomach clenching. ‘I don’t love him, so again, zero risk to me.’

‘Hmm,’ she commented neutrally, bumping against him. ‘Just remember I’m always here for you, Dorian. You could even try to come to me _before_ things escalate, just every now and then.’

She wandered ahead, her natural speed leaving Dorian in the relative dust. Tomorrow he was riding, Maker damn it. Walking was _abominable_. He glanced over his shoulder and then fully turned, walking backwards. Cullen was a fair distance behind, bringing up the rear on horseback.

The Commander didn’t belong at the rear, he should have been front and centre. Dorian tried to deny the reason _why_ Cullen was there, but it was hard to ignore, especially when essentially, Lavellan had done the same thing. Hung back to be near Dorian. The two most powerful people in the entire Inquisition, slowing themselves down to match his lowly pace.

Dorian sulked all the way to camp.

*

‘Whoever told you that sulking was attractive was clearly trying to sabotage you,’ Cassandra informed him as he sat around one of the many fires that night. ‘Sulking suits no one.’

Dorian poked the fire with a stick, scowling. ‘I’m not sulking, I’m clearly brooding.’

‘It’s the exact same thing.’ Dorian rolled his eyes when she sat beside him on his wobbly, bumpy log. ‘Are you sulking about your scar? It’s barely even visible.’

‘I am _not_ sulking about anything and most definitely not over a puny scar.’

‘We all wear scars, Dorian,’ she told him sagely, nodding for effect. ‘Even Lavellan has a scar under her chin and she is but a child compared to most of us in years.’

‘Ellana Lavellan is anything but a child.’

‘I said _compared to. _Control your sulking, man. I am merely pointing out that if you are concerned it has marred your perceived beauty—’

_‘Perceived?’_

‘Then you have nothing to worry about. Cullen, for example, is still very handsome, despite his many scars, the one on his mouth included.’

Dorian resisted the urge to touch his cheek and viciously poked the crackling logs instead. ‘How did he get that scar?’

‘I’ve never asked.’

‘Which doesn’t mean you don’t _know_ how he got it.’

‘I know from his service and medical records that he did not have such a scar at the time he was reassigned to Kirkwall.’

Dorian wished he didn’t feel so _relieved _that it wasn’t yet another souvenir of Kinloch fucking Hold.

‘Kirkwall is said to be a dangerous place.’

Cassandra chuckled. ‘That’s putting it mildly. Hawke was in his element there. The natural chaos and relentless attacks kept him in check, I believe. Without it, he wanders alone and creates chaos of his own. It is sometimes the way with men.’ She leaned forward; hands clasped. ‘I was wrong about you,’ she said in a quieter voice. ‘You and Cullen… there is something naturally _good_ about your connection and you seem to be treating him well. I apologise for implying anything otherwise.’

Dorian closed his eyes. Fucking void, couldn’t anyone speak to him without imbuing him with a lifetime’s worth of guilt?

‘Don’t strain yourself there, Seeker,’ he said blandly.

‘I’m not. Simply righting a wrong. You _are_ good for him. I hope he is good for you too. I hope that when you leave, you will listen to him when he asks to go with you.’

Dorian looked at her sharply. ‘What?’

She shrugged, maddeningly. ‘We cannot only think of the war. There will be life beyond it, beyond the Inquisition and Corypheus. I think you would return to your homeland and I _believe_ Cullen would go with you, if you let him.’

Dorian was staring, but he couldn’t help it. ‘Cullen… go with me to _Tevinter_. Land of blood magic, home of free-range mages.’

‘I think,’ she said, brows raised, eyes on the fire. ‘Cullen would go with you anywhere, Dorian.’

‘B-but…’ Dorian spluttered. ‘He has a home in Ferelden. Family. A career that’s closer to a _calling_. He’s the Commander!’

Cassandra frowned at him as though he was being especially dense.

‘Yes, and perhaps those things were enough for him before. Enough to ground him and give him something to… well, to keep him going. It’s plainly different now. No one has ever seen him like this. I cannot imagine how he would ever give that up.’

_Dorian_ could imagine it, could see it crystal clear in his mind’s eye.

He said nothing and hunched over. Sulking _harder, _was likely how it appeared. He stayed that way until Cassandra got the message and left with a resigned sigh.

*

Hawke had kept his distance from Dorian the entire journey back. The mage knew it had been too good to be true.

‘Can I have a word?’

‘Hmm, how about _prick?_ That one suits you quite well.’

Hawke grinned and inclined his head. ‘It does, I agree. Look, I’m leaving now. I only wanted to apologise.’

Dorian stared at him flatly, the chilly mountain winds whipping around the back of his neck. Skyhold was full and bustling once more, everyone busy doing something except Dorian, who’d been accosted in the middle of the grounds by Hawke, holding a small box.

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘I did, actually. Except I’m shite at apologising so… well, here.’

Hawke thrust the box at Dorian expectantly. The mage slanted an eyebrow and did not accept it.

‘It’s not going to explode,’ Hawke said, rolling his eyes.

‘You realise if Cullen sees you speaking to me, he’s going to rip your spine out?’

‘I fully realise that.’

‘And if there _is_ something in this box that could hurt me, ripping your spine out will seem like a small mercy?’

‘I mean, if you want to go down the metaphorical avenues, then yes - technically there is something in this box that could hurt you, or least your mushy little feelings.’

Dorian still didn’t take it. ‘What is it?’

Hawke lowered the box. ‘It’s… the ashes of Cullen’s letter,’ he said quietly. ‘And the spell for how to recreate it. Oh, come on!’ he said when Dorian turned away sharply. He grabbed at Dorian’s hand and winced slightly when the mage yanked it back.

‘Don’t _touch me_!’ Dorian hissed and Hawke paled. His eyes widened slightly and he swallowed, but he shook himself quickly and regained composure with effort.

‘Sorry I… look, you don’t have to use it. Just maybe in a few years, you could get one of your Tevinter friends to recreate it for you. If you were ever interested in what it said, that is.’

‘I’m _not_ interested,’ Dorian told him fiercely. ‘Whatever is in Cullen’s past, I accept it completely.’

Hawke looked down, nudging the earth with his boot. His lips tightened and he nodded. ‘That’s very impressive.’

‘Yes, I am rather fucking impressive, especially with my shiny new scar.’

‘I offered _repeatedly_ to finish it!’ Hawke said, glaring up through lidded eyes. ‘I all but begged.’

‘Maybe if you _had_ begged, I would have let you.’

The Champion made a deep noise of disgust and shook his head. ‘Fuck you, Pavus.’

‘I literally cannot state clearly enough the word _no.’_

‘Just take the fucking box, all right? You deserve to know what you’re getting yourself into, at the very least. I’m not leaving until you take it.’

In the spirit of wanting Hawke gone as fast as possible, Dorian snatched the small, plain wooden box and held it tightly. ‘There, happy now?’

‘Not really,’ Hawke said. ‘But I couldn’t leave without giving it to you. It’s pretty much the only reason I agreed to come back to Skyhold at all.’ He glanced around, a glint of something fond in his eyes. ‘I spent a long time exploring this place. Poking around above and beneath. I’ll miss it.’

‘I doubt it will miss you.’

Hawke sighed. ‘If you ever _did_ want to perform the ritual here, by whatever means, there’s a room beneath the Undercroft, at the very base of the waterfall. I’m fairly certain no one else knows about it. It would be… private.’

Dorian gave him his stoniest glare.

‘Well,’ Hawke said, stepping backwards. ‘I suppose I’ll be leaving then. Places to go, people to infuriate.’

‘Faces to scar, enemies to make.’

Carver Hawke gave a small, ironic bow. ‘Farewell, Splendid.’

*

Dorian didn’t open the box and he didn’t go in search of the room, despite the temptation to do both gnawing away at him for the rest of the day. He shoved the box in his bottom drawer, a place for silk scarves and other unusual, frivolous items of clothing that he was certain Cullen would never venture in search of.

He closed the drawer and took a deep breath.

‘Whatever it was, I don’t care and I never will.’

It sounded good; a strong, steely promise to the hidden box and whatever may have been inside of it.

He had letters waiting for him on his bedside table, one of which was from his father. He read it quickly. Halward had agreed happily to the request for coin and dispatched the huge sum to Val Royeaux to satisfy Dorian’s extravagant order. He wished Dorian all the best and then had the audacity to say he was very proud of him.

Dorian screwed the letter into a tight ball and set it on fire with no small amount of relish, watching the Pavus house crest blacken and burn.

He wanted very badly to go in search of Cullen. He had this idea of never being very far from the man, of always being nearby and therefore keeping all these awful, creeping suspicions and fears entirely at bay. They were like slow growing night vines and Cullen was the sun. Dorian was safe anytime he was in his presence, but alone…

Alone, those thoughts came for him and were merciless.

*

‘You’re not yourself,’ Cullen said under his breath, as they ate dinner in the hall later that night. ‘You seem out of sorts.’

Cole nodded with sympathy. ‘He is faced with corners, all nine of them. It is hard for him. You, Cullen, are a very deep lake.’

Dorian resisted the urge to shove Cole right in the ribs with a sharp elbow. Sera and Lavellan glanced at one another.

‘I… yes, thank you, Cole,’ Cullen said with somewhat bemused politeness. Dorian wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the group dinner. Part of him was pleased to have so many people he cared for around him. Another part was internally screaming, keeping himself in the seat only by sheer force of will.

‘Did you escort Hawke off the premises?’ Blackwall asked Lavellan in an admirable effort to get the conversation back somewhere safe.

‘I did,’ she said, leaning across the table and stealing some of Dorian’s chicken without seeming to notice. ‘He was in good spirits.’

‘Can’t say I’m not glad he’s gone,’ Blackwall drawled. ‘Cowardly bastard. Stroud was a good man.’

‘He was,’ Lavellan agreed. Dorian watched as Sera’s arm encircled her waist. She too then stole a piece of Dorian’s chicken and offered it to Lavellan as if to cheer her up. Cullen frowned at the interaction and replaced Dorian’s stolen chicken with a piece from his own plate.

Dorian dropped his face into his hands.

‘Hawke isn’t really gone,’ Cole said dreamily. ‘I feel him in words and sharp deeds entrenched in skin. It’s not a path, but a warning. Don’t touch me. Hawke only sees ghosts now, lyrium or otherwise.’

When Dorian glanced up, he immediately regretted doing so. Cullen was looking at Cole with mild interest and it made his gut clench horribly.

‘You’re speaking of Fenris?’ Cullen enquired and Cole performed a half nod, half shrug. ‘How does that work? How do you intuit such things?’

‘I can hear them,’ the boy replied, squashing a green-bean into mush and then scooping said mush into his water tankard, giving it a little stir. ‘They are like whispers to me. Like secrets being passed around. It’s difficult to sift through the ones I’m allowed to say out loud.’

‘Why say _any_ of it out loud, though?’ Blackwall asked, also out of some apparent genuine curiosity.

‘Well,’ Cole deliberated, taking a drink of his bean flavoured water. ‘If I don’t say it out loud, it will become trapped inside and after a while, it hurts. Sometimes the truth can be good, too. There are times when my truth helps people. Not with Dorian though,’ he added severely. ‘Dorian must stay away from such dangerous places. That’s why I was so glad when he agreed to respect Cullen’s line about Jassen.’

Cullen froze, Lavellan winced, Blackwall kept right on chewing and Dorian simply _died_.

Sera looked around at everyone, eyes wide and guileless. ‘Wh’appened?’ she asked. ‘I wasn’t listening.’

*

The argument that followed wasn’t as terrible as Dorian had feared, but in many ways, it was worse for what it later caused.

Cullen outright refused to discuss Jassen in any capacity. He wasn’t angry that Dorian had been trying to find out more. In a voice that wavered slightly, every line of him taut and tense, he told the mage that he understood his curiosity and he was sorry, but there was no way for him to explain about Jassen.

Dorian hadn’t known what to say at first. It was so shocking for Cullen to simply deny him outright. Cullen was by no means an open book, but he hadn’t presented Dorian with any boundaries in regards to the little things the mage was slowly, painstakingly piecing together under cover of lies and false confidence, until now.

And then Dorian knew exactly what to say, except it was about the worst thing he could have said.

‘So, you loved him more than me, then?’

If Cullen had frozen before at dinner, it was nothing to this. This stunning reaction of absolute stillness and deeply carved disbelief that Dorian could say something like that to him. He looked like Dorian had physically struck him. He reeled back, shaking his head once and blinking hard.

Dorian felt like he’d done something terrible to Cullen in that moment and he realised, maybe he had, but how could he know? Cullen was _expecting_ him to know, to respect boundaries under the assumption that Dorian was aware of their general existence.

The space between them felt deep and dark.

When Cullen spoke, it sounded like a threat. ‘Don’t speak of him.’

Dorian took it as such and reacted the way he usually did to threats. He let his own insecurity galvanise him. His fears numbed him to instinct and guilt.

‘Or what?’ he sneered, curling his lip. ‘I’m only _asking_. I think I’m entitled.’

Cullen was hardly moving, eyes fixed to the left of the mage. _‘Believe_ me when I tell you,’ he ground out as though each word truly cost him something. ‘That you don’t want to hear about it, Dorian.’

And Dorian believed him, completely and utterly. He could practically feel the heat coming from Cullen’s words, his control barely intact. Something serpentine and sickly curled in the pit of stomach. He felt a bite of cold, unworthy jealousy. Cullen was so agitated, so fucking _shaken_ by the mere mention of the name. It was an extreme reaction and Dorian was used to all Cullen’s extreme reactions belonging to _him. _He hated that even dead, this other man held sway over Cullen to this extent.

And beneath that incredibly unworthy, vindictive feeling, something much darker took root. Why didn’t Cullen want to tell him? What was he hiding from Dorian? The mage had no way of knowing, except that he did, it was just unthinkable.

Unthinkable and less than ten yards away.

*

The argument cooled and faded, Cullen apologised and Dorian tried to do the same, but his ability to move past it was simply non-existent. Nothing felt normal anymore. It was like trying to run with a thorn in his boot. He _wanted_ more than anything to let it go. Leave it in Cullen’s past like he’d told the man in the Approach. Accept that there were parts of Cullen’s life he would simply never know about.

He knew he _could_ leave it. In theory, he knew almost enough about the letter now and the events it related to. He could have let it go and simply hoped for the best. It seemed clear that Cullen wasn’t going to request that they discuss such things.

But the temptation… it grew and grew by the hour. The days were busy and much of it, mornings and evenings, were spent with Cullen. The hours in-between were as jam-packed as Dorian could make them but there were still quiet moments, times when he was alone and that voice, sly and cold, would suggest to him all the things he simply couldn’t bear.

That he’d made Cullen his blood thrall.

That he was controlling Cullen.

That Cullen loved this _Jassen_ more than him.

The last was so petty that Dorian often winced whenever the thought crossed his mind, but it stuck around for hours after. Had he loved him? What had that looked like? What had Cullen written to him in the letter?

_What was in the fucking letter_?

That question was front and centre, especially now that there was a potential answer.

Two days after their return, Dorian opened the box and read the instructions. Just to see, he’d told himself. Just to know what kind of vileness Hawke expected him to involve himself in. To sate his curiosity and nothing else.

The spell was extremely simple. It sent an arrow of fear straight into Dorian’s heart because he knew right away, he had access to the necessary ingredients, all four of them, and that such a small amount of blood was needed that it seemed almost negligible. How he wished it was some monstrously impossible task. The tooth of a dragon, the heart of a wyvern - fucking _something_ that wasn’t sitting innocently in the potion store room.

The ashes were small and extremely fragile; rose petals a second away from crumbling. He stared at them, at Hawke’s determination to retrieve them and the effort he must have gone to in rescuing them.

‘You’re not this stupid,’ he told himself. ‘You are _not_ this fucking stupid.’

*

‘He thinks highly of you,’ Landon told Dorian as they walked the grounds together. He’d sought Dorian out after the morning training sessions, eagerly observing the declined number of mages as they put their recent battle experience into use. Soldiers died; Dorian knew that, human or mage. It still hurt to see the exact spot of grass when Olan had conjured lightning to save his balls.

‘Who does?’ Dorian asked, bringing himself back to the conversation.

‘Keenan,’ the boy answered. ‘He probably wouldn’t say it, but… he’s told us all that you’re decent and we can trust you. That’s high praise coming from him.’

‘I appreciate that, Landon.’

‘What you did for Nalari was _real_. People make promises to help us sometimes, but they never see them through. You did. That means something, even if Fiona doesn’t think so.’

Dorian glanced at the boy. ‘What of Fiona? Has she been speaking with you?’

Landon shrugged. ‘Sometimes she comes to us and asks if we need anything. She and Keenan got into an argument. She wasn’t saying nice things about you and he… well, he wasn’t _defending_ you, as such. Just pointing out that she was hardly one to talk.’

‘Well,’ Dorian said, trying to think of a way to sound mature and adult without resorting to anger in front of the young man walking with him. ‘Fuck her.

Landon snorted and then laughed, covering his mouth quickly and glancing around as though he might get in trouble for it.

Old habits, Dorian supposed sadly.

*

‘What’s wrong?’ Cullen asked him one night while Dorian had been falling asleep. Cullen’s arms were wrapped around him snugly, nose pressed into the back of his hair. The hourglass floated nearby, soft rushing sounds filling the pleasantly cool room as fresh air circulated and mingled with the heating orbs. Dorian opened his eyes slightly, but said nothing. He maintained his breathing, kept it slow.

Cullen waited but Dorian gave no answer and no indication he’d heard. Dorian knew Cullen had given up when he pressed a gentle kiss to the back of his neck and settled down into the pillows and quilts, his arms turning heavy and lax. The mage listening for that natural, slow rhythm of his breathing.

The warm sleepiness that had been slowly enveloping him before did not return. He lay awake, staring out into the night though his doors, wondering what was happening to him.

*

‘I care nothing for a trial,’ Erimond spat, arms chained above him, a dampening collar tight around his neck. The cells beneath Skyhold were secure and dank; the smell of damp stone and wet earth heavy in the back of Dorian’s throat. ‘Do what you will to me.’

Cullen surveyed him with implacable, absolute steel. ‘If you would prefer to waive your right to a trial, that can be arranged. The Imperium has made it clear that, as far as they are concerned, you are a rogue agent, acting alone. They have disavowed you entirely. No one will claim you; no one will petition for your rights.’ Cullen crouched down in front of the cells, putting himself at eye-level with Erimond. It made Dorian nervous, though he couldn’t say why. Lavellan stood behind Cullen, silent but clearly supporting her Commander.

‘And what will the _Templar_ do to me?’ Erimond sneered, the last word catching on a tremor of anger or fear, Dorian wasn’t sure which. ‘Torture me? I’ve no doubt, from what I heard of you in Kirkwall. Knight Captain Rutherford, back then. Commander of the Inquisition now. Your reputation precedes you by far, even in Tevinter. Well, go ahead. Carve me up, break my bones. I care _nothing_ for your petty torments!’

There was nothing in Cullen that flinched, no reaction at all. He stared at Erimond, patient and utterly unmoved. It was enough to give Dorian chills, though not for entirely unpleasant reasons. Cullen was dangerous, always had been. Seeing him like this, so _predatory_… it did strange things to Dorian.

‘That sounds all together like too much effort,’ Cullen said, hands resting on his left knee. ‘I think it would be far easier to just leave you down here, dampened and in darkness for a few years. Nourishing potions can last weeks, months if concentrated enough. That removes the need for any and all interaction. No one to spit at, no way to mark time. No way of killing yourself. No way of moving, no way to relieve yourself. The longest I ever saw a man endure that was eight months. He was a tough old bastard, too. Used to sing to the rats. He bit through the skin of his wrist and let them gnaw it enough to bleed out. We didn’t notice. Found him months after.’ Cullen dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Don’t worry though,’ he added. ‘We’ll keep your wrists well away from your mouth.’

Cullen didn’t leave until he saw Erimond swallow.

*

Dorian didn’t wait for Cullen to come to him that night. He went to Cullen as soon as the sun set, his mind swimming in dark, shadowy waters of perilous desires. The side of Cullen he’d seen with Erimond, no matter how much of it was an act, had burrowed deeply under his skin. It writhed and _itched_ and begged for sharp nails and torn skin.

It was wrong and it was dangerous and that was really all the convincing he needed in such a state of mind.

Cullen wasn’t finished with his work but when he looked up at Dorian, the mage knew he’d been expecting him. He regarded Dorian almost warily. He was tense and he didn’t smile when Dorian came inside.

There were moments between them when things were easy, when they were ridiculously affectionate and almost homely. Their rhythm of nightly visits made it inevitable that sometimes, there was an absence of the core components that had initially drawn them together. Dorian noticed that sometimes Cullen would call him _love_ when he was distracted. Dorian never called him out on it, didn’t really see the point. It was more that Cullen didn’t _notice_. If he had noticed, he would have been falling over himself to apologise, flushing red and stammering.

Dorian didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be Cullen’s _love_, at least not in that way, not then. That night, he wanted the man who had cleaved the fear of the Maker into Erimond. Who’d spoken softly of monstrous things. Who hadn’t looked away, hadn’t even _blinked_ until Erimond had swallowed.

The _want_ had been swirling and boiling slowly all day, brewing into a _need_ so potent it left him unable to focus.

Reckless, familiar excitement coursed through him, quickening the tempo of his pulse, turning his blood to liquid fire. It hadn’t felt like this for a while now.

They were going to play and Dorian was fucking _breathless_ with anticipation.

They stared at one another, the air absolutely crackling between them. Dorian could tell that Cullen was hesitant, but he saw his own need reflected in those eyes, dark and watchful.

Dorian wanted to be helpless. Powerless. _Weightless_.

‘Take control, Commander,’ he said and meant it.

Cullen’s jaw clenched, hands on his desk curling into tight fists. Dorian could practically feel the heat coming from him, could taste his desire to do exactly as Dorian had requested.

‘There’s no way to heal you.’

Dorian stepped closer. ‘You don’t need to hurt me to take control.’

Cullen’s eyes met his with a snap. Dorian knew he understood and he knew right there and then that he wanted it as well. It was so fucking precarious, playing this game. It could undo everything between them, but Dorian trusted that it wouldn’t.

Cullen’s darkness called out to Dorian’s. It _sang_ to him.

‘Take control of me,’ Dorian repeated, something closer to begging in his tone that time.

Cullen closed his eyes. ‘Promise me you won’t submit.’

A gut-punch of desire hit Dorian right in the stomach. ‘I promise,’ he assured Cullen readily, too readily he knew, but Cullen was almost at that point where Dorian wanted him. Ragged and reckless and just as fucking desperate for this as Dorian was.

The world had narrowed to that room, that cold place where Cullen never spent his nights now. It was impersonal and dark and perfect for this.

When Cullen opened his eyes, Dorian could see the last of his restraint was simply _gone_. It was almost frightening, had Dorian been less eager to see it. He wanted that deep dark place inside Cullen, the man he’d glimpsed today.

‘Pick a word,’ Cullen instructed. Dorian chose a ridiculous safety word he had no intention of uttering. He was vibrating with tension. ‘Good,’ Cullen commented. He began moving things from his desk, important things that he didn’t want messed up when they began, inevitably, to make mess. ‘I’m going to give you one chance, mage,’ he said in that same low tone he’d addressed Erimond with. ‘Be a good boy and get on your knees for me. Do it willingly and I’ll let you keep your magic intact.’

Dorian felt trapped. Not the way he did sometimes with Cullen’s arms around him at night, not the way when someone was unexpectedly kind to him. Not the way he imagined all those soldiers had felt when the Adamant fortress crushed them, the way he sometimes dreamed of and awoke to find himself screaming and sweating, Cullen offering comfort and kindness, not knowing that he was making Dorian feel even _more_ claustrophobic.

The good way.

The way it was fucking _meant_ to feel.

He couldn’t look away from Cullen if he tried. The _authority_ he commanded with absolutely no effort was extraordinary. Dorian already knew this was going to escalate. He was going to have to visit Solas tomorrow and beg but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything except the one word he was about to speak, setting the tone and assuring Cullen that he was going to play it exactly how he wanted.

‘No.’

Cullen wandered over, everything in his movements casual and fluid. ‘That was a mistake.’

It was all the warning Dorian received before the _Silence_ hit him. It was small and controlled. It knocked him for six and left his magic distant and disconnected. It was nothing like what Cullen had done to Hawke. Cullen dispensed his casts masterfully.

He was dizzy and lightheaded when Cullen kicked away the leg Dorian leaned on most heavily, sending him to his knees with so little effort and absolute precision. Dorian fell forward onto hands, trying to shake off the effect. It turned him on so much, the way Cullen could control him like this.

Cullen crouched in front of him as he had in the cells. He surveyed Dorian like he was a prisoner; a dangerous and fascinating one.

‘Do you like being powerless, little mage?’

Dorian spat, ‘Fuck you.’

Cullen’s eyes flashed, something moving behind them. Good, Dorian wanted more of that. The further away they drifted from the light side of things, the wilder Cullen would become. Dorian needed him wild.

‘What are you going to do without your magic? Hmm?’

That voice was setting him aflame, sending superheated desire and reckless desperation through him in waves, tearing away everything else.

Some of the dizziness was lessening. Dorian swung his hand at Cullen as hard as he could, entirely intent on hurting him.

Cullen caught his wrist neatly and easily. His skin stung with the impact.

Dorian could barely breathe he was so fucking turned on. The little warning voice in the back of his head was entirely drowned out by now.

He could see how much Cullen needed it too and somehow… that made it all right. If they both wanted it this much then it _had_ to be all right.

Cullen used Dorian’s trapped hand, caught between strong fingers, to pull him up by the wrist. He pulled him high, pulled him right onto his feet and there was a moment when Dorian was sure he was dangling in the air like a trophy of some sort. Cullen set him upright and took his hands, holding them tightly with one of his own. Dorian felt roughened scars on Cullen’s palms dragging across his own soft skin, hands kept supple and smooth by using oil. Cullen’s skin was rough and had been torn before.

He didn’t want to think about the scars on Cullen’s palms or why he’d never noticed them before.

‘Are you going to be my good boy now?’ Cullen asked, grip around his wrists so tight it made his fingertips tingle.

Dorian looked him right in the eye, drunk on the feeling, drunk on the sheer _wrongness_ of it all. If they were to do this, he wanted to do it properly. Properly meant all the way, properly meant no holding back.

‘I’m not _your_ anything!’

Cullen’s eyes darkened. Dorian’s breath quickened.

_Promise me you won’t submit,_ Cullen had begged.

Dorian didn’t know the fucking _meaning_ of the word.

*

Cullen was buried deep inside Dorian, their limbs tangled, their breaths intermingled, when it happened.

They were a conjoined mess, sprawled halfway over Cullen’s bed. Dorian had fled up the ladder at some point. Cullen’s intent pursuit of him was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Cullen had _chased_ him and found him and made him his and it was all far too perfect for Dorian. It fucked with his head, made a mockery of his heart and redefined his lust for danger.

Bruised and breathless, Cullen’s hand had been tighter around his throat than he expected, so much better than anything he could have hoped for. He’d come a while ago, long before Cullen, cock untouched as he struggled against the man who pinned him down and choked all the air right out of him.

There was no blood, no torn lip. Just control, all of it Cullen’s.

And Cullen, who had taken all Dorian’s control and given him everything he could possibly have wanted, came inside the mage with a bitten off cry and a final stinging slap of his hips. Everything felt incredibly _soft_ to Dorian just then. Like he was floating. Gravity could not touch him. He was perfectly weightless, suspended in darkness and lack of sensation.

‘I love you,’ Cullen moaned, face buried in Dorian’s neck.

Dorian didn’t understand how it happened. He heard Cullen say it and then suddenly, twin plummeting sensations of _fear_ and _ecstasy_ collided together to create a feeling so intense and bright that it somehow wrenched a second orgasm from Dorian entirely without his permission.

It drove into him deep, smashed beneath all his previous expectations of what pleasure could really be. It broke him. Devastated him. He wanted to stay there forever in that dark, soft place, wracked by rapture and utterly untethered.

But he also knew that he wanted to come back for Cullen, couldn’t leave him behind.

When he came to, slowly surfacing once more, his skin was tingling, sound was strained and Cullen was wiping tears from his face.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Cullen told him, still buried deep inside the mage. There was so much fucking emotion in Cullen’s beautiful eyes, Dorian almost wanted to look away. ‘I’m so… I didn’t mean to. Please—’

‘Shut up,’ Dorian whispered, hands pulling weakly to bring Cullen’s mouth onto his own. Everything was delicate and shaky, his skin cool because the room may as well have been _outdoors_, it was so cold.

Cullen’s kiss was an apology. It was praise. It was the deepest, most deadly kind of devotion and he licked it all into Dorian’s mouth, sharing it between them so that almost nothing was separate anymore. No more Dorian and Cullen; just _them_, _us_.

It was fucked up. _They_ were fucked up and Dorian was so grateful in that moment that he didn’t have to hide anything of who he really was. He was sick and tired of hiding, of lying. Cullen was his match for the things he needed. Cullen was the fucking _answer_ to the things he needed.

Cullen was the answer.

*

It took less than a week for Dorian to break.

His gravestone in the Fade bore the word _temptation. _It was his greatest fear and his greatest weakness, always had been. It had power over him.

It took another argument to crack the very last of Dorian’s resolve. To send him to his room in a shaky, unmoored kind of fury. Cullen still refused to tell him anything of Jassen and Dorian was past the point of being able to let it go. Cullen was practically _baiting_ him with it. Keeping something from his at arm’s length like he was a child. Giving him everything else, giving him whatever he needed sometimes without even having to be asked… except this.

It wasn’t Cullen’s fault. He thought Dorian already knew these things.

Dorian knew better than to act in anger, but said anger was addictive and self-sustaining like his pretty energy crystals in the hourglass Cullen still stared at with wonder-filled eyes. He reasoned with himself that once he did it, got it out of the way, he would be free of it. It was a droplet of blood, nothing more.

It would be worth it to know Cullen. To know him the way he deserved to be known. To no longer be a liar. To no longer obsess about this Jassen and what Cullen had said to him in his suicide note. To know how much he’d loved this other man and if… if it had truly been so different from what he and Dorian shared.

It took less than a week for Dorian to give in to temptation.

*

It was easy.

The spell was so simple, Dorian could hardly believe it. Things like this, complex magics that involves so many elements, would usually have required months of careful construction. Herbs, ingredients, magical reserves, use of nature and of the moons’ energy.

Blood magic was _easy_. Four ingredients and a drop of Dorian’s blood from his fingertip followed by spoken incantations.

He hesitated before he let the droplet fall into the wooden bowl. He could still have stopped. There was _time_ to stop all of this and go back to Cullen. Never mention Jassen again, be _happy_ with what he had and move the fuck on with his life.

But he knew it was only delaying the inevitable. If he didn’t do it today, it would be next week, or the week after. Time spent in flux, making Cullen miserable with his obsession and his increasingly manic behaviour.

No. It would be today and this would be the _end_ of it.

He squeezed his index finger between his middle and thumb. The droplet fell, a little more than was required, actually, but there was no time to panic because the magic seized hold immediately. It had his mana in a vice, a deathlike grip and it waited, expecting him to speak the words of the spell.

He spoke them in a voice that trembled and he closed his eyes, allowing powerful disgust to wash over him that he was brought this low. He hated himself more than anything then. More than his father. More than the blood curse that sang and swam in his veins.

The contents of the bowl turned to liquid and the liquid increased, rose to the brim. It was pure, glittering blackness, rippling and filling the air with the smell of charcoal and rain.

Dorian then poured the contents of that bowl over the large blank piece of paper beside it. The blackness flooded across the page, smothering every bit of the yellowy surface until it was entirely obscured.

Then the black began to fade very slowly, leaving behind words written in Cullen’s elegant scrawl, except for right in the very centre of the page. A small, square block of very different handwriting.

By the time the black liquid had faded and dried, the page was simply covered in writing. It ran in all different directions. Around the edge of the paper, like a border. In long, thin paragraphs vertically alongside the other handwriting. Cullen’s script was everywhere around the outside of that middle part.

Dorian turned the page over and saw it continued on the other side. The writing was small and cramped. It had been added to over the years, Dorian could instantly tell.

Looking back at the front page, Dorian’s eyes were drawn immediately to his own name, written in the border around the edge. In the top right-hand corner were the words, _Dorian Pavus is a reason_. His eyes followed the border, drinking in Cullen’s words.

_Nightmares are a reason. _

_Loneliness is a reason. _

_Mages are a reason. _

_Lyrium is a reason. _

_Guilt is a reason. _

_Circles are a reason. _

_Bloodlust is a reason. _

_Boredom is a reason. _

_Love is a reason. _

_Sunrise is a reason. _

_Shame is a reason. _

_Magic is a reason. _

_Being afraid is a reason. _

_Free time is a reason. _

_Jassen is a reason. _

The border list came full circle. Heart racing, Dorian held the paper with trembling fingers and began to read everything else.

*


	16. False Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It couldn't matter any less, but just for purposes of my head canon, Jassen is pronounced Yassen.

Dorian couldn’t be certain how long it took him to get to Lavellan’s room. It was the kind of shock-induced haze that made it hard to keep track of things like time or whereabouts. He followed his feet, headed to the one place he trusted most when things were this… world-endingly _bad_.

By the time he arrived outside of her inner door, he wondered if he was having an out of body experience. Looking down, his feet didn’t seem to be his own. His hands moved slower than he wanted them to.

From behind the thick, wooden door, he heard laughter. It was fairly raucous and highly feminine. Genuine laughter from genuine happiness. It almost made him think twice before he knocked, but his body wasn’t having anything to do with his mind, not anymore. The two were barely on speaking terms, body betrayed by mind and mind unsupported by body.

He knocked and waited.

Sera answered the door; cheeks pink, still laughing softly.

‘It’s Dor!’ she called up the stairs, stepping aside to grant him entry. ‘Ooh, you look like crap. Has something happened? Fucknuts, what am I even saying? It’s _you. _Of course something’s happened.’

She dashed ahead of him, taking the steps two at a time with boundless energy and enthusiasm. Dorian followed in dazed, disconnected silence. Lavellan’s room was bathed in light. It was beautiful, really. She had her Dalish insignia high above the first set of balcony doors. A few outfits were spilling from her clothes chest like exhausted tentacles. Cole sat atop her desk, legs crossed, playing with one of her twin blades, balancing it on his fingertip with intense concentration. Lavellan herself was changing clothes, accumulating a pile of discarded choices on the bed.

‘Dorian,’ she greeted warmly, focused on the buttons of a dark blue outfit. ‘You’ve arrived just in time. I’m sick and tired of _beige_ but my two-party system is clearly broken in regards to helping me choose a new day outfit.’

‘Yeah, cos you’re picking all the shite ones,’ Sera complained, tossing a grape high in the air, angling herself beneath it, mouth wide and when it returned at the insistence of gravity, it hit her squarely in the eye. ‘Oww! _Bollocks_. Where’s the friggin’ plaidweave at?’

‘My darling,’ Lavellan sighed, turning with a flourish, arms wide, requesting judgement for the outfit. ‘I’m not wearing plaidweave under any circumstances. No one can pull it off like you do so what’s the point in even—Dorian, what’s wrong?’

Dorian felt a _ghoul_. An interloper into their happiness and normality. This must have been how his dead things felt when they clawed their way back up from the void. Coming from a place of sticky, tar-like darkness into a happy, bright land they had no right existing in.

He opened his mouth but mind and body were still busily divorcing and nothing besides a strangled croak came out.

Lavellan glanced at Sera who shrugged, arms crossed, faintly concerned. Cole was still fiddling with her blade when he raised his gaze and caught sight of Dorian.

‘Oh no,’ he said, eyes widening. ‘You broke the thread.’

‘Dorian, what’s happened? Come on, sit down.’ When he didn’t move, Lavellan took his hand and gently guided him to the bed, shoving the pile of rejects onto the floor. ‘You’re so cold,’ she exclaimed, rubbing the skin of his numb hands between her own like his mother had done for him before his magic could warm him. ‘Please tell me what’s wrong?’

Sera sat on the other side of him, her elbow pressed into his side in a way that was mildly painful if not irritating, but really, Dorian would take comfort wherever he could.

With supreme effort, he forced his body to co-operate and put breath behind all the terrible things he had to tell her.

‘I’ve fucked up,’ was what he managed to get out.

‘It’s fine, just tell me. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it together.’

Cole wandered over and crouched in front of Dorian, peering up at him beneath the rim of him hat.

‘I should have stayed with you more often. Now all your happiness is snapped. A thin strand between the towers; bright, warm and true, but it could not stretch across that line. Lines are not a map, but a warning. A warning is not a dare. I am… sorry, Dorian.’

‘Cole,’ Lavellan spoke gently. ‘Maybe now is not the time.’

‘Tell her quickly, Dorian,’ Cole said, his eyes riveted on the mage. ‘It is a bad day, no matter the dawn.’

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘Cullen’s letter, the one he burned, I recreated it.’

‘What? _How_?’

‘With blood magic.’ He heard Lavellan gasp while Sera swore under her breath. ‘Hawke gave me the spell and the ashes. He told me where to perform it, even. A room beneath the Undercroft.’ It all sounded so, _so_ much worse when he said it out loud. ‘He wanted me to do the spell and… I did.’

‘You read Cullen’s letter?’

‘I read it. I must have read it a hundred times. It was…’ his breath shuddered, words failing him. ‘It doesn’t matter now anyway.’

‘Because of the blood magic.’

‘No,’ he said thickly. ‘That’s a part of it but… no, something much worse has happened. Hawke apparently didn’t leave Skyhold at all.’

*

** _Three Hours Ago _ **

The first time he finished reading it all the way through, Dorian had to put the paper down for a moment. All around him he could taste the dampness of waterfall spray, the front end of the room was open to the cascading mass. The chamber was gloomy, light from outside heavily distorted by the curtain of water.

He placed the paper down and put his hand over his heart because his heart fucking _hurt_.

Then he read it again. And again. And _again_.

Cullen’s handwriting varied in size and shade of ink, but Dorian could mostly follow the _events_ depicted in some semblance of chronological order.

The writing in the centre of the page, the scrawl visibly different from Cullen’s, was a note from Jassen. It was, in essence, _Jassen__’s_ suicide note.

_Cullen,_

_I am so sorry my friend. This is not how I would bid you farewell, but I know if I see you, I will want to stay. I cannot stand a moment more of this torture. Tell my father I died fighting. Tell him I was brave, like he taught me to be. He_ _’ll believe it, coming from you. I’m sorry to leave you alone, but they will use me to break you. That can’t be the last thing I see. _

_Be strong, Cullen. I know you can be strong._

_It wasn_ _’t your fault._

_Jassen._

Everything else was Cullen’s writing, little entries here and there crammed into the remaining space. Cullen wrote what he could, where he could and he wrote _to_ Jassen. He spoke of how he couldn’t forgive him for leaving. Of how he struggled to live every day.

Of the terrible thing Cullen had done in the _wake_ of the uprising.

Dorian understood so much now. He understood Cullen’s nervous glance when Lavellan had mentioned the Hero of Ferelden. He understood that Jassen’s torture was such that he killed himself with the witchgrass rather than live another day.

Dorian’s own name was mentioned a few times on the back page, entries made several later years. Cullen spoke of Dorian in a way that made the mage feel slightly dizzy. There was an intensity to Cullen’s innermost thoughts, more than sufficient for Dorian to understand why Cullen had been on the verge of killing the mage for the presumed high crime of reading the letter. Dorian read and re-read the parts about himself enough times that the words and phrases were burned deeply into his brain.

_Dorian is everything you were not but he has sway over me and I despise him for that. I dread seeing him and I see him fucking everywhere, even when he’s miles away. _

_He would laugh to know he holds my treacherous heart in his careless hands. _

_Dorian Pavus is all the reason I need to die. _

The letter, front and back, was a series of days over the years of Cullen’s life since Kinloch; days he struggled to justify the suicide he apparently longed for. Cullen wrote of how he didn’t have _quite_ enough reasons to die. He’d counted them, written them all around the paper, Dorian among them. He understood so much of Cullen now.

But… he still didn’t understand why Cullen couldn’t speak about Jassen.

Part of the reason Dorian had read the note so many times was that he remained certain he’d missed some detail. Some element that would fit like a key to a lock and explain _everything_ about Cullen’s terrified silence in regards to this man.

_Yes_, he’d clearly meant a great deal to Cullen. They’d been lovers, at least in some capacity. Cullen never mentioned being _in_ love with Jassen, those parts were… vague, to say the least. Cullen’s state of mind was evident in those earlier passages.

And _yes_, it took many years for Cullen to forgive Jassen for killing himself, but he _had_ forgiven him. It was right there, plainly written. Towards the end, Cullen wrote of how he could no longer recall Jassen’s face or even his family name. There was over a decade between them and yet Cullen couldn’t tell any of this to Dorian?

It didn’t make sense to the mage. Though he had answers now, dozens of them, they were mostly to questions he hadn’t even asked.

There existed a part of Dorian that was _bitterly_, disappointed.

He studied his fingertip. The blood was already clotted; dark brown and halfway to healed. It was nothing, really. A tiny split in his skin and single droplet of his blood and yet… he could feel how it had changed him. There was something _new_ in his magic. The taint of corruption.

It tasted sweet, like honey. It spoke of the _power_ he had at his command now. What had once been smooth and silken was now pebbled and rough, like lizard skin. He knew that if he used his magic, his lilac shade would be long gone.

Dorian needed to leave; go somewhere and walk for a while. There was simply too much to process there in that place.

He folded the letter carefully and weighted it beneath the wooden bowl and other implements in the furthest corner from the waterfall door. He was almost fully outside, the spray from the waterfall dampening his face, when he heard a soft wooden clutter. He spun around, peering into the dark room, somewhat night blind from the glare of daylight.

Dorian’s eyes zeroed in on movement; the bowl was on its side, rolling back and forth and the letter…

The letter was gone.

He started forward but something knocked past him, almost sending him tumbling down into the crushing base of the waterfall. He clung to sharp, slippery rocks outside the door and managed to haul himself up. He could make out a shimmering mass; a _glamour_. Dorian gave frantic chase, grabbing a part of it, tugging hard. A male grunt was just about audible over the dull roar of the waterfall.

There was no mistaking the owner of the sound as he fled.

*

‘Well, all right,’ Lavellan said bracingly. ‘So, Hawke has the letter. He can use it to do what, precisely? Run around claiming that Cullen is unstable, that he’s unfit to be Commander? I won’t bow to that kind of pressure, not in a million years. My official response will be that this is slander, that it’s an attempt by Hawke to—’

Dorian made himself interrupt her. ‘There’s more in the letter than you know.’

Lavellan’s mouth thinned. ‘What is Hawke going to use against us?’

‘The mages,’ Dorian explained wretchedly. ‘He’s going to use the mages against us. Your position of allying with them, specifically. He… Cullen did something eleven years ago and it undermines everything you’ve built here in regards to the mage’s alliance.’

‘Dorian, you’re going to have to tell me.’

‘In Kinloch Hold, the Circle Tower of Lake Calenhad,’ he began heavily, a light prickle of sickness making him break out into a cold sweat. ‘You know of the mage uprising?’

Lavellan spoke slowly, wary of what was coming. ‘Yes.’

‘Cullen allowed the mages to have flower boxes on the sills of the tower windows. They deceived him and grew poison in them. Witchgrass to be specific. Over time, they stewed the plants and made a kind of slow acting poison. It made the Templars sick in small doses. By some accounts they were using it to protect themselves from the same kind of men we have locked up beneath Skyhold, but it _was_ used to facilitate the uprising as well. They weakened the Templars with this poison.’

‘That doesn’t make it Cullen’s fault,’ Sera said firmly. ‘He made a mistake. He showed kindness and it was taken advantage of. Not a frickin’ crime to be decent and there’ll be no way of proving it either. Everyone from the tower died. There were no survivors, right?’

Sera looked to Lavellan for confirmation and Dorian wondered how much they’d discussed this between themselves. They seemed to know almost as much as he did.

‘No surviving mages,’ Lavellan confirmed. ‘The only surviving Templar from the upper tower was Cullen.’

Dorian grimaced. ‘There _were_ survivors, though. Three mages survived and were holed up in the tower. The Hero came and rescued Cullen but he also rescued the mages, ordered them to be allowed to live. Cullen couldn’t stand it. He went back later that night and killed all three of them.’

The silence that followed was resounding. ‘Cullen disobeyed the Hero of Ferelden?’ Lavellan’s voice was deeply shaken.

There it was. The revelation that would take them from _fixable_ to utterly _fucked_. ‘Yes. He killed them with his bare hands. This is what Hawke will use.’

‘Hang on,’ Sera said. ‘What?’

Lavellan didn’t look away from Dorian, something grim slowly filtering into her lovely eyes. ‘It will retroactively denounce any good Cullen has ever done. Any orders he’s ever given would now be meaningless, his authority completely voided. It will undermine the entirety of the Inquisition.’

‘Why? It happened friggin’ years ago and I’m sure he was punished by his own lot at the time. Yeah, it makes us look… all right, pretty shite, but it’s not going to _retroactively denounce _anything.’

‘They can’t have known, though,’ Lavellan countered. ‘Cullen was transferred to Kirkwall almost immediately afterward. If they knew it was him, they would have exiled him from the Order, likely executed him for treason.’ Her eyes widened slightly. ‘A punishment _I__’ll_ be expected to dispense and carry out.’ She stood abruptly. ‘Fuck!’

‘Ellie,’ Sera said softly, following her partner around the room as she paced. ‘C’mon, we can sort this. Find Hawke, get the letter. Simple as, right? It’s his word against ours and he’s a bag of dicks anyway. Won’t have no trouble convincing people what a scummy bloke he is after Adamant.’

Lavellan met Dorian’s hesitant gaze; coldly furious and… _disappointed. _

‘Hawke is no fool,’ she stated flatly. ‘The fight with Cullen, provoking him into it in front of everyone. It was staged to demonstrate Cullen’s vendetta against a mage, against one of the most famous mages across the land. Disobeying the Hero, attempting to kill the Champion and now corrupting the Inquisitor’s inner circle. It’s… unshakeable.’ She looked away, disgust colouring her tone. ‘You’ve really done it now, haven’t you?’

‘_Ellie!__’_

She ignored Sera. ‘How could you resort to _blood magic_ over a matter of obsession? You have _destroyed_ Cullen now, you realise that?’

Dorian swallowed hard over a painful lump in his throat, face in his hands. ‘Yes.’

‘We’re allied with the mages! The very core of this Inquisition is seeking to build a better future for them and now, Hawke can pull one single thread it will come undone. They’ll never trust us again. It will look like complicity on my part to hide Cullen’s past, determined ignorance at best. They’re going to leave, oh Maker, they’re _all_ going to leave!’

Cole touched Dorian’s knee, though the mage could barely feel it.

‘It was always going to happen,’ he told Dorian. ‘Only later, or in colder weather. Corners are all the same, you just choose which one is sunnier.’

‘Cole, not _now!_’ Lavellan snapped.

‘Ellie, don’t,’ Sera admonished softly, reaching for her. ‘He’s trying to help.’

Lavellan shrugged away from Sera’s touch. ‘Well he _can__’t_! No one can help now. This is it.’ She shook her head, staring out of her balcony doors. Her voice took on a hollow quality. ‘This is the choice I always dreaded. If I don’t punish Cullen accordingly, the Inquisition will collapse. The only hope we have is that Hawke wants to bargain.’ She rubbed her hands over her face. ‘Whatever he wants, I’ll have to give it to him and Cullen will still have to leave.’

‘What? Babe, come on!’

‘Don’t you understand, Sera? There’s no way around this! No one will care that Cullen has saved hundreds, maybe thousands of lives. That he’s done immeasurable good in the years since this fucking disaster. This will bring us all down with him. The best possible outcome is that he leaves today while Leliana and I attempt to track down Hawke. This is a tactical play on his part, or at least I pray it is.’

‘We’ll find him and hush him up,’ Sera insisted, but it sounded weak. ‘Whatever it takes, right?’

Lavellan moved away from Sera, electing not to answer. She visibly carried the weight of Dorian’s actions, shouldered it as if it were her own. ‘I have to tell Cullen.’

Dorian got to his feet too quickly, unsteady and swaying slightly. ‘No, let me do it.’

‘Absolutely not. He’s going to kill you.’

Dorian wanted to make her see how sorry he was, but his best friend was cold and distant, forcibly disassociated in order to carry out what was necessary. ‘Please let me tell him. I have to, this is my doing.’

‘Are you _deaf_?’ she burst out, loud enough that Dorian took a step back. ‘He’s going to kill you, Dorian! You’ve got your wish at last! Cullen is going to kill you and then probably himself and it’s all because you couldn’t leave well enough alone! I begged you to come to me, time and _time_ again! What did I say when we spoke last? Don’t wait until it’s too late and yet here you are!’

Her shoulders were heaving, Sera watching with her hands over her mouth. Dorian stood very still, quietly dying inside.

‘I’m…’ Lavellan said quietly, shaken. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘It’s fine.’

‘No, it’s not and I shouldn’t have said it, but you can’t be the one to tell him, Dorian. I can’t lose you too.’

Dorian was abstractly relieved that his expression seemed to betray none of the swirling, red hot agony within him. ‘Cullen won’t kill me, I guarantee it. I won’t let him. He needs to hear it from me. If you tell him, he won’t understand and he’ll just come looking for me anyway. There’s… too much I need to explain.’ He drew in another breath, trying desperately to make himself seem strong when he was anything but. ‘This is my doing and I should be the one to tell him.’

Lavellan surveyed him, her dark blue eyes over-bright and so very unhappy. ‘Swear to me.’

Dorian was so relieved he could have cried. ‘I swear it, Ellana. I won’t let Cullen kill me.’ He was already out of the door when he added under his breath, ‘He won’t have to.’

*

‘Cullen.’

The Commander was speaking with Haynes and Rylen, the pair hovering around his desk intently. Cullen glanced up at Dorian and gifted him a brief, distracted smile. ‘One moment,’ he said before continuing to speak with them both. Dorian waited awkwardly, unable to pay attention to what was being said between them. It was important, he could tell that much. Cullen wore that small frown, that crease between his eyebrows while all three of them stared down at papers and plans and Maker knew what else.

It felt like hours before Haynes left, nodding politely at Dorian though her gaze lingered a fraction longer than it should have. Rylen was far too burdened with scrolls and paperwork to even _see_ the mage and only when he left did Cullen give Dorian his full attention.

‘I’m sorry for making you wait,’ he said, coming towards Dorian, but he paused suddenly, head cocked. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Cullen,’ Dorian repeated uselessly.

The Commander was all concern. ‘Come and sit down.’

‘Please don’t ask me to sit down.’

He came closer. Dorian wanted to keep him at a safe distance but that would have required his body to co-operate with his mind and upon seeing Cullen, being presented with the reality of what was about to _happen_, it was flatly refusing.

Cullen touched Dorian’s upper arm. The moment his skin made contact with Dorian’s, the Commander froze, followed by a sharp intake of breath. ‘What have you done?’

The gravity of the situation, the sheer magnitude of what he was faced with… Dorian wasn’t prepared. He’d always known there would come a day when Cullen would look at him and finally _see_ that Dorian wasn’t even a tenth the man Cullen thought he was. He’d hoped to buy himself some time before that day, enough to tip the scales and maybe by then have something to show Cullen in his favour.

But that day had come due and all Dorian had to arm himself with was the truth. The awful, ugly truth.

‘Your _magic_,’ Cullen said very slowly, his frown deepening with every syllable. ‘You’ve _done_ something to it.’

‘I have,’ Dorian managed to say. He felt cold enough to shiver; a bone deep chill that made his movements slow and groggy. ‘I’m so sorry, Cullen.’ He looked around helplessly. ‘I don’t know where to start.’

The Commander tried to get Dorian to look at him, tried to reach out again but that time, Dorian was smart enough to move back. ‘Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it together. Just tell me everything.’

Dorian laughed at that. It was a terrible thing, Cullen’s soon to be non-existent kindness. It cut him up inside, tore at him viciously. The laugh was weak, not really a laugh at all and it devolved into a small, broken sob at the end. Cullen started forward, alarmed.

‘Did… has someone hurt you? What can I do? _Please_, Dorian.’

Dorian tried to centre himself long enough to be honest. Cullen _deserved_ his honesty before it all came crashing down around them.

‘I used blood magic,’ he told him, forcing himself to meet Cullen’s concerned, slightly desperate gaze. It was immeasurably painful, but Dorian would _make_ himself see every single part of the damage he’d done. ‘It was small but… well, quantity doesn’t matter, does it? I used blood magic, that’s likely what you can feel.’

Cullen didn’t seem so much disgusted as confused. _‘Why_?’

‘I’m going to tell you and it’s going to be fucking awful so I need you to stay silent while I lay it all out and then… then you can do or say whatever you want. Do you understand?’

‘I… understand.’ It didn’t sound like he did, but Dorian took him at face value because otherwise he was going to grab Cullen and beg him to run away with him or something else equally pathetic and naive.

_I think Cullen would go with you anywhere,_ Cassandra had told him. It was all Dorian wanted, then. To drag him away, to remove their lives from Skyhold, from the past, from the tangled web Dorian had fallen willingly into.

Protect Cullen, keep him safe, make him happy.

The desire to follow through with those instincts was powerful. The fear of losing everything drove the need to _ask_, to see if there had ever been a chance, no matter how small.

‘Cullen,’ Dorian said so quietly he wasn’t sure the other man could even hear him. ‘It’s rhetorical and… silly, but if I asked you to leave with me today, would you?’

There was a sharp blend of bewilderment and apprehension in the Commander’s beautiful eyes. He couldn’t know what fadefire Dorian was about to rain down on his life, but the mage thought he could sense the impending scale of it.

‘Dorian, what is this?’

‘Just humour me. If I asked you to leave with me today, right now and never look back.’ Dorian took a huge breath. ‘Would you?’

Cullen stared at him for the longest time before he quietly answered, ‘I would _want_ to.’

Dorian had expected as much, had expected less, really but it still felt like a boulder dropping onto his chest from a great height. He was living from breath to breath, each one a little different, broken by whatever moment he was shaping.

‘I can’t leave the Inquisition,’ Cullen went on in an attempt to explain. ‘There’s too much at stake.’ He approached Dorian again, offering himself as recompense like the trusting _idiot_ he was. ‘But afterwards, when this is done, we can go anywhere you want.’

Oh Maker. It was a mistake of astronomic proportions to have asked him that. Dorian hadn’t even _told him_ the worst of it yet but still the anguish was intolerable. He wanted to run, he wanted to turn back time.

‘Dorian, _please_ tell me what this is. If you’ve used blood magic then I know there would have been a good reason.’

‘Stop it, Cullen.’

‘You wouldn’t do something like that without a reason, I _know_ you.’

‘You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.’

‘I don’t care what you’ve done,’ Cullen insisted, panic slowly creeping into his voice. He touched Dorian and the mage was too selfish to deny himself the feel of that rough hand on his cheek, just for a second. It would probably be the last time anyway. ‘I don’t care about the blood magic if that’s what this is. Like we said, I accept your past and you accept mine.’

Dorian knocked his hand away, removing himself from Cullen’s gaze. ‘I didn’t _know _your past when I said that.’

‘What does that mean?’

Dorian leaned over Cullen’s desk, his back to the man. He hated this desk, refused to even consider letting Cullen bring it into their—

Fuck, he couldn’t do this.

‘Cullen, just… please shut up and let me get it all out.’

He’d wanted to do this while looking Cullen in the eye the way a man might have done, a real man and not whatever the fuck Dorian Pavus was deep down. It was impossible, though. He knew that he would break down and lie and try to make it better because despite how all this had started, hurting Cullen was _unthinkable _to him now.

He kept his palms glued to the desk, head dropped low and began to speak, trusting that Cullen was still there.

‘I never read your letter,’ he said in a tumble of words. ‘I took your copy of _Ambler_ because I love that book and for no other reason. I never flipped through it and I never got to the back because you found it before I had the chance. I didn’t read your letter… until today.’ His throat contracted and he fought to keep a rolling tremor at bay by sheer force of will. ‘You told me that night in your room that you thought I’d read it and it clearly meant something to you. I should have told you then.’ Dorian clenched his eyes tight shut. ‘I _should_ have been honest but I wasn’t. I let you think I knew what was in the letter and it just got worse from there. Today, I used blood magic to recreate the letter. Hawke retrieved the ashes from where you burned it and I used a blood magic spell to create it anew onto a fresh piece of paper so that I could finally learn what it said.’

It was a new threshold for pain unlike anything Dorian had ever wanted to feel. It was everything good in the world being destroyed right in front of him. It was the sky falling. It was death and loss and grief except these were just words and _honesty_ come calling late.

There was no response and so he angled around slightly. He wasn’t sure what he expected. Maybe an expression of wide-eyed shock; of pale, drawn anger and slow, creeping hatred.

Cullen was just blank, like hadn’t even _heard_ Dorian.

‘To make things worse,’ Dorian went on. ‘Hawke was waiting for me to do exactly that. He took the letter and he has it now. It’s in his possession. I’m… I’m so sorry, Cullen. I can’t apologise enough, it will never be enough, I know.’

When Cullen blinked slowly, he still seemed confused.

‘I don’t…’ he said hoarsely, clearing his throat. ‘Dorian, I don’t understand.’

The door opened with a bang that sent Dorian’s skeleton trying to leap right out of his skin. Rylen strode inside, barely paying attention to anything besides his clipboard and the message in his hand.

‘Commander, Ser,’ he said, glancing up. ‘A requisition from—’

‘Get out,’ Dorian told him, heart hammering. ‘_Now_!’

Rylen halted, looked between the two. ‘Commander?’

Cullen looked at Rylen like he didn’t know what to say.

Dorian spoke through gritted teeth, barely able to keep his countenance. ‘Rylen, get out and don’t let anyone else in here for anything less than urgent matters.’

Rylen, to his credit, gave Dorian a hard stare. ‘_Commander_,’ he addressed Cullen emphatically. ‘Is all well with you, Ser?’

Cullen didn’t seem to be able to process much, but he gave a small nod to Rylen after a long, lost pause. ‘I… yes, I’m well. Wait outside.’

As he left, Rylen shot Dorian a highly suspicious, somewhat hostile look. He closed the door behind him and Dorian tried to remember where the fuck he’d left off. Cullen stared at the door after Rylen and then slowly brought his empty gaze back to the mage.

‘I don’t understand.’

Of course he didn’t understand. Cullen was a good man who could never account for the sheer scope of Dorian’s deceptions. It hurt for Dorian to realise he was going to have to work hard to _convince_ him that this was the truth because Cullen had truly trusted him.

‘I never read your letter.’

‘Yes, you did.’

‘I didn’t even know it existed until I overheard you and Lavellan speaking of it one night in her room.’

Cullen raised his hands. ‘Dorian, that’s not true. You read my letter, you told me things about it. You _asked_ me things.’ Cullen spoke plaintively, everything about him trusting and earnest, like Dorian had simply forgotten such details and Cullen was reminding him. ‘I know you did.’

‘I _didn__’t_. I lied to you and I lied extensively. Until today, I didn’t know anything about… what you did to those mages.’

Though his expression remained blank, Cullen’s breath caught in his chest; a small stutter, the first hint of a true reaction.

‘You already knew that.’

‘No, Cullen.’

‘You knew it and you told me it didn’t matter. You said whatever I’d done you didn’t care.’

Dorian wanted to die. ‘I didn’t _know_ then and now that I do, I _actually_ don’t care, for whatever it’s worth. I don’t _care_ that you killed them. I don’t care if you killed a hundred of them. Nothing I read in your letter today changes anything of what I feel for you.’

Cullen remained impassively confused. Dorian could see him _trying_ to make sense of it, to grasp what was happening and Dorian also saw him fail completely.

‘Dorian,’ he said, looking to the mage for guidance. ‘Please.’

It was beyond pain, beyond heartache.

Dorian bit the inside of his cheek until it bled, viciously taking strength from _normal_ pain so that he could keep going.

‘I’ve been lying to you, Cullen,’ he said, louder and firmer this time. ‘I managed to piece a few things together about Kinloch Hold, about the witchgrass and the fact that the letter was your suicide note—’

‘It wasn’t my suicide note,’ Cullen said suddenly, something sharp peeking through the blanket of incomprehension. ‘I wrote that _instead_ of committing suicide.’

‘I know that now. It was originally Jassen’s note that he left to you.’

Cullen stepped back; eyebrows raised. ‘Dorian—’

‘I _know_ that you cared for him greatly.’

‘Dorian, please.’

‘I know he killed himself because he couldn’t—’

‘NO!’ Cullen shouted, hands flying to clutch at his hair, eyes screwed tightly shut. ‘_NO_!’

Dorian looked away, trying to steady himself. ‘I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how this feels and I… I don’t have words to tell you how much I regret it. Cullen, I’m aware that you don’t want to hear this part, _at all_, but Hawke has this letter now.’ The words felt distant even to his own ears, like he was hearing someone else speak them. ‘Do you understand me? Hawke has your letter. Lavellan will attempt to bargain with him to prevent the truth coming out, but you’re going to be relieved of duty today and dismissed from the Inquisition.’

Cullen was shaking his head. ‘No, no, no.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Stop saying that.’

‘I don’t know what else to say.’

‘Say it’s not true.’

Dorian’s jaw tightened as the first tear, hot and stinging, rolled down his face. ‘I would give anything in this world to say that.’

_Now_ Cullen was pale, oh yes. He was almost grey. When he swallowed thickly, Dorian recognised that he was attempting to control himself. He lowered his hands from his hair and took in a shuddering breath, looking anywhere but at Dorian.

‘You didn’t read it?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t know anything I’d done when you… when you came to my room that night.’

‘I was trying to _find out_, but you came upon me and… well.’

Cullen was silent for a long moment before he said, ‘That day in the storm, you tried to tell me something. You were saying something and I just cut right over you, didn’t I?’ Very slowly, he brought his gaze to Dorian. ‘I said _I love you too _but that wasn’t what you were going to say, was it?’

Dorian could see the beginnings of shock, gradually emerging through Cullen’s shield wall of denial. Sluggish, excruciating _acceptance_ that Dorian was telling the truth.

‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘You were going to tell me _this_.’

‘I wanted to tell you then, yes.’

‘But instead you let me say that.’

‘I didn’t know what to do.’

‘You let me believe you felt the same way.’

‘I _never_ expected you to say that. I didn’t know how to react.’

Very slowly, Cullen looked around as if seeing the room, Skyhold and Dorian for the very time. ‘This is all a lie.’

‘_No_, not all of it, I swear.’

There was a degree of astonishment about Cullen. Dorian could practically see the gears of his mind whirring. ‘It wasn’t real.’

‘What I feel for you is real.’

‘Maker take me, _none_ of it’s real, is it? You’ve never said anything like what I said to you and I… I’ve built this in your silence.’ Cullen’s hand rose to his mouth. He closed his eyes, shaking his head. ‘I’m so stupid. You’ve been saying this to me for weeks now. Telling me I’m naive, telling me you don’t _know_ these things. And you’ve never once given me any indication that you-’

‘I do,’ Dorian interrupted desperately, starting forward. ‘Cullen, I _do_.’

‘Don’t.’

‘You have to believe me.’

‘Dorian, _don__’t_.’

The mage was within arm’s reach of the Commander. It felt instinctual to pull Cullen into his arms, hold him tight and kiss away all the pain he was causing but he knew he had no right to do so. ‘I don’t care about the blood curse.’

‘Well I do!’ Cullen yelled, rounding on him. ‘You might not care about anything, but I fucking _care_! I care about you and I care about whether or not you die at the hands of _blood magic! _I care because you made me care. You drew me in and you let me—’ he gasped, chest heaving sharply. ‘Y-you let me _believe_.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Do you even know what that word means?’

Dorian tried to steel himself. The approach of Cullen’s anger was a _good_ thing, or so he told himself. If he was angry, then he was accepting it. Acceptance would make it easier when the time came. ‘We need to talk about your letter, Cullen. Hawke has it and there won’t be much time before everything—'

‘Everything _what_?’ Cullen spat, shoving past Dorian. ‘You think I care about my fucking career? About anything besides the fact you’ve been _lying_ to me this entire time?’

‘You _have_ to care and its more than just your position as Commander. This will affect everything; your _life_ could be in danger.’

Cullen’s anger had always been magnificent to behold. A raging inferno that could quickly turn icy and sharp. ‘So, Lavellan will be the one to execute me then. That’s good. She’ll be quick and fair, it’s more than I could ask for from you.’

A sick, swooping feeling rolled up Dorian’s spine. ‘If you leave today—’

‘Exiled, imprisoned, dead. It all means the same thing.’

‘There’s a _vast_ fucking difference between the three! You can resign today and Lavellan will find a way to bargain with Hawke. You might be able to come back after he’s dealt with.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Heart pounding in his ears, Dorian insisted, ‘It matters, Cullen! I know you despise me and I deserve that. I deserve _anything_ you’re going to throw at me but… if you leave today, I will go with you. I’ll go anywhere with you and we can… maybe you can forgive me in time, I don’t know.’

Cullen kept his back to Dorian. ‘You’d follow me out of _pity_. How unlike you, Dorian.’

‘It’s not pity, Cullen, you know that.’

‘I think,’ Cullen spoke slowly and plainly. ‘Every single time you’ve shown me kindness has been out of pity.’

Dorian baulked. _‘_No.’

‘Any time you’ve been good to me has been because you felt bad for the poor, broken Commander—’

‘_No!__’_

‘—Stupidly professing his love for you and all the while you were probably laughing at me.’ Cullen’s voice broke entirely on the last three words. ‘Why couldn’t you just be honest?’

‘I… didn’t want to hurt you.’

‘Good job.’

‘I _know_. I know I’ve hurt you but you can still live a life away from here. Return to your family, perhaps.’

Cullen swivelled around and beheld Dorian with acute incredulity. ‘Force my company on people who haven’t seen me for the better part of a decade? They don’t know me and I doubt they’ll want anything to do with me once word spreads across Thedas of my actions in the Circle Tower. This is your generous offer, is it? Live a life in the shadows, _retire_ and hide myself away from the fight? I’m _nothing_ without the Inquisition. I’d sooner die.’

‘Cullen, don’t say such things!’

‘Why not?’ he demanded, lip curling, eyes flashing. ‘My wellbeing is _nothing to you_! Maker, Lavellan probably _sent_ you here to make sure I didn’t just pitch myself off the side of the castle. Keep me alive long enough to see trial.’

‘Please just listen to me, Cullen.’

‘Why? So that you can fill my head with all your pretty deceptions? Let me down easy?’ Cullen took a step towards Dorian and the mage forced himself not to flinch. ‘Everything between us has been a _fabrication_ in my head. None of it was real, no matter what you say now. You didn’t know me when you came to me and I thought you did. This,’ he gestured between them. ‘_’All_ of it… is a fucking lie.’

Dorian could not let that stand. ‘Cullen, nothing has changed between us. I don’t _care_ what you did.’

Cullen’s contempt was glacial. ‘Oh really?’

‘Yes, really! None of that means anything to me. Maybe it _should_, maybe I should care more than I do, but the truth is that what you did doesn’t even put a fucking dent into how much I care for you. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?’

Cullen was breathing fast and deep, eyes fixed on Dorian. ‘Did you find what you wanted to know about Jassen?’

‘We don’t need to talk about him.’

‘Did you? You’ve been asking for _days_ now. Just itching to know everything about this other man, your predecessor. It’s probably why you finally gave in to the lure of blood magic, just like your _Father_, like every Tevinter mage before you. So, come on then, tell me what you learned.’

Dorian tried to swerve back to solid ground. ‘I _had_ to recreate the letter. I couldn’t keep lying to you!’

Cullen’s jaw dropped. ‘How _dare_ you make it sound like you had no choice? You could have _come to me_! You could have been fucking _honest_ a day in your life before you stooped to blood magic to subvert my trust and then hand it over to a man who will use it to see my head on a pike!

‘I won’t let that happen,’ Dorian vowed. ‘I’ll die before I let anyone hurt you, I _swear_ it, Cullen!’

‘And what does that mean to me? The word of a lying, self-serving blood mage? I’m supposed to take comfort in your assurances, am I? Supposed to forgive you?’

‘N-no, but I’ll do everything I can to—’

‘You’ve done _enough_!’ Cullen’s voice cracked like a whip through the room, the sharp bite of his anger killing Dorian’s promises before they could form. ‘Of all the mages who’ve tried to break me, I always knew you were the one who would succeed.’

‘Don’t say that. You’re not going to break, you’re the strongest man I know!’

‘What do you know of strength?’

‘I know _you!__’_

He seemed disgusted by that. ‘Yes, you know of my past now, through _blood magic_. You were so determined that our connection was blood magic too. I thought it was guilt driving fear but really, you were _hoping_ it was just a spell. All my feelings for you nothing more than enthralment. How much simpler it would be for you when the day came that you tired of me. You could simply break the spell and show me it was nothing but magic this whole time.’

Dorian’s voice was painfully small. ‘Cullen, you can’t deny that you could _feel_ I’d used blood magic. That indicates at least some degree of connection through—’

‘I couldn’t _feel_ anything,’ Cullen said abruptly. ‘That’s the whole point. You’ve _broken_ the connection by using blood magic. It’s gone.’

Dorian stared. ‘No, that’s—’

‘What? Doesn’t fit your narrative? You didn’t even feel the absence of it, I suppose. That thread between us, its broken now.’

_Happiness is a dangerous thing for you to have in the first place. _

_It is a thread you should not pull on._

_You broke the thread_.

‘No,’ Dorian denied. ‘No, it was… it was affecting you.’

Cullen’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do you think I don’t know what it feels like to be controlled by blood magic? Whatever it was, it’s gone now, but it was real and it was…’ he looked to the side. ‘It was special, at least to me.’

‘It was caused by my blood.’

‘It was _destroyed_ by your blood,’ Cullen snarled. ‘If blood magic can break it, how could it ever have created it? Sorry to shatter your nice, contained theory but everything I felt for you was _real_. You didn’t enthrall me, you didn’t enslave me.’ His breath hitched, a flash of grief twisting his expression. ‘I loved you before I ever tasted your blood.’

Dorian felt like he was falling. ‘You—you weren’t like yourself, people said it.’

‘I was _happy_, that’s why. The last time I felt happy was before that fucking letter ever came into creation. You cut your hand and bled for the power to know me when you could have just come to me and asked. I was right here, Dorian. I _wanted_ to know what was wrong. I hope it was worth it.’

‘’It wasn’t.’

‘No?’ Cullen pushed, voice tight and trembling. ‘You didn’t get what wanted from my letter?’

‘It’s not worth what it caused.’

Cullen was encroaching slowly, inching into Dorian’s space. ‘You wanted to know about Jassen, didn’t you? Couldn’t let it go, not even when I begged. How _dare_ I keep something of myself from you, hmm?’

Dorian resisted the urge to look away. ‘I didn’t want there to be anything unknown between us.’

‘I bet you read that letter a dozen times before you realised it wouldn’t give you what you _really_ wanted. What that sick, selfish part of you needed to know. Was he more important than you? Did I love him more than you?’

Dorian’s eyes fell shut, tears cascading over his numb face.

‘Well, here,’ Cullen said. ‘Let me tell you. After all, you’ve gone to such great _lengths_, Dorian. You _deserve_ to know. Jassen was the first man I ever loved, but I’m sure you gleaned that from the letter. We met as young men, trained together, grew up together in many respects. He was nothing like you, but again, you already knew that. Here’s the part I couldn’t bear to put into words.’ Cullen took a great, trembling breath. ‘Jassen killed himself because of me and not because he wanted to protect me or because he didn’t want to be used against me. The torment he couldn’t stand another moment of… was _me_.’

The mage opened his eyes to find Cullen standing directly before him.

‘You think I was tortured and violated in Kinloch,’ Cullen said. ‘Everyone does. They look at me and they _assume_. They talk about bravery and all the terrible things I must have endured.’ His expression darkened; a shadow moved behind his eyes. ‘I was never brave and I wasn’t tortured either, not like the others were. I was the_ soft one_. The favourite. Uldred kept me alive, fed and watered. I was allowed to sleep on a bed most nights. They let me keep my clothes. They fed me lyrium. Sometimes Uldred would brush my hair, feed me food from his own hand like I was a pet.

Dorian was trapped in the sharp, lethal gaze of the other man, his voice, low and hypnotic.

‘They kept their _soft one_ well cared for by comparison to what my brothers and sisters suffered, Jassen’s torment especially. He’d already broken his lyrium habit before the uprising, you see. I teased him when he tried the first time, but he always hated the lyrium. Addiction is slavery, he would tell me and I just laughed. Lyrium was _power_. It was the ability to dampen magic and that was the very essence of being a Templar. I ridiculed him for it.’ Cullen gathered himself visibly. ‘But they couldn’t use lyrium to control him when they took over the supplies. He was stronger than the rest of us because of it. They hated him for that and made sure to punish him more than anyone else in the Tower.’

‘Cullen, you don’t need to tell me—'

‘They cut my hands,’ Cullen interrupted him, forcing the words out. ‘They used my blood to bring about desire, _uncontrollable_ fucking desire, and then they would lock us up together. _I_ was Jassen’s punishment. He killed himself him because he couldn’t stand another moment of me raping him.’

When Dorian tried to avert his gaze, Cullen grabbed his face. ‘No, look upon me, _love_. This is what you wanted, isn’t it? You wanted to _know_ what Jassen meant to me? I raped him every day for weeks. It only took three or four times for him to just… let it happen. I hurt him, regardless. The blood magic drove me insane. Made me feel like I would die unless I could be inside him. It made me so _angry_ that I hated him even _while_ I was …’ His throat caught, words faltering. Cullen’s expression collapsed and his voice cracked deeply. ‘Sometimes he would hold my face and tell me he loved me and that it was all right. He never fought back because he never wanted to hurt me. I did terrible things to him and he didn’t struggle or defend himself. Sometimes… I think he was frightened that if he struggled, I would enjoy it more and it would be worse for him.’

Dorian could only stare in horror as the world fell apart around him.

‘Afterwards, they let me clean him up and he would hold me then too. Jassen told me that I had to be _strong_. I had to keep going, no matter what because one day, someone would come for us and I would be the only one able to get us out alive.’

Cullen thumbed Dorian tears, paying no heed to his own. ‘He would kiss me and say it didn’t matter and when I swore to him that I’d kill myself before I hurt him again, that was the only time he got angry. _That__’s not a reason_, he would say. _There aren__’t reasons enough in this world for you give up, Cullen_.’ Cullen squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment. ‘I hadn’t seen him for two days when they told me he was dead. Uldred gave me his note, said he was proud of me for what I’d done and that I deserved to see what else my _kindness_ had wrought. He made me read that letter aloud many times and he didn’t stop until I begged. They never let me see his body.’

Dorian could feel the strength of Cullen’s trembling through his hands; it shook his skull, vision marred by a fine vibration. He held onto Cullen’s wrists loosely. They were still so close, caught up in the worst kind of intimacy. 

‘Every day without him, I prayed for the strength to end it. But I, who was given _special treatment_, was not permitted any of the three things that each Templar under Uldred’s reign was gifted. Do you know what those things were?’

Dorian choked down a sob, gripping Cullen’s wrists harder and shook his head.

‘Everyone but me had paper, means to write and a small cup of cold tea, imbued heavily with witchgrass. If they threw the cup in defiant rage, tomorrow, there would be a fresh brew. It was kindness, Uldred said. Repayment of _my_ kindness to them. They were all permitted to give up and die, leaving behind a letter to their loved ones. I never even considered the possibility that Jassen would leave me. He wrote me a letter, drank the tea and died rather than live with what I was doing to him.’

Cullen’s wrath was interwoven with grief; everything about him seemed to be shattering apart save for his focus on Dorian.

‘When Cousland came, he declared me _saved_. Uldred had become something else, his monstrosity visible on the outside now. The uprising had devolved into genocidal madness. Demons eating mages and Templars alike as they began to run out of blood and bodies to bleed. Some of the mages tried to hide. Cousland came upon me when I was on my knees. I begged him to listen to me. To take no chances and kill the remaining mages barricaded in the top of the tower. I tried to tell him about the witchgrass and how they’d _all_ been planning it, no matter how things turned out in the end. He looked at me, the _Hero_ of Ferelden, looked me dead in the eye and said my opinion didn’t factor because I was traumatised. So yes, I went back later when the other Templars were still sifting through the demons and their dead. I didn’t go there to kill the mages; I _went_ to make them confess about the witchgrass. To take some responsibility for what they’d done. One mage was a key instigator for the uprising. The same mage who’d begged me to let them grow flowers in small boxes. When I demanded he tell the Knight Captain this, he _laughed_ at me. Declared the whole thing my fault and no one else's.’

Cullen gripped Dorian’s face so hard his teeth hurt.

‘I tore them apart. I didn’t even have my sword. I rent them asunder and afterwards, I blamed a demon that had been unaccounted for. No one suspected, no one questioned it. The Hero didn’t come back to check up on the mages he deemed more important than all the men and women who died up in that fucking tower. I never found Jassen’s body. They _fed_ him to the demons. I don’t remember the last thing I said to him. Cousland’s arrival was less than a week after he died. If I hadn’t driven him to kill himself, he would have been saved too. He was the strong one and I was so _weak._ It was my fault. My weakness, my _kindness_, my love for him. Every single person who died in that Tower died because of me. I was a murderer long before I killed those mages.’

He released Dorian so suddenly that the mage stumbled, ears ringing. Cullen swept away and wiped his face. ‘You wanted to know who Jassen was to me. He was the first man I ever kissed and the first person I ever killed.’

‘Cullen,’ Dorian tried to say. ‘I didn’t _know_.’

‘No,’ Cullen said, horribly and abruptly distant. ‘You didn’t know any of it. You didn’t know me; you didn’t know what you were getting involved with. I should never have touched you. You drove me fucking crazy right from the off. Getting under my skin and making me _feel_ things again that I didn’t want to feel.’ His gaze was locked on the wall, staring at it blindly. ‘You were so different from him. I knew you’d fight back, whereas he… Maker forgive me, he never did. You were the cruellest punishment Andraste ever deigned to send forth. My betrayal of Jassen … _personified_.’ Cullen closed his eyes and swallowed hard. ‘I loved you from almost the first moment we met.’

Dorian croaked, ‘You said I was a reason to die.’

‘You still are. I spent so long collecting reasons to die, but the Inquisition was the first reason I had to _live. _Kirkwall had been a living graveyard; death and violence everywhere. I indulged all my worst instincts in that place and I was congratulated for it. The Order promised a descent into madness and an upward stream of promotions.’

He took another breath, rubbing his face.

‘Cassandra came on a day when I was low. She said there might be a position for me. It would require everything I had to give and I would need to let go of who I’d become in Kirkwall. A reason to live and then, only months later, _you_ arrived. I was never with anyone else before Jassen and I never wanted to be with anyone after.’ He sneered disdainfully. ‘I know what Hawke thinks happened between Fenris and I, but it was never that way. We were friends, nothing more. I met you and it was…’ Cullen’s mouth curved into something resembling a smile. ‘_Lightning_. I saw you for the first time; so brash and cocky and just untouchable, that voice dripping with arrogance and your eyes. Your fucking eyes, Dorian. You looked at me with those grey eyes and smiled like you knew exactly what you’d done to me. Something inside - an old, rotted dam - suddenly burst wide open. It broke apart at the very sight of you. You were my undoing right from the start. I should never have let you get under my skin the way you did.’ Cullen swallowed. ‘It was like… the worse I treated you, the harder you pursued me. As though you could sense the monster I’d once been and you couldn’t let it go, not without seeing it, not without reminding me who I really was.’

Dorian could remember all too well. Cullen’s warnings, Cullen’s manifest hatred, patent cold glares and burning dislike. All the things that made him so irresistible.

‘You were relentless and I… I was too weak to deny how much I wanted you. I kept telling myself, it’s just sex. That it meant nothing and I was safe. Then you took my book and oh Maker, I was going to kill you. I swore I would kill you if you spoke his name.’ Cullen’s breath gave out, jaw working as another two tears rolled. ‘And _then_ you came back. You didn’t run a million miles away. I wanted to believe that you knew almost the very worst of me and that you could still look upon me.’ Cullen laughed; a hollow, dead thing, full of self-loathing and despair. ‘I let my need for forgiveness outweigh my own instincts. Everything about you was always too good to be true. You were lying. It was all a fucking lie.’

Dorian couldn’t stand idly by and listen to anymore. ‘You can hate me all you want,’ he said, moving closer than he had any right to. ‘But you _cannot_ labour under the illusion that I don’t care for you.’

Cullen didn’t move away, he endured Dorian’s proximity but the way he stared at him, almost clean _through_ him, was unsettling.

‘You’re a liar.’

‘Yes, I am,’ Dorian rushed to agree, trying to find and capture Cullen’s attention. ‘I’m a disgusting liar and a fucking coward. I’ve spent the last six years using this curse as an excuse to close myself off from anything more involved than a one-night stand. I was _nothing_ before I met you and I’m nothing still, but I _care_ for you, Cullen. My feelings for you are real, they always were.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ When Dorian opened his mouth to counter, Cullen cut across swiftly. ‘But let’s say you’re right. Say you _care_ for me like you _care_ for Lavellan, Bull or Sera or even Cole. Yet, you _went_ to Cole, you trusted him above me. You went to Lavellan. You no doubt told her everything of this cluster fuck before you came here. You probably even told Sera something, somewhere along the line, didn’t you? Yes,’ he said, when Dorian was silent. ‘Because you care for them and you _trust _them, but not me. I was to be kept in the dark, lied to and made a mockery of. I doubt you even consider me a friend, Dorian.’

When he tried to leave, Dorian caught hold and clung hard, forcing him to stay. Dorian’s world was falling apart and he could feel something crumbling inside of him. His curse was waiting, it had been waiting for six long years and it was inevitable now. He was almost relieved.

The mage never understood people who begged for death during torture. Life was everything, life was only once. Even pain was _living, _or so he’d naively told himself.

He understood it now. Death would be a reprieve. Absolute, silent forgiveness. A gift of proof, the only kind he could offer Cullen.

‘Wait,’ he pleaded weakly. ‘You’re wrong. I care about you and I’ll prove it to you.’

The Commander snatched his arm back as if burned. ‘Don’t touch me and don’t _embarrass_ yourself for my sake!’

Dorian slowly allowed himself to embrace what he’d been keeping in a lockbox for so long now. ‘I care about you more than anyone else in all of Thedas.’

Cullen’s expression tightened with alarm, eyes darkening in warning. ‘_Dorian_.’

‘I fucked up everything,’ the mage pushed on, the momentum of_ genuine,_ unfettered honest increasing steadily. ‘But my feelings for you were so real.’

‘Don’t you _dare_!’

‘I can’t let you think it wasn’t real.’

This time, it was Cullen who reached for Dorian. His grip was carelessly savage as he yanked him close and clapped his hand right over the mage’s mouth, pressing it tight. ‘You don’t get to do this!’ he insisted fiercely, voice breaking. ‘You don’t get to destroy my life and then just _end yours_! Leave me behind the way Jassen did? No, _no,_ you don’t get to take the easy way out!’

Dorian wished he could stop crying. Cullen’s face was so close to his. He thought of their first time together, of that first, brutal kiss. He’d kissed Cullen then because he was certain it would provoke him to madness. Dorian thought of the hourglass he’d made for Cullen and how the Commander’s child-like fascination had affected the mage. He thought of Cullen’s inability to stop calling him _love_ whenever distracted. Of the day in the storm. Of the first time he ever saw Cullen.

And now, what would be the last.

It was a fair trade, he told himself. Fair trade. One life for another.

He let himself go still and pliant, awaiting the moment when Cullen’s defences lowered enough to be satisfied and assured. He couldn’t hold him forever and they both knew it.

Cullen removed his hand slowly, with deep mistrust and Dorian held his silence. Finally, Cullen moved away, jaw tightening with something akin to shame. He was _ashamed_ of still caring for Dorian, despite everything.

It would be worth it, so fucking worth it for this man.

Dorian took his final breath and said, ‘I love you, Cullen.’

*

Dorian Pavus had spent many years contemplating, nigh obsessing about, death. It had always intrigued him, even as a small child. The practice of becoming a Mortalitasi was one he read extensively on, but it went deeper than that. He dreamed about death, about crossing the veil between worlds. What would it feel like? How would it happen? What if he fought it? Who or what would he be fighting?

After the curse, he tried not to think about it so much anymore but it was like a friend with whom he was simply on bad terms. It was always there in the back of his mind. Death was coming for him, one way or another.

And he hadn’t wanted to die like that. It was a painfully humiliating way to go; punished for falling in love. So, he closed himself off, sealed the doors and made them watertight. Nothing in, nothing out. Safe and contained forever.

But at night, he dreamed of death, even in the Fade. He wandered in that place and sometimes, spirits spoke to him, drawn to his morbid obsession. Some were kind, others were disinterested, but they all said the same thing.

Death was nothing to fear.

Sometimes Dorian allowed that to comfort him.

He’d always aspired to die doing something breath-taking. Saving people, killing monsters, proving everyone and the world _wrong_ about him. He could be brave, he could be _good_ and if he died doing one of those things, that was all they would remember. _Dorian Pavus was a good man_, they might say before he and his family name faded into irrelevance; a bold footnote in the Inquisitor’s radiant legacy.

That chance had never come around. Dorian had only one legacy to leave now and it was to let Cullen know that he loved him. It was freeing to let himself think that. To allow himself to acknowledge how much he fucking _loved_ that man.

‘I love you, Cullen.’

He waited to die.

Cullen spun around, eyes wide and jaw slack with astonishment. ‘What—?’ Dorian watched as panic flooded through the man before him, swept away everything else. He burst into a flurry of movement; insistent hands seizing Dorian’s upper chest, his torso, his shoulders, his face. It was like he was feeling for points of injury or weakness. ‘What did you do_?__’ _He was rough and careless about hurting Dorian, only concerned with keeping him alive somehow. He seemed desperate, hands gripping Dorian as he shook him. ‘What did you _do_?’

The mage wanted to make him feel better.

‘I love you so much.’

Cullen smacked him across the face. ‘Shut up you–you fucking _idiot_! I won’t let you leave me; I won’t _let you_!’ There was panic in every breath, wide-eyed dread writ large amid unexpected terror, the kind Cullen didn’t seem to be able to cope with.

Dorian didn’t know why, but he hadn’t expected a reaction like this from Cullen. In his mind, it hadn’t played out this way at all. Cullen wasn’t happy that Dorian loved him, he wasn’t relieved. He was terrified, furious. He was _crying. _

Dorian tried to cup Cullen’s cheek, ignoring how his own stung like a brand, but Cullen fought him. Smacked the mage’s hands away, refused Dorian’s attempt at kindness in those final moments_. _Anger and grief comingled once more but this time, Dorian was the reason for these feelings, the eye of the storm. Cullen couldn’t stop grabbing at Dorian, even though he refused the mage’s touch in return. He clung to him, shook him, dug his fingers in as he cried.

‘Please,’ he begged brokenly. ‘Please don’t leave me.’

Dorian had to take hold of his wrists to control him, to contain the absolute frenzy of panic that engulfed the former Templar, soon to be former Commander. He held them in a bruising grip, the two of them staring at each other while Cullen hyperventilated and looked at Dorian like he was waiting for the world to drop out beneath him.

Regret hit Dorian _hard_.

This was a mistake, the biggest he’d ever made. Oh Maker, he didn’t want to die, he couldn’t leave Cullen, what had he been thinking? He could see his own panic reflected in Cullen’s eyes, in the way Cullen’s expression fell apart even further. It was like nothing else mattered then. Dorian’s lies, the betrayal, the letter, Jassen… it was all obliterated in the wake of that one stupid thing Dorian had done.

He didn’t want to die.

Cullen let out a strangled sob and pulled him close, one hand getting free of Dorian’s grip to wrap around the mage’s neck. Dorian let himself be held, sought comfort in Cullen’s arms one last time.

A cold, creeping weakness began to drift up through his knees and he couldn’t stand any longer. He began to feel _exhausted, _like all his strength was simply draining away. Cullen held him tighter, using both arms to enfold Dorian completely. He could feel Cullen shaking against him, the sharp, juddering impact of Cullen’s uneven breaths. Cullen braced all of his weight, practically carrying him like he had in Adamant. The same way he’d lifted Dorian clean off his feet, turning them in a small circle, relieved beyond measure because he thought… he’d thought Dorian was dead.

Oh, please… please no.

How could he have done this?

This was no legacy; it was a betrayal.

Dorian’s whole body was tingling, parts of it going numb and slightly cold. Death was apparently patient and creeping. Dorian wanted to rail against it like Cullen had, scream and thrash until it went away, _force_ his heart to keep on beating.

He couldn’t die, he couldn’t do that to Cullen.

Dorian didn’t even realise he was sobbing the words, _‘I’m sorry,’_ over and over into Cullen’s chest until the man interrupted their flow by bringing his face up and crushing his lips over Dorian’s. Cullen’s face was wet with tears and the kiss was painful for too many reasons. Cullen cried against Dorian’s mouth, small sobs wracking through him, kissing all his grief right into the mage. Dorian clung to Cullen, tried to kiss him back as if it might actually keep him alive but the cold, numb feeling had reached the back of his neck now.

Dorian didn’t know how Cullen could be so strong, how he was still holding Dorian upright and slightly off the ground, the toes of his boots lightly scraping the stone floor. He was wrapped up in the man he loved and though he didn’t _want_ to perish, would have given anything to take it back, he accepted that there were worse ways to die.

It was only after the numb feeling began to dissipate that Dorian realised he was still breathing. Maybe Cullen hadn’t noticed yet. Dorian was loose-limbed and heavy like a doll. Cullen’s face was buried in Dorian’s shoulder, arms so tight around him that Dorian’s bones were groaning in weak protest.

He was breathing. He was aching. He was… alive.

It was hard to draw in anything but a shallow breath due to the tightness of Cullen’s embrace. Feeling was slowly returning to Dorian’s fingertips and when he gingerly lifted his hand to tap Cullen’s shoulder, it sent a jolt of surprise through the man that resonated inside Dorian.

Cullen’s head jerked back, red-rimmed eyes wide and painfully astounded.

‘Dorian,’ he croaked. ‘You’re—’

With painstaking care, he released Dorian from his hold and pressed his palm over the mage’s heart, which was thudding rapidly. Tremulously, he looked down to where it rested and then back up at Dorian.

There was a moment when Cullen almost _smiled. _It was a flicker of pure, unconditional relief that Dorian apparently wasn’t dying. Dizzy with relief and confusion of his own, Dorian placed his hand atop Cullen’s and tried to swallow enough to speak. He had so many things to say, highest among them thanking the Maker and Blessed Andraste for answering his prayers to be granted one more chance.

Cullen shook his head. ‘How…?’

It was a beautiful moment, right up until it _wasn__’t_.

Slowly, all of Cullen’s relief and confusion slid away and in their absence was the bare bones of something awful. Some monstrous realisation that Dorian didn’t yet comprehend, but the mere sight of it was enough to make his heart lurch in warning. Cullen’s hand withdrew, a frown denting between his eyes.

And Dorian’s mind, wrecked and ruined as it was, finally caught up with him.

So softly, Cullen whispered, ‘You don’t love me.’

It was like swimming through treacle. Dorian was suddenly so frightened, so _wronged_ that Cullen could even think such a thing that he didn’t know how to respond. Multiple responses and denials were all trying to crash their way past his lips to freedom and because of it, _nothing_ came out.

Cullen half blinked and the movement spilled two fresh tears. He’d come full circle, it seemed, all the way back to being blank. There was no anger, no confusion, no heartache. He covered his mouth, both hands pressed together in prayer like fashion. ‘You don’t… love me, do you?’

He stepped back and when Dorian tried to follow, Cullen visibly flinched.

‘N-no,’ Dorian managed to say, screaming internally at his inability to _act_. ‘Cullen, _no.__’_

Dorian was falling, he was tumbling from a terrible height. Cullen had been the whole world a minute ago, the last thing he would ever feel and now… now there was distance between them Dorian could not close and every second that passed, it grew wider and darker.

He smashed down his fear and took control of himself with every bit of strength he had left. ‘Cullen, I _love you_!’

Their eyes met and held as the growing distance paused. Dorian tried to show Cullen everything he couldn’t force himself to say. _Let him see it,_ Dorian prayed. _Let him see it and know._

Then Cullen lowered his hands, took a would-be steadying breath and shut himself down completely. Shields up, like Dorian was… an _enemy_. 

‘No,’ Cullen said as though telling himself more than Dorian. ‘You actually don’t.’

The door behind Cullen burst open just as Dorian’s mouth was opening and closing, trying to come up with words, _any_ words. Bull strode inside, looking between the two with a wary frown.

‘Cullen,’ he said, wasting no time on pleasantries. ‘There’s some real shit going down. Might wanna come to the War Room.’

Cullen seemed closed off, locked down. Dorian watched, feeling utterly worthless, as the Commander gathered himself. Drew all the jagged pieces of what Dorian had smashed apart and jammed them together, regardless of whether or not they fit.

‘Of course,’ he told Bull briskly. ‘I’ll go now.’

‘What about Dorian?’

Cullen didn’t look back. ‘The blood mage can do whatever he wants.’

*

Despite Bull pestering him insistently and even threatening mild violence at one point on their purposefully slow side by side journey to the War Room, Dorian remained quiet. He didn’t trust himself to speak, would never trust himself again.

Beneath the shock, beneath the heartbreak and other terrible things that had yet to sink in, Dorian was powerfully ashamed. He’d never felt so profoundly disgusted with himself before and there had been times when he’d done plenty to earn it. This was different. He felt small and stupid, his _grand gesture_ made him sick to his stomach. What the fuck had he been thinking? That somehow _dying_, fucking killing himself in front of Cullen would make everything he’d done somehow all right?

‘Are you gonna throw up?’ Bull asked at one point. ‘Cos if so, better do it now while there’s grass and shit.’

Dorian shook his head and forced himself onwards. He didn’t let himself think about _why_ he was still alive. He wore Cullen’s faded handprint on his cheek and a cold sheen of sweat, shoulders slouched low.

The War Room was fully convened with most from the Inner Circle, but not all. Before Dorian had a chance to notice who _wasn__’t_ inside, Lavellan started speaking.

‘All right, now that you’re all here, I’ll start by saying that this is really bad.’

Dorian’s eyes were drawn helplessly to Cullen who stood on Lavellan’s right, staring down at the table like it held the secrets to eternal life. Leliana was on Lavellan’s left and Josephine, Dorian thought, was standing just a little too close to Cullen on his right. He couldn’t see, but he suspected she had her hand on the small of his back. It had taken Dorian a good ten minutes to walk there. Cullen had plenty of time to tell them everything, he supposed.

Leliana was staring at Dorian, placid and cold. He looked away and wrapped his arms around himself, lost beyond hope of ever being found.

‘Bull has informed me that Vivienne and Fiona have left Skyhold,’ Lavellan said with no small amount of defeat. ‘They left this morning. It would seem they’re apparently throwing their lot in with Carver Hawke against us.’

Blackwall didn’t seem entirely surprised. ‘Hawke’s turned, then?’

‘Indeed. We anticipate he’s about to make a move that’s largely political in nature,’ Lavellan answered. ‘The move is directly against Cullen, but it threatens us all, the entire Inquisition.’

‘Where’s Varric?’ Cassandra asked before Lavellan could take a breath to continue.

‘I’ll get to that,’ the Inquisitor assured her. ‘But first let us lay out what we know. Leliana?’

The Spymaster gave Lavellan a brief, respectful nod as she seamlessly took over.

‘It seems that the Champion has been plotting for a while to undermine the authority of the Inquisition. His movements against us have been slow and erratic up until now. He has a significant advantage that he anticipates will force us to negotiate rather than mobilise against him. He is counting on our need for containment and silence.’

‘What’s the advantage?’ Blackwall asked.

Leliana’s composure was flawless, as always. ‘He has come into possession of compromising information relating to Cullen’s past.’

Cassandra, Blackwall, Solas and Bull glanced at each other. Cole, Dorian noticed, was lurking in the corner by the door, tracing the edge of the hinges and paying no attention to the Spymaster at all.

‘And he is leveraging this against us?’ Cassandra ventured darkly.

‘He will. He’ll likely use Vivienne or Fiona to reach out to us. It seems that Vivienne and Hawke have been planning something to this effect for some time. Fiona went to Hawke of her own volition after she was largely displaced by Dorian. We have been attempting to phase her out slowly and respectfully as her views do not ally with ours, but she was disgruntled and, it seems, highly resentful.’

‘How do Vivienne’s views ally with Hawke’s?’ Solas asked with no small amount of scepticism. ‘Hawke is an apostate and, all told, greatly opposed to the Circles.’

‘It seems they have a common goal,’ Leliana replied. ‘Taking down the Inquisition or, more likely, taking _control_ of the Inquisition. Vivienne has made no secret of her disapproval for our views in regards to the mages. Hawke cares little for such things, in truth. For him, this is a power play. Fiona has been cast adrift; she is desperate.’

Cassandra watched Cullen carefully, an intense frown in place. ‘What information do they have?’

The Commander glanced up at Leliana to give her a brisk nod. Leliana didn’t seem pleased and for a moment the two glared at one another as if having some silent, telepathic argument.

‘I would prefer not to divulge details at this time,’ Leliana said with just a hint of force, addressing the Inner Circle, though her gaze remained on Cullen for a beat.

Cullen made a sound of disgust and pushed away from the table hard enough that the little markers rattled. ‘They’ll know come sundown, either way.’

‘Cullen,’ Josephine said gently. ‘Don’t.’

‘My _secret_ couldn’t rest with a less trustworthy keeper,’ Cullen spat. ‘Tell them, don’t tell them; what difference does it make?’

Blackwall shot Dorian a confused look. ‘Maker’s sake, what’s happened?’

‘I will _briefly_ lay out the basis of it,’ Leliana curtly stated, clearly displeased. The Commander faced off to the side while Josephine placed a small hand on his shoulder, whispering something to him. ‘Eleven years ago, Cullen committed an act against the express orders of the Hero of Ferelden, Jaime Cousland. No one knew at the time, but Hawke has knowledge of it now. He also has what he considers to be proof in the form of a letter from Cullen’s own hand detailing the event. We anticipate that Hawke will leverage this to place himself in a position of power within the Inquisition. If he is smart, he will seek to keep Lavellan on to maintain the pretence and legitimise his new role as her Commander. That is how it might begin, at least.’

Cassandra looked at Cullen. ‘What was the act you committed?’

‘Ask the Tevinter,’ was Cullen’s flat reply. ‘He’ll tell you everything in _great_ detail.’

Up until that moment, Dorian had felt largely invisible; ghost-like and see through while everything happened around him. When Cullen spoke, however, the mutual gaze of the room swivelled onto him, all but Cullen.

Cullen, Dorian supposed, was never going to look at him ever again.

_‘Dorian_ is in no position to reveal any details until we have a firm response and plan well in place,’ Leliana said, shooting Cullen a warning look, eyebrow slightly raised. ‘And at this time, revealing details when we are seeking to contain them is precisely the wrong move. Though I am confident in the ability of _everyone_ in this room to keep the secret, Skyhold can never be entirely secure from exterior spies. For now, suffice to say that Cullen’s act would loosely be considered treasonous and that we absolutely _must _contain it from the rest of Thedas.’

‘This is extremely poor timing,’ Solas said, sounding rather put out. ‘We are in the middle of a _war. _To be forced to negotiate with a volatile outlier is the last thing we need.’

‘I agree and we will explore _all_ avenues of expediency but we cannot operate against the threat of Corypheus or any other threat if our authority is unrecognised and in dispute. In the meantime, Commander Cullen is stepping down, effective immediately.’

Dorian closed his eyes, swallowing hard.

‘What? _Why_? We cannot capitulate to that _bastard!__’_ Cassandra railed angrily. ‘Give me a party of rangers and I will hunt him down myself!’

Lavellan shook her head. ‘We can’t risk drawing him into open confrontation.’

‘Are you seriously suggesting we hand the Inquisition over to him?’

‘Of course not, Cassandra. But we have to buy ourselves time here. Cullen’s removal will appease Hawke, assure him that we are taking the threat seriously.’

Bull hummed, inspecting his fingernails with a cool expression. ‘Must be one helluva secret he’s holding onto.’

‘Indeed,’ Solas agreed. ‘I do not wish to play demon’s advocate, but if Commander Cullen is stepping down today then surely this threat becomes null and void in terms of affecting the Inquisition’s integrity.’

‘Cullen has played too integral a role in the establishment of the Inquisition to be simply be set aside like Fiona. He was a key founder of it and his…’ Leliana paused, sighing a little. ‘His _disgrace_, such as it will be perceived, is not something we can separate from. This _must_ be contained at any cost and then we will deal with Hawke.’

Blackwall crossed his arms. ‘And the other two?’

‘They’ve made their positions clear. They stand with Hawke; they fall with Hawke.’

‘Where in the fucking void is that dwarf?’ Cassandra demanded.

Lavellan cleared her throat. ‘Varric has gone to approach Hawke,’ she explained while Leliana made a faintly displeased face, a kind of motionless eye-roll. ‘To attempt to infiltrate him.’

‘Hawke won’t believe that for a second,’ Bull pointed out.

‘No, but he won’t turn Varric away either. He’ll assume he can play both sides, use Varric to his own advantage and keep him as a possible hostage.’

Leliana sighed. ‘There is no need for this.’

‘We can’t just sit around waiting for Hawke to grow impatient. At the very least, from his perspective it makes us seem desperate, willing to try anything. It will ease him into false confidence.’

Bull raised his huge hand and waved it slightly. ‘Hey, I gotta question,’ he addressed to Leliana. ‘How in the fuck did _you_ not see any of this coming?’

Leliana was entirely unfazed. ‘Perhaps I was rather preoccupied with the war we are currently waging,’ she demurred.

‘I’m pretty fucking occupied with the war too,’ he said, cocking his hip. ‘But I still follow trails and listen to whispers. You didn’t even know about Vivienne and Fiona until I brought it to you.’’

Leliana blinked and that seemed to be the end of that.

‘Let’s… try to stay on track,’ Josephine said, her hand still on Cullen’s back when he turned to face the room once more. ‘Cassandra will take over in the interim as Commander and we will begin the process of—’

‘No, I will not.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I will _not_ take over as Commander and I will not assist in some ridiculous search for any man or woman to replace Cullen. Have him step down officially and remain here in an advisory capacity. He can retain his duties in a voluntary manner, renouncing only title.’

Leliana briefly smiled. ‘That is very noble and very naive. Hawke is likely watching our every move. If we delay or give him any reason to act rashly, we will lose our window of opportunity. Cullen is leaving today, no matter what.’

Dorian wondered, by the firm set of her jaw, if Cassandra was about to say something along the lines of, ‘_then so am I,__’_ but the moment passed and she gave a resentful nod of concurrence.

‘This will greatly affect morale of the infantry,’ she pointed out grimly.

‘They will do their duty,’ Cullen said, looking down at the table again. His voice sent a painful jolt through Dorian. ‘You have nothing to fear from a mutiny. They are all good men and women, the mages among them. They fought bravely in Adamant and their devotion to our cause is unswerving.’

‘What reason will you give for leaving?’ Solas enquired.

Cullen’s fingers tapped against the table insistently, the only outward sign that he felt anything other than the forceful control he exuded. ‘I am… uncertain at present.’

‘Well,’ Solas said, inclining his head. ‘I for one am very sorry it has come to this. I hope we can remedy the situation expediently.’

‘Yes,’ Leliana said. ‘That is our hope also. In the meantime, we must continue to prepare. There is much to be done across Orlais and Ferelden and we cannot simply put everything on hold in the meantime. The Inquisitor, Solas, Bull and Sera will be heading to the Emerald Graves and everyone else here can help in regards to the maintenance of our soldiers. Blackwall and Cassandra, this will fall heavily to you both and also Dorian. You will need to continue to oversee the mages and help Cassandra and Blackwall as you did with Cullen.’

_Don__’t be sick, don’t be sick. _It was a throttling bout of nausea, the worst he’d ever felt. Dorian managed a nod and nothing else, couldn’t risk opening his mouth. Cullen’s lips were so thin, his jaw clenched hard enough that it cast a fucking shadow. Though he wasn’t looking at Dorian, it was very clear who he was thinking about.

‘Good. Then for now, we are done.’

Leliana had barely finished speaking when Cassandra stepped forward. ‘Cullen, a word?’

Cullen Rutherford, Commander no more, moved around the table towards Cassandra. To leave the room with her, he had to pass Dorian. The others gave him a respectfully wide berth, Cassandra glancing between him and Dorian as the space between them closed inadvertently.

The desire to touch Cullen was so overwhelming that Dorian almost gave into it. Just… extend his hand and touch him, try desperately to convey everything he had completely failed to explain to him back in Cullen’s cold, barren office.

Cullen slowed ever so slightly, determinedly not looking anywhere near Dorian, but it did seem like maybe, _just maybe_, he was waiting for something.

Dorian only had to form words, the thing he was best at. Just open his mouth and say something to Cullen, it was the easiest thing in the world, wasn’t it? Cullen was standing there now, utterly still, his gaze slightly nearer to where Dorian stood, statue-esque and mute, screaming internally.

But there were so many people around, milling about pretending not to stare. Cassandra was stood right between them, for Maker’s sake. He would speak with him later, Dorian swore to himself. He would say all the right things when they were alone.

Cullen didn’t wait a moment longer. Dorian saw him swallow and nod to himself, just once before he left the room with Cassandra in tow.

Dorian looked back at the table, a horrible, cold sensation swirling in the bottom of his stomach like he’d just made _another_ irredeemable mistake. Speaking with Cullen in front of everyone was a bad idea, there was no way he would risk further humiliating Cullen. No. He’d made the right choice, it just _hurt_ like a motherfucker to see Cullen leave like… like somehow Dorian had actually disappointed him even further.

The mage stared at the table where Cullen had leaned. He thought of the last time he’d been alone in there with Cullen. Crawling across the table, taking Cullen’s face in his and just… holding him. Not quite kissing, not quite _anything_. Just touching him and being allowed to touch him.

Cullen had allowed so much as time wore on. He’d opened up, shown Dorian so much of his true nature.

‘… feeling unwell?’

Blackwall was tapping Dorian’s shoulder lightly. The mage broke himself from the trance.

‘S-sorry, what?’

‘You look pale, son,’ Blackwall was saying. ‘Might want to go lie down for a bit, eh?’

Dorian looked around. Only Leliana and Josephine remained, speaking quietly as they assessed the war table, the ambassador shaking her head every now and then.

‘Um,’ he said, mind moving slowly, as though wading through treacle. ‘I don’t… what?’

‘You want me to walk you there?’

‘I would prefer a moment with Dorian, if that sits well with you,’ Leliana said, glancing up at the pair. ‘If you wish to wait outside for him, Warden Blackwall, feel free.’

Blackwall gave Dorian a firm pat on the back and a reassuring wink.

‘Dorian,’ Leliana called softly, beckoning him closer as she and Josephine continued their quiet discussion. ‘I won’t keep you but a moment.’

‘The outcrop in the lower mountains is not ideal, _but_,’ Josephine was saying. ‘It was built to be hidden from casual observers and even spies, for the mages protection obviously. The construction is not entirely complete but it will likely suffice.’

Leliana nodded. ‘Excellent, Josie. Thank you.’

Lady Montilyet gave Dorian a flicker of a smile as she left, carrying her candlelit clipboard and quill. People hurrying around everywhere, busy lives and things to do… and Dorian was just standing there, waiting for enough time to pass that he could have another chance of explaining himself with Cullen.

‘I appreciate you waiting, Dorian,’ Leliana said, bringing her attention to him. ‘Cullen has explained the situation to us in full and I wanted to clarify a few points before things proceed.’

Dorian tried to shake himself, hoping to dislodge the fog that was settling thickly in his brain. ‘Points about what?’

‘While I can see you’re in a state of… well, you’ve likely had better days, it is imperative that things go on as normal after Cullen leaves. Do you understand, Dorian? You cannot go chasing after him. You cannot pursue him. He must be allowed to leave alone and in disgrace, as I said earlier.’

That word was like a gut punch.

‘He shouldn’t have to leave that way.’

‘No, he most assuredly should not. Cullen is an exemplary man and a great Commander. Still, you will not interfere.’ She paused, fixing him with a measuring stare. ‘I would not waste my time and effort trying to keep any man alive who has decided to die. However, I ask that you give me two weeks before you make any _rash_ decisions.’

Dorian shook himself. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

‘It means precisely what you heard. Two weeks and then feel free to do as you will.’

Dorian’s looked down at the table, not daring to touch it. ‘I’ve destroyed his life. Why do you care about me preserving mine?’

‘What a ridiculous man you are if you truly believe you hold Cullen’s life entirely in the palm of your hands. Cullen has other people who care for him, who will go to _any_ lengths to protect him and ensure that he has a future.’

‘He’s leaving today.’

‘Yes, he is,’ she said sharply. ‘And you will not stop him. You will not do _anything_ for the next two weeks beyond what we ask of you.’

Though it couldn’t truly touch the lightless depths of Dorian’s agony, her sharp, brittle ire still hurt somewhat. ‘It must be nice to be proven right,’ he said bitterly. ‘I was the evil Tevinter blood mage all along.’

‘Actually, I was proven quite _wrong_, Dorian and it feels the farthest thing from nice. You have isolated yourself with purpose and acted with agency. Your determination to follow through on your own plans is often your downfall. There are people here who care about you, who you could have turned to.’

Dorian held himself together just about. ‘_You_ don’t care about me. You served me up to Cullen like a fucking entrée and paid me in healing potions.’

Leliana shook her head, a cold smile playing about her lips.

‘Yes, it’s everyone _else__’s_ fault, of course. True to form as always, Magister Pavus.’

‘I’m not a Magister.’

‘No? I thought the use of blood magic offered automatic status and initiation into the Magisterium. My mistake.’

‘No,’ he said quietly, back teeth grinding together. ‘The mistake is mine, I’m well aware.’

‘We are not friends, you and I, but I repeatedly offered you my counsel. You could simply have _asked_ me about Cullen’s letter, rather than planted a sending crystal to spy on me.’ Dorian looked at her sharply, but she was unmoved by his surprise.

‘You knew about the crystal?’

‘I’m offended you think I didn’t.’

‘You… allowed us to listen in.’

‘I _wanted_ you to hear what it was you needed. I hoped it would be enough to sate your natural curiosity; my misguided attempt to protect Cullen from your tendency to self-destruct. I already hid from him your dalliance with Hawke.’ She moved away from the table; eyes locked onto him. ‘You are _chaos_, Dorian. A whirlwind with no path. You had a path once and you were a formidable weapon. Now, you are wanton. If I have one single piece of wisdom to impart, it is this. _Ask for help_ when you fucking need it and not after the fact.’

Dorian looked away, not wanting _any_ of her advice or her attempts at scolding him. Did she really believe it could even _touch him_ after what he’d done to Cullen? After what he'd seen the man go through?

The criss-cross window framed the outside world, slowly darkening as night began to fall. The night sky would forever remind Dorian of him. Of that night outside of Adamant, tent at their backs, Cullen showing Dorian how to recognise the—

A sense of prickling realisation came upon Dorian suddenly.

‘You’ve… been keeping me here on purpose,’ he blurted out, wide eyes meeting her flat gaze. ‘You’re _distracting _me.’

‘Cullen deserves to retrieve his things and leave in peace.’

Oh, no, no, _no_.

Dorian ran flat out for the door, half careening into it. Blackwall sprang to life outside, searching for trouble but Dorian just kept on running. People were staring and complaining loudly whenever he shoved past them, but he didn’t care. He took the tower stairs two at a time, his body finally co-operating. It had not wanted to die. It had raged against telling Cullen the truth.

But _no part _of Dorian Pavus wanted Cullen to leave, body or soul.

He had to get there in time, he had to tell Cullen… fuck, he didn’t even know what he had to tell him, but he couldn’t let him leave without _something_. An apology, a promise that he _did_ love him, he loved him so much.

He collided hard with his door, shoulder radiating agony in protest as he skidded gracelessly to a halt inside. He looked around fretfully, panting wildly. The room was neat and tidy, no drawers left open, the chess set was still there, pieces arranged as they’d left them, halfway through a game.

The tiny flicker of hope died the moment he yanked one of the drawers open, though. It was emptier than it should have been. Cullen’s shirts were gone; his breeches, his socks, his smalls. His belts, the spare boots he usually kept in the corner. Dorian fell to his knees in front of the wooden chest, searching as though Cullen himself might be inside.

He’d been thorough. Taken every single piece of something that was his and left all of Dorian’s own clothes alone. Dorian looked around hopelessly, aimlessly. He caught sight of something on his bed and scrambled up, hurrying over. It was a book. _The Watchful Ambler, _Cullen’s scarlet edition. Dorian stared at it, the way it sat there, haphazard with slightly rucked covers around it as if it had been thrown. He imagined Cullen holding it, briefly debating taking it with him and then realising he didn’t want it. That it was more Dorian’s than Cullen’s now and he didn’t want _anything_ to do with Dorian ever again.

Dorian sat on the bed, clutching the book to his chest. He tried to breathe, he tried to be strong but he was just… empty. He had nothing left. It was gone with Cullen, all the best of him had walked out of Skyhold in fucking _disgrace._

The impact still had yet to fully settle. It was only just beginning, this grief. Tomorrow would be worse and then night would come and he would be alone, _alone_ when he’d just become accustomed to Cullen letting himself in, slipping out of his boots and casually slinging his mantle over Dorian’s chair. Alone would become his default state, once more. _Alive and alone,_ the way he’d been so determined to be for so long.

Dorian carefully lowered himself down on his side. He could smell Cullen there; the man’s scent imprinted into the soft, thin cotton and even inside downy filling. He turned his face into the pillow and hugged the book tight against his ribs as he began to cry.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone wants to read the full letter, here you go:
> 
> https://ibb.co/7bjX5nL  
front page of letter
> 
> https://ibb.co/ChspTYk  
back page of letter
> 
> They were way too huge to embed. I apologise if they're hard to read.


	17. Deep White Drowning

_Dorian was twenty-one and the man he loved died right in front of him. Rilenius had always been beautiful, had always been strong, but the terrible, drowning fever that came for him was stronger. _

_It was three days into their latest impromptu game of hiding from the world, took three whole days for Dorian to really believe that he was actually _sick_, because Rilenius was a clingy, gorgeous thing who loved it when Dorian fussed over him. Dorian very rarely fussed over anyone, preferred to be fussed _over_, truth be told, but Rilenius had known right away how to wrap Dorian around his little finger. _

_It had started with a cough, a tickling dry thing that just wouldn__’t go away, that he’d had for a while apparently. Dorian had rolled his eyes because Rilenius hadn’t even been sailing with his brothers in the Nocen sea for that _long, _not months at any rate. He__’d been back for a week now with a cough that didn’t impede his insatiable appetite and if he was hot and sweaty sometimes, camped out with Dorian in a darling little inn by the coast, then Dorian assumed it was his natural talents affecting the man and nothing more. _

_It was only when Rilenius started to become confused, uncertain of where he was and why he wasn’t with his brothers, that Dorian walked him to a clinic. _

_They took in Dorian's appearance; crest, rings, style, clothes, boots and staff, then looked over Rilenius, his cheaper, plainer clothes, his un-styled hair, the lack of jewels, the lack of stature. They sighed. _

_‘Serrah, we don’t attend to whores here,’ one of them addressed Dorian, ignoring Rilenius’s high pitched giggle which turned into a vicious, wet coughing fit. ‘There’s a clinic down the road, a healer named Karl who attends anyone, regardless of—’_

_Dorian wasn't sure what he screamed at them or what he offered to pay but they took Rilenius and immediately began assessing him. _

_‘What’s wrong with him?’ Dorian kept asking, desperate to know and desperate to _see_ what they were doing that would save him, so he could tell Rilenius all about it later. _I watched them bring you back, Riley,_ he would say, playing with his pretty dark blond curls. _You nearly went away from me.

_Potions did nothing, spells did nothing. More and more of them gathered around the bed and Rilenius was silent now, no more muttering of ridiculous things, no more promising that he would go _with_ Dorian if he would but ask. That he didn__’t have to join his brothers at sea if he had somewhere else to be, he didn’t even like the sea that much. It was cold at night, it bit at his chest. _

_Dorian was shoved away repeatedly and warned that if he wanted his _friend_ to live, he needed to let them work. The best healers Asariel had to offer, their voices becoming steadily more and more urgent. _

_‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Dorian demanded at one point, white hot alarm lancing through him as one of them carefully _pierced_ Rilenius__’s chest with something thin and sharp. The blond didn’t even jolt, didn’t seem to care. It had been a long time since he’d spoken now and outside the sky was dark. In the distance, Dorian could hear the sea or maybe it was just the rushing sound in his own ears. _

_‘He’s dry drowning,’ one of them said. ‘His lungs are infected, very badly.’_

_Dorian didn__’t ask any more questions after that. Didn’t want any more answers that cut him to the quick, that made words swim around his head. He would wait until they were done and Riley was fine again, then he’d tell him all about it. He would pore over medical texts and obsess until he knew everything about this_ dry drowning _because that was his way. Had always been the way with Dorian, ever since he learned that there were some things, very few, that magic wasn__’t much good for. Things that required the balance of nature, aspects of the biological and medical world. His friend, Kathryn, had lost a baby halfway through her pregnancy last year and Dorian hadn’t _understood_. She__’d taken healing potions by the plenty, spells and charms that had her cheeks glowing rosy and her heart beating stronger than ever but still the baby had slipped away. Dorian was sad for her, but that sadness had driven him to _know_. To know everything about why it had happened, what the nature of such things were. _

_‘Ser Pavus?’_

_The mage shook himself and stood hurriedly, knees almost failing him. He blinked hard, looking around. _ _‘Wh-where is he?’ Rilenius wasn’t on the bed anymore. He was probably up and walking around, laughing in that beautifully infectious way, calling for Dorian to pay the exorbitant fee that was tantamount to keeping him alive and—_

_‘Do you want us to burn him?’_

_Dorian didn__’t understand _at all**_. _**_‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m very tired, um, what do you mean?’_

_The healer who had told him to go down the road, to a place that dealt with _whores_ as if Rilenius was any such thing, _sighed _once more. __‘Your friend is dead. I’m sorry.’_

_‘No, he was on that bed over there.’_

_‘We tried everything we could. He had a very advanced infection of his lungs, likely brought about by cold and harsh conditions. It’s uncommon, especially in the Imperium. His case was very far gone. We made him comfortable.’_

_Something terrible was happening behind Dorian__’s rib cage and he _shushed_ it impatiently. The healer was clearly trying to tell him things, important things. _

_‘No, no,’ Dorian said, smiling at the man. ‘I’ll just go and see him now.’_

_‘Ser Pavus, your friend is dead. He died right here.’ _In front of you. _‘He died in his sleep. A good way to go.’_

_And Dorian just_ _… nodded. The realisation came hard and fast, acceptance out of nowhere. Maybe he had actually watched Rilenius die and just hadn’t let himself believe it until then. _

_The man spoke of burning and of coin. Dorian stared at the bed where Rilenius had been, empty and cold, and nodded through it all. Agreed to the sum, agreed to cover all costs and when the man asked, Dorian declined to inform Riley_ _’s brothers himself. They could do it, the healer offered, for an extra fee. _

_Dorian walked away, back to the room with their belongings, back to the place where he_ _’d been happy. He didn’t try to touch the thing that had snapped and broken inside him for a very long time after that. _

_*_

That night, clutching a book for comfort that did not exist, Dorian thought he might actually die of something he had long considered a myth. Something he’d often heard that women died of; abandoned by a lover, the death of a child, this physical manifestation of loss had come for them. He’d dismissed it out of hand his whole life. No one could die of a broken heart. The heart was a muscle, it could only be torn or pierced, not _broken_. That first night without Cullen, Dorian experienced a pain so extreme that he wasn’t certain he could actually survive it, but he did.

*

Dorian existed in a kind of fugue state that first day in Cullen’s official absence, unable to accept that anything was _real. _He felt almost normal if one accounted for the sensation of having been carved out like a gourd. When he met with Cassandra and Blackwall, they treated him like spun glass. Blackwall offered to take over the majority of Dorian’s duties and even Cassandra seemed to be withholding all her sternest glares while she whipped the soldiers into shape.

Dorian told them he was fine and got through the morning, holding fast to the schedule he’d constructed ever since being given charge of the mages.

Lavellan and Sera bid him farewell that afternoon, coming to check up on him before they left with Bull and Solas. He tried to act as if he was fine, but likely went too far because Sera broke out into an argument with Ellana that she should stay behind and help him. Ellana wasn’t _disagreeing_ exactly, but she insisted she needed Sera with her and the entire ordeal was painfully awkward. Dorian lost his temper at some point and loudly insisted that he was perfectly fine_ \- Look, see? Walking, talking and everything_ \- and sent them firmly on their way with no room to argue.

*

The next day was so much worse because things were slowly but surely sinking into his subconscious. One at a time, he was able to process parts of what Cullen had told him, little bits and pieces of their conversation. Some aspects were easier than others. Dorian did not yet dare to think too long on what Cullen had told him was Jassen’s true reason for suicide. It was too much, too soon and Dorian, contrary to his stupidity on the day Cullen had left, did _not_ want to die. The pain that had split him in half since the moment he realised Cullen was gone… it never left him, did not ebb, would not relent. It was there always, just like Hawke’s scar.

*

The third day, he broke down entirely. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw only Cullen’s face. The face Cullen had made while crying because he was certain that Dorian had been about to die. He heard Cullen pleading with Dorian not to leave him and those pleas mingled with Cullen’s softer, sweeter voice all those times he’d bade Dorian to stay with him, stay in the moment, stay there. Cullen had always wanted him _there_, never wanted him to leave.

It was too much. He didn’t venture from the safety of his room that day. Blackwall politely knocked and asked if he was unwell and the man graciously accepted Dorian’s shoddy lie about having come down with a cold. There was wine on the dresser but he didn’t touch it. It was a horrible, raw blur of a day. He was overcome with despair and regret and fucking bone deep loneliness. He couldn’t sleep in his bed, it still held lingering traces of Cullen’s scent, so he curled up in a cold, shaky ball on his fur rug and cried himself to sleep.

*

On the fourth day, he stared in the mirror for a long time before he smashed it with his fist, unable to stand the sight of himself anymore. All his _beautiful_ features and his _pretty _eyes. The things he prized about himself, he fucking hated them. Hated seeing the face that Cullen had stared at while having his heart broken.

His knuckles screamed, flesh torn by razor shards and the pain radiated all the way up his arm but he ignored it. He didn’t wash away the tiny fragments from his skin, didn’t wrap himself up. Just went to work training mages and soldiers. If anyone noticed blood, they didn’t dare comment.

His power was mostly unaffected by Cullen’s absence but Dorian knew that was only because of the blood magic. It wasn’t the same magic he had shared with Cullen, after all. When he conjured it, it burst forth readily and impressively; a dark shade of imperial purple, reminding him of blackberries and night storms. He did not allow himself to the mourn the loss of his lilac, of the way his magic had once been instinctive, an extension of himself. This new power inside of him was like a stranger. Obedient and considerable, but unknown. Subtly, it suggested that if he were to speak a simple incantation, he could then use that blood on his knuckles and his magic would be beyond compare. Dorian ignored it completely, wiped the blood on his clothes and got on with what was necessary.

*

On the fifth day, when Dorian rubbed over his face in the morning after another night of _not-_sleep, he felt a fair amount of stubble around his jawline and his moustache was thicker than usual. He lathered his face up and unrolled his leather-bound grooming kit. Dorian ignored all the smaller, more precise implements and went right for the straight razor. He didn’t need to look in the broken, jagged webs of mirror to see; mostly felt around and removed hair whenever he found some, fingers running over the line of that scar now and then. He shaved it away until there was nothing left. The bowl of water in front of him was pink with blood and soapy suds. He dried his face without trying to see it and went about dressing.

He didn’t don his usual outfit, brown leather, buckles and glistening metal in places one most definitely did not require metal. It was full of memories, that thing. Cullen learning how to undress him with one hand while kissing him. Cullen getting it specially cleaned for him. Cullen teasing him about Tevinter fashion and then refusing to get huffy when Dorian teased him in return about the _lack_ of Ferelden fashion in its entirety. He wore something else, an outfit he barely even looked at it was so plain. Dark grey leather, hardly any buckles at all. Different, made to blend in. Not Dorian Pavus just… some mage.

*

The sixth day had him considering all kinds of madness entirely centred around finding Cullen. He didn’t dare go to Leliana and ask such a thing, knew he would be flatly forbidden, but he felt as though he would _die_ unless he found Cullen. He had a million things to say to him, all the things he _should_ have said six days ago. If he could only find the man, _make_ him see that no matter the failure of the curse, Dorian did love him. He closed his eyes and imagined every single fucking thing he would say. He wanted it enough that he considered leaving the Inquisition entirely but for the first time, there were people who _needed_ him and without him, their lives might actually be worse off. It was a horrible feeling, obligation, and Dorian didn’t know how to cope, but he managed somehow. One breath to the next, just _existing_ was a victory.

That night, Dorian tried to understand precisely why he wasn’t dead. There was a spell Gereon had used years ago to determine the presence of the curse. Dorian remembered it, he never forgot a spell, and on that night, he recreated it. When the flower he was holding withered and turned black, it was proof positive that the curse held strong within him.

He fell asleep tormenting himself and wondering whether or not Cullen had actually been right. Did Dorian really _not love_ Cullen? Was he… incapable of such a thing? Long since broken; it made sense, he supposed.

*

On the seventh day, Dorian was lost to it all. He didn’t want to wake up, he didn’t want to get out of bed, he never wanted to move again. The anguish was crippling. He was simply overcome and it fucking _hurt_. There was a part of him that had been cut away and he was grieving the loss of it. The ache spread from his chest outward through his veins. There was no escape, no healing potion, no magical reprieve. He forced himself out of bed and into his routine, but he felt like a ghost. He understood now, how people could actually die this way. If he gave in, stayed in bed, didn’t force himself to eat and drink, he could let himself waste away until his heart gave out and it _would_ give out.

He tried to tell himself he was halfway towards whatever waited for him at the end of Leliana’s two weeks. Not because he was eager to be free of his promise to her, but because some small part of him was foolishly determined that she would have good news.

Throughout that first week, Dorian had felt Cole’s presence quite frequently. Though the boy hadn’t been visible or spoken at all, Dorian often sensed him nearby. Compassion lurking in a corner, quietly radiating what warmth he could. Dorian was too pathetic to insist that Cole leave him be, especially when he didn’t him want to.

*

On the eighth day, Dorian began to question everything that had ever transpired between him and Cullen. He went right back to that first day they’d met, tracking every single interaction since and applying his newfound knowledge of Cullen’s past, his feelings for Dorian. It devoured his attention, refused to let him put on a convincing mask for the rest of Skyhold, but his mages were becoming more and more proficient by the day and Dorian could see how easy it would be to step back entirely. It was only the younger ones, they still needed him. He knew he would already have left, were it not for them, Leliana’s _request_ be damned.

He’d always thought that Cullen had simply hated him, reasons being that Dorian was a mage and he was from Tevinter. Dorian had prodded and pushed, followed Cullen around in an obsessive state. Cullen had been desperate to keep Dorian away, not because he hated him - which, granted, he clearly had at the time - but because he didn’t want to betray Jassen’s memory. Because Dorian brought forth all kinds of feelings that Cullen stated in his letter should have been long dead.

Cullen’s life since Kinloch had been awful. Wanting to die but not having enough reasons to do so, living with the guilt of what he did to Jassen and then, the Inquisition had given him something to live for. A reason to live, that’s what he’d called it.

And then along came Dorian. The mage who tore at his defences, who insisted on pushing him beyond his boundaries with his reckless need to provoke Cullen into a real reaction. Cullen hadn’t been able to resist because… because he’d already had feelings for Dorian.

‘Did you hear me, Dorian?’

The mage blinked hard, shaking himself. Haynes was stood in front of him with a gravely concerned expression.

‘Hmm?’

‘It’s… fine,’ she said warily. ‘I shouldn’t trouble you, Ser.’

‘No, no,’ Dorian said, trying to root himself in the moment. ‘What was it, Haynes?’

She took a deep breath, her concern evident. ‘I apologise for my impertinence, but I wanted to enquire as to whether or not you’d heard from the Com—from Ser Rutherford, at all?’

Dorian mastered himself to the best of his ability. ‘I’m sorry to say I haven’t,’ he told her. ‘But I’m sure he’s…’ He was _what_? Fine? Doing great? Thinking of everyone back here in the thick of it while he wandered Ferelden alone, disgraced and exiled for all his years of service? ‘Well, he’s a survivor, isn’t he?’

Haynes sighed. ‘Some of the more senior soldiers, myself included, are concerned for his safety.’

Dorian glanced over her shoulder and saw Cassandra and Blackwall speaking with a small huddle of soldiers and mages. Cassandra kept throwing Dorian frown-heavy looks every now and then.

‘Seeker Pentaghast is really the one you should address with such… uh, concerns, Haynes.’

‘No one understands why you didn’t go with him.’

The ever-present agony, white hot and skin splitting, inside his chest gave a significant twist, sucking all the air from Dorian’s lungs. He had to leave, had to get somewhere that he could breathe and be alone, away from questions that expected answers. ‘As I said,’ Dorian forced the words out as he headed away from her. ‘Speak with Cassandra.’

When he made it back to his room, he locked the door and then slid down it, face in his hands.

*

The ninth day brought Leliana to him. He was spending time with the younger mages, Nalari and Saffy especially. It was the one place he felt even remotely safe anymore. They were endlessly chatty and they were happy not to talk about anything Dorian-Related. None of them asked about the sudden departure of the Commander, about why sometimes Dorian’s face was tear stained or why he just wanted to sit quietly in the middle of their noisy bustle.

Slowly but surely, he was becoming close with them. Nalari often sat with him, watching him while he talked with the others. Saffy liked to spend hours speaking of her ambitions for when she came of age, how she was going to Tevinter and would make enough coin to buy a place for them so that all Southern mages had somewhere to go. Landon, who clearly _liked_ Saffy, often lay on his front, mindlessly nodding along to whatever she said. Keenan was always around, hovering near the others, making sure everything was well. The youngest mage in the dorm was thirteen, a boy nicknamed Pick, whose real name Dorian learned was actually Samwick. He pretended to be sixteen and all the others supported him in the farce, but Dorian had heard him slip twice about the year he was born. He’d been the wariest of Dorian at first but recently, he stayed close to the Tevinter whenever he visited. Dorian noticed that Keenan rarely let the boy out of his sight.

It was all superbly distracting and Dorian couldn’t have been more grateful for them.

When Leliana entered the dorm on that ninth day, Dorian was alerted to her presence by the sudden hush that swept through the room. He looked over at the door and saw the Spymaster.

She glanced around and gave what Dorian supposed was her version of a friendly smile. ‘Good evening,’ she greeted. ‘Might I borrow you, Dorian?’

Dorian didn’t want to be borrowed, but he couldn’t discount the small nagging sense of hope that she had _news_ of some kind. He could feel the mass gaze of the room on him, Keenan in particular, as he left with her.

‘You seem to be doing well,’ Leliana commented as they walked the short distance to her partition of the tower. ‘Considering.’

Dorian said nothing. If she wanted to talk, she could blather on to her heart’s content as far as he was concerned, that didn’t mean he had to make idle conversation in return.

At her desk, she took a seat and gestured for him to do the same. Before her was a rather messy stack of scrolls. Dorian tried not to look at any them.

‘Before we begin, is there anything you need to say?’ Her eyes were as sharp as ever. Dorian just shook his head. ‘Very well. We had word from Hawke today.’ Dorian’s attention skyrocketed, his heart skipping. ‘His demands are not what I expected.’

‘Oh?’ he prompted impatiently.

‘He calls for the Inquisition to disband over the course of coming months.’ She gestured to the smallest scroll by her left hand with a moue of distaste. ‘He generously allows that we may still continue to fight Corypheus, but without the use of mages. It is a senseless request and I am troubled by it.’

‘Is that _all_ it said?’

‘No. It also stipulated that we are not to make any kind of contact with Cullen now that he’s left. That even with the Inquisition dissolved, we are to stay away from him entirely.’

Dorian’s eyes screwed tight for a second. ‘…why?’

Leliana shrugged slightly, a small line between her brows. ‘I am afraid that we are not seeing the entire picture, though I remain hopeful that in a few days we will know more. My suspicion is one that I would very much like to be proven wrong about.’

‘What—’ Dorian cleared his throat. ‘What happens in a few days?’

‘We shall have to wait and see, unfortunately.’

The disappointment was bitter to swallow. ‘Was that… all?’

‘_Hardly_,’ she answered, surveying him like he was a moody toddler. ‘There is much to go over. I’m sure you would like to return to your hideaway with the mages, but life goes on, as I said before.’ Her voice took on a stern quality and Dorian resisted the urge to look away.

‘Very well.’

‘While your work with the mages is fine, I have heard several troubling reports of concern for your overall wellbeing. Your appearance—’

‘Is _none_ of your concern.’

‘Be that as it may, drawing unnecessary attention to yourself is not advisable. Your foray into the use of blood magic will make you a walking target should it become public knowledge. I realise you are experiencing some sort of…’ she gestured vaguely up and down at him. ‘Grieving period, but everything needs to continue as much as it did before. The world is still very much in grave peril.’

Dorian had his legs crossed under her desk, foot bouncing and jogging rhythmically. ‘I haven’t _forgotten_ and unless my personal grooming habits are likely to interfere with the war we’re waging, I don’t see how it’s precisely fuck all to do with you.’

Leliana graced him with a half smirk, a tiny flash of amusement. ‘Good to see you’re still in there somewhere, Dorian. Very well. Let’s speak plainly, as was always our way. You look like shit and I’m still worried that you may drop dead at any given moment due to the blood curse your Father placed upon you. You were clearly suicidal last week and I see nothing to assure me that you don’t still cling to such tendencies. You used blood magic for the first time and I fear it will set you on a dark path, especially considering what has happened between you and Cullen. Also, a ridiculous amount of furniture has arrived for you today from Val Royeaux. I fear a mental breakdown from you when faced with things that you patently ordered for yourself _and_ Cullen, the double bed in particular.’

For the longest time, Dorian stared at her and she stared right back. It was like staring into a fathomless lake, into darkness itself. Leliana could open her eyes as wide as the sky and give absolutely nothing away.

When Dorian burst out laughing, however, he thought he saw a small glimpse of something resembling surprise move behind those green eyes. He immediately tried to temper the laughter, biting his lips into his mouth and swallowing the bubbling feeling but, oh dear, it was strong. His back shook with the effort of containing it, and when he put a hand over his mouth, studiously looking down, he let out an undignified, ragged snort of it.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, voice cracking as he helplessly giggled and Leliana stared. ‘Just… when you say it all together like that, it sounds rather… ridiculous.’

Leliana rolled her eyes, but Dorian could see one corner of her mouth curled again. ‘It _is_ ridiculous, no denying that I’m afraid.’

Dorian’s back was jogging with unshed peals of laughter. It was a very bright, burning kind of hilarity, being presented with all his worries in such abundantly grim fashion. He tried very hard to keep it under control.

‘All right,’ he said, holding his hands up and forcing his expression into something very _serious. _‘I look like shit, yes. I smashed my mirror and I can’t be bothered to cultivate the facial hair that makes me so devastatingly handsome anymore. I may indeed still drop dead from some kind of delayed reaction to professing aloud my feelings for Cullen Rutherford. I did indeed use blood magic, but I won’t ever do so again. My magic is changed, yes, but I feel no urgent pull to repeat the performance. I was in a terrible frame of mind when I tried to trigger the blood curse. It took me all of five seconds to realise I’d made a huge mistake and, truth be told, even though every day since then has been abject agony, I’m glad to be alive. What was the last one? Oh yes, all my new things. I’m not going to break down about that, at least, because everything I ordered for myself can just go to the mages. Maybe the older ones would like some newer things, it really doesn’t matter.’ He leaned forward, laughter still pulling at the edge of his words. ‘Your worries are all justified, but I am still _here_, Leliana and I’m not going away. I’ll try and do a better job of being Dorian Pavus if that’s what it takes. I’m _not_ going to leave,’ he added firmly, no trace of laughter that time. He stared down at her desk. ‘I promise.’

She was silent for a long moment until he looked up at her, those fathomless eyes fixed upon him. ‘I see,’ was all he got.

He uncrossed his legs and clapped his thighs. ‘Right, well, if _that__’s_ all?’

‘Unfortunately, no,’ she said and he couldn’t stop himself from tutting loudly. ‘The delivery inventory contained specific instructions for certain boxes. As _your_ items were the only ones with such instructions, they were already delivered to your room and assembled this morning.’

Dorian crossed his arms. ‘I didn’t detail instructions with the order.’

Leliana handed him an inventory list, the Val Royeaux shop name stamped neatly at the top. He scanned the list and saw, precisely as she’d said, every piece of furniture he’d ordered for himself had a small symbol by it which, at the bottom, explained it was to be delivered directly to Dorian’s quarters.

‘What’s this one?’ he asked, frowning at the last item, no description, just the reference _#208_.

‘If you need the furniture to be removed, I can arrange—’

‘What the fuck is it, Leliana?’

‘I was told it was a book.’

Dorian snarled and left without another word.

*

His Father had left no note, save to instruct that Dorian’s copy of _The Watchful Ambler_ be sent to his room along with everything else of his. Dorian’s room was full of lovely new things and it set his blood _boiling_. The double bed was huge, neatly stacked with wrapped piles of fresh silk sheets and turquoise velvet quilts, two additional pillows beside them. There was a table, big enough for two to sit and eat together along with two high-backed chairs, carved in an elegant design. A wider chest of drawers with wrought iron handles, a cloak stand, a shoe rack, another bookshelf, a new rug and at least two dozen beautiful, little things like candle holders, cushions, plates, glasses and cutlery.

Dorian tried to keep it out, that bittersweet agony. There was a chance to be _angry_ and he couldn’t pass it up just because his heart was breaking all over again. He looked around for it, determined to seek out and locate the worn blue cover of his—

Mother_fucker_.

Dorian’s book sat alone on the new, otherwise empty bookshelf. He stalked over to and glared. He hadn’t seen it in over six years, but he would know it anywhere.

So, this was it? This was the big gesture. Halward’s attempt to sneak the book into his room by expediting the delivery of the things he _knew_ were Dorian’s. How in the _fuck_ had he seen the order list? Halward was his father and could likely recognise which things were intended for his son simply by the sight of them, but … did that mean he’d _gone_ to Val Royeaux?

The mage dismissed the notion, abruptly uncaring. His Father might have had business there, it was no concern of his.

Dorian snatched the book down, the rough, worn cover instantly familiar. He flipped through it to make sure there was no _note_ from his Father or anything else besides. He’d learned his lesson there, at least.

When nothing fell out, he slammed it back onto the shelf and left it there. Though the furniture was assembled, everything was out of place. He toyed with the idea of having it all removed but a pang of guilt struck a fracture through his otherwise pleasantly bracing bout of righteous anger. He had no idea how long it had taken the people (whoever they were) to get this stuff up here. He couldn’t stomach the idea of having it removed simply because it was a collective inanimate testament to his shattered, stupid dreams, though it was a near thing.

*

The tenth day saw Dorian drinking wine with Cole at night while the pair sat on Dorian’s new bed. Cole was patient and apparently rather sweet when Dorian was mired in soul-crushing despair. The mage had the distinct impression that Cole had been given the task of keeping an eye on Dorian by Lavellan and Sera, but that didn’t make him any less grateful for the company.

‘Why—’ Dorian asked, shaking his head slightly as his throat clenched. He cleared it and tried again. ‘Why didn’t the curse kill me?’

Cole was stroking the stem of a brand-new wineglass.

‘Blood plays tricks,’ he answered after a moment. ‘I will not see him throw his life away like this. I will make him better; he will be grateful. He will be happy. Men will only hurt him; men will only break him. My son deserves a chance to be normal.’

Dorian sighed, having long ago given up trying to keep Cole’s thought stream on track. ‘Do I not… am I incapable of love?’

The pale boy looked at him and blinked. ‘That seems rather silly, doesn’t it? Have you ever loved anything like you loved Cullen?’

Dorian drank more wine. ‘No.’

‘It’s not your fault he wasn’t looking, Dorian. He didn’t _see_.’

‘Cullen was too good to see what a liar I was,’ Dorian mumbled in agreement. ‘Was it because I used blood magic? Did it cancel out the curse? No, that’s not right. I can still feel it.’ Cole was staring up at the ceiling. Dorian smiled sadly, deciding to let it go. ‘What’s up there, Cole? Something nice?’

‘Stars,’ Cole commented softly. ‘They sing sometimes, though it takes many years to reach us.’

Dorian nodded slowly, staring at the pinprick scar on his index finger. ‘What are they singing?’

‘A requiem. It’s quite lovely. Eight of nine corners are sorry for you, they show colours of sadness. Not everyone wears black to mourn. It was inevitable, that’s what they sing. I wish you could hear it.’

‘You’re actually quite a sweet thing, aren’t you?’

‘Compassion is not sweet, but it can be soft.’

The word made Dorian swallow reflexively. _The soft one_. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I suppose it can be.’

Cole sipped his wine. ‘Nicknames are strange, aren’t they? Varric uses them to make friends, some use them to make people small, others to keep distance. The soft one, the sharp one. He was so different then, but death changes a great many things. Look back and even green is hued pink, rosy coloured and favourable. Fur will trap body heat, but it cannot make you _warm_. He doesn’t mind the cold, never did. He misses your magic. _That_ was warm and it rested inside of him. It was _you_. It was always you, mage.’

A hot flush shot through Dorian, stilling his movements and clawing at his heart. _Cullen_, he had to be speaking of Cullen.

‘Is he… all right?’ he asked in a cautious whisper.

Cole closed his eyes. ‘There’s a fire, but it’s small and it leaves him aching in the morning. There’s a hole in his chest, carved and hollow, briefly filled and now empty once more, it bleeds but he is strong. He can…’ Cole frowned, pausing. ‘No, Cullen, you cannot sew or seal it. The water will come again, dark water that floods the way for the monster to travel. If you seal it, you will not be able to light a candle underwater. Only magic can make light at such depths.’

‘Why do you always say that?’ Dorian enquired quietly. ‘About the candle?’

‘I don’t know,’ Cole said, looking sad. ‘When I try to warn people, it… doesn’t come out like I want it to. They misunderstand or they ignore me and then it’s worse. I can’t make the words as you do, not when it’s important.’

Dorian watched him earnestly. ‘I misunderstood you before, some part of me did it wilfully, I think. I won’t make that mistake again. Whatever you tell me, I’ll take heed of.’

Cole seemed doubtful. ‘Sometimes I get confused.’

‘I know you do, but that doesn’t matter. I won’t be angry or impatient anymore. Anything you tell me, I’m grateful for.’ Dorian stared down determinedly. ‘I’m grateful for _you_, Cole. Your kindness means a lot to me.’

Cole patted Dorian’s knee. ‘You’re a candle,’ he said.

Dorian smiled, couldn’t help it. ‘Well, all right then. I’m a candle. Candles are rather nice, I’ll take that. They’re bright and warm, they don’t last very long and they’re a bugger to light if you’re human plus they can be messy. Hmm, actually that’s pretty dead on, isn’t it?’

‘Cullen is a lake.’

‘Cullen is a lake,’ Dorian echoed dutifully. ‘I’m a candle and Cullen is a lake. You can’t light a candle underwater without… magic?’

Cole broke into a wide smile. _‘Yes_!’ he burst out so suddenly that Dorian almost fell off the bed. ‘Yes, you see? You just have to be bright enough and it will burn through all the water. I know it’s a lot of water; Cullen is a very deep lake, but you were doing it before and you can do it again.’

‘Are you talking about… feelings?’ Dorian asked very gently. ‘Is the deep lake a metaphor for Cullen’s feelings?’

The smile vanished abruptly. ‘No, no, no! Metaphors are _bad_. I’m trying not to use them anymore; everything becomes twisted and lost. Yes to no and no to never.’

‘Ah, so that’s a very literal lake then?’

‘A lake is a crater filled over time. At the bottom there’s a monster, but it’s deep beneath the water. Down where light can’t penetrate. It’s hiding there, in the darkness and the silence. You were filling it with light. Your thread carried light; the monster did not like that.’

‘There’s a monster?’

Cole frowned intensely. ‘I wish… I could see it. I can hear it whisper in Cullen sometimes. Claws and teeth and a long tail, dragging him deeper, keeping him away from the surface. Leliana is sharp and when things are unclear, she digs and digs until clarity forms. Her hands are red with mud and brown with blood. She knows the difference. I never can tell.’ He sighed, seeming defeated. ‘I’m sorry, Dorian. It’s hard for me.’

‘Don’t apologise,’ Dorian said kindly. ‘You don’t have to try and help me. Maybe… maybe I can help you.’

Cole blinked in that owlish, curious manner of his. ‘Help _me_?’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, setting the wine glass aside on his new beside table. ‘You’re always trying to help everyone, so perhaps, for once, I can help you with whatever you need.’

Considering his answer, Cole said, ‘I don’t think I need help.’

‘Hmm, all right. What about friendship?’

‘What does that entail?’

‘Well, you’re already good friends with Ellana and Sera. I can be your friend too. Friends listen to each other and they’re…’ Dorian swallowed; expression carefully neutral. ‘Honest with each other. You once said it’s painful to keep things inside. Well, you can talk and I’ll just listen to everything. You needn’t try and shape it into sense.’

‘It _is_ painful sometimes, the things inside me.’

‘So, talk to me.’ Dorian shuffled back into his nest of pillows and rested his head, eyes closing. ‘I’ll lay here and you can just talk. I’m listening.’

‘That’s compassion, Dorian. Do you realise?’

‘Maybe I’m just getting soft.’

*

On the eleventh day, Dorian realised that his progress, such as it were, had plateaued. He looked around at his life, at the routine he clung to, at the people he relied upon to keep him distracted, at the food he barely ate and the bed he hardly slept in. This, he realised… this was as good as it was ever to get for him now.

And at the peak of this plateau, able to see things so clearly for the first time in almost two weeks, Dorian experienced a new kind of despair. He’d been focusing on getting through each day, on keeping himself going. Now that he’d managed to do that, keep his head above water, this was what awaited him.

Distractions. Small comforts. Anything to detract from how _empty _he was without Cullen. Anything to keep himself from slipping into a coma of fucking misery without the man he loved. He missed Cullen beyond his previous understanding of the word. It was like being made Tranquil, or how he imagined it anyway. Cut off from a part of himself, made to learn to live without it.

Skyhold was a museum of memories and Dorian had to reside there. Everywhere he went, he saw Cullen. In hallways where Cullen had come upon him to gift hard, deep kisses, in shadowy nooks where Dorian had spied on him, in the bracing, open spaces and _anywhere_ high.

Dorian didn’t dare go near what had once been Cullen’s office. He knew Cassandra and Blackwall operated from there, but he avoided it entirely.

He had things to do, things that people needed him for and that was enough to keep him going _but_… that was the extent of his life now. After the sun set, he would be lucky to spend a few hours with Cole, letting the boy say all kinds of things aloud while Dorian basked in the white noise of his nonsense. There had once been a time when being alone was good. Time to work on translations of crumbling, fading texts, time for research, time for fucking around and pushing his luck with men far stronger than him. It had been exciting, _once_.

Now, it felt like a prison sentence. Time… _alone_. Time… _without_.

Dorian would be alone and he deserved it, but the realisation on that eleventh day was hard to swallow. He had experienced something wonderful and it had changed everything for him. His perspective was blown wide, shaped by elements of love and respect, of desire and fucking _caring_.

Now that it was gone, Dorian’s free time was only ever going to be filled with bitter things. Reflections of missed opportunities, missteps, times when he could have done something different that might have resulted in Cullen standing behind him then, hands clasped around his middle. Could have had the Commander showing him the stars and how to read them, Dorian pretending he didn’t already know the names, barely holding back the urge to tease Cullen’s patently made up ones.

_Free time_ just served as a painful, agonising reminder of what might have filled it, had things been different.

*

The twelfth day, Dorian was confronted with inescapable melancholy. His subconscious railed against the organised structure that had sustained him thus far, unable to prioritise anything beyond the fucking _hole _inside him a moment longer. He was rendered useless for the entire day to the extent where even Blackwall, endlessly patient and occasionally quite fatherly towards Dorian, almost lost his temper when the mage didn’t duck in time during training, earning him a solid whack around the head with a shield.

He took Dorian aside and _not-_yelled at him, dark eyes flashing as he growled about things life _safety_ and _focus, _only to give up when Dorian couldn’t offer him more than a locked jaw and a stiff nod.

‘I know you miss him,’ Blackwall sighed. ‘Anyone can see that, but we _need_ you to do this with us. These mages, they trust you more than anyone else. Lead them, Dorian. _Teach_ them.’

Dorian wanted to demand what exactly someone like him could _teach_ anyone. How to fuck up their entire life? How to push people away? How to lie and sneak around in the shadows creating chaos?

How to use blood magic?

Instead he forced himself to say, ‘I’m sorry. I’ll do better.’

Blackwall winced, seeming to regret his harsh tone. ‘Just don’t want to see you more hurt than you already are.’

Instinctively, Dorian knew it was a bad idea to be alone when he felt like this, but he couldn’t bear to inflict himself on anyone. He hid in his room, read Cullen’s copy of _Ambler, _and let himself think about all the best parts of being with him. It felt incredibly self-indulgent, huddled on his side, thumbing through that book, recalling every single line Cullen had ever read aloud to him and a hundred other aspects of the time they’d shared. But he needed it, needed to contemplate what he’d lost and grieve for it, let it out, even if it was a tiny fraction of his true devastation.

He’d lost track of time a while before someone knocked on his door. In truth, he’d been sort of dozing off in a teary haze. Sadness was exhausting. It made him constantly _cold_, instinctively seeking to curl up into a ball and hide somewhere warm and dark.

He ignored the knock the first time, but when it came again, followed by Keenan’s quiet voice calling out his name, Dorian knew he had to answer.

‘One moment.’ He sat up, body protesting at the loss of warmth and comfort. He wiped his eyes but knew there was no way of hiding the fact that he’d been crying. Heart heavy, he opened the door for Keenan.

‘Hi,’ the young man greeted, brown eyes showing no surprise at the state of Dorian. Keenan was very rarely surprised by anything. ‘Can I come in?’

Dorian stepped aside. ‘Of course.’

‘It’s cold in here,’ Keenan observed, pointing at the balcony doors. ‘You want me to shut them for you?’

‘Uh, no,’ Dorian said, trying to amass his features into those of a normal person. ‘Thank you. I… don’t have anything to offer you, I’m afraid.’

Keenan turned to Dorian, an inscrutable expression in place. ‘You’re always saying that. You needn’t offer me _anything_, I’m not a guest. Do the others have food and drink stored away in their bedroom to offer visitors?’

Keenan’s tone was almost sharp. Dorian didn’t know quite what to make of it. He rubbed the back of his neck, silently cursing himself only a moment later, and then gestured uselessly to the table and two chairs.

‘I suppose it’s the Tevinter in me,’ Dorian said, in a shockingly accurate impression of himself. ‘Raised with manners that most Southerners find preposterous. What’s on your mind, Keenan? Is everything all right?’

Dorian was about to sit down when he realised Keenan had made no move to do the same. He was standing a small distance from Dorian, staring at him.

‘I’m sorry that you’re sad,’ Keenan said after a beat. ‘I’m sorry he’s made you… sad.’ The young mage seemed to deliberate about what word to use and settled with repeating himself, frowning slightly.

‘That’s most kind of you, Keenan.’

‘I’m not being kind,’ the boy said quickly. ‘I _am_ sorry for you, that’s all. You don’t deserve to be sad.’

Dorian gave a dry, miserable kind of chuckle and plonked himself down heavily in one of the chairs, resting his forearm on the table, fingers tapping away. ‘I’m afraid that’s not true.’

Keenan took a single step towards him. ‘You’re a good person,’ he said, stating it like it was fact. ‘You deserve to be happy.’ Crying for so long had invited the arrival of a thunderous headache. Dorian was pinching the bridge of his nose and debating whether or not he was brave enough to have a bath when Keenan said, ‘I can make you happy if you want.’

By some previously unknown strength, Dorian did _not_ allow his entire being to freeze in shock. He mastered himself, took hold of every reaction bar the slight widening of his eyes which absolutely couldn’t be helped.

He stood quickly and found that Keenan had silently moved directly in front of him. As Dorian stood, his knees brushed Keenan’s, he was that close.

‘No,’ he said, in a clear, strong voice. ‘You don’t need to do that.’

Keenan was unreadable, looking up at Dorian and giving nothing away. There was nothing to guide Dorian, no hint of a trail to trace where this was coming from, though the mage knew it likely stemmed from a sense of something awful like _obligation_.

‘Maybe I want to do that.’

‘Keenan,’ Dorian said, having to step sideways around the young man to put space between them. ‘There are just about a hundred reason why it—’

The younger mage grabbed Dorian’s face, hands planted gently on either side and pulled him down into a soft kiss. It happened too fast for Dorian to prevent it. Keenan’s lips parted slightly, tongue swiping over Dorian’s. It felt like an invitation rather than an actual _initiation_ of something. A kind of _would you like to _more than _I would like to_. An offering.

Dorian pulled away, lowering Keenan’s hands by the wrists.

‘No,’ he repeated just as strong as before, but not so loud.

Keenan cocked his head slightly as though Dorian’s refusal was confusing.

‘It doesn’t have to mean anything,’ he further offered. Dorian almost wanted to laugh but he wasn’t sure he was ever going to laugh again; things were so fucking dire. ‘It’s fine to make each other feel good sometimes.’

That did it. Something pulled and tore inside Dorian and oh wonderful, now he was crying all over again but for entirely different reasons. He dropped his head into his hands, back heaving once or twice. Keenan’s hand came to rest on his shoulder.

‘You made the mistake we all make at first,’ Keenan was saying as Dorian once more tried to get hold of himself. ‘It’s hard not to fall for the pretty ones.’

Dorian sighed wetly and sat down again, opening his mouth to say all kinds of amazingly _adult_ things but Keenan took his weakness for opportunity and slung his leg across Dorian’s, sliding into his lap with more grace than Dorian had ever seen the young man exude and he took Dorian’s mouth in a bruising kiss.

Dorian let out an indignant squeak which the younger mage swallowed, slipping his tongue into Dorian’s mouth and curling his hands around his neck, scissoring them closer. It was a moment of pure white shock for Dorian, he was rendered useless and frozen beneath all of Keenan’s _talent_ and determination.

And among the reasons he’d tried to explain to Keenan earlier, the hundred reasons why this was never going to happen, the most prevalent was swimming in Dorian’s mind, drawing every part of his nervous system into the panicked swirl.

_Not Cullen, not Cullen, not Cullen. _

When Dorian tried to pry Keenan away, he clung harder, deepening the kiss. Dorian didn’t have time to be struck by how well Keenan kissed him, by how he expertly dragged his nails over Dorian’s skin, applied pressure just so by grinding down—

‘Mmmph, _nnngh_!’ Dorian tore his face to the side out of Keenan’s surprisingly strong grip. ‘I’m sorry, but no.’

Keenan wasn’t breathless, though there was a delicate flush about him. Pale cheeks filled with colour in a way that almost hurt because fucking Maker, would everything remind Dorian of _him_ for all time? Keenan bit his bottom lip, blue eyes staring down into Dorian, searching.

‘I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to,’ he told Dorian, slightly defensive. ‘It’s fine between friends.’

The part of Dorian that wanted to take a moment and feel _honoured_ that Keenan considered him a friend was shunted right to the back of the mage’s mind. Dorian carefully stood, lifting Keenan by the waist and setting the young man on his feet. ‘I understand that, believe me. I’ve had enough no-strings sex to last me several lifetimes.’

‘I’m not your type,’ Keenan guessed, still somewhat confused by Dorian’s refusal. ‘Is that it?’

Dorian ground the heel of his hand into his left eye, sighing.

‘Keenan,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing to do with you. Putting aside the fact that sex should _not_ be a transaction and also the fact that you and the others are in my care and I would die before I hurt or took advantage of _any_ of you…’ Dorian took a deep breath and put a few feet of distance between them. ‘I’m completely in love with Cullen.’

Dorian didn’t know what he’d expected. Keenan’s expression was void of comprehension right up until it wasn’t. Then he simply wrinkled his nose at Dorian and shook his head.

‘You weren’t just using him?’

‘No,’ Dorian breathed, hoping that they were understanding each other at last.

‘You were… _with_ him, then?’

‘I’m not saying it was sunshine and roses, far from it, but my feelings for Cullen were—_are _genuine.’ Despite what certain fucking _blood curses _had to say about it. ‘I appreciate the gesture,’ Dorian added. He deliberated in the moment, wondering if he should passively normalise such behaviour or risk alienating the young man by drawing attention to it. ‘I have a friend who would likely have offered the same thing if he was here,’ he said, settling for the former.

Keenan’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t have to patronise me.’

‘I’m not.’

‘It’s only sex.’

Dorian tried not to let anything show in his face. ‘I know that.’

‘Well, fine then. I just wanted to make you feel better.’

‘You can,’ Dorian said quickly, because he knew from experience how it felt to be rejected and then left _alone_. ‘You can stay and help me organise things.’

Keenan blinked, surprised. ‘Eh?’

Dorian gestured around the room. ‘These things are all in the wrong places,’ he said as if it wasn’t obvious. ‘I need to move them so they’re not so… wrong.’

‘And you want my help?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind, maybe the others too,’ Dorian added, everything as _casual_ as he could make it. Keenan’s trust was hard won and like _fuck_ was he going to lose it by being dismissive or inflicting any kind of insecurity upon the younger mage. ‘It needs to be different in here.’

He could feel Keenan watching him, _weighing_ him. Keenan was older than Dorian in so many respects, all but years, and the mage felt it then, the length and depth of Keenan’s stare as the younger mage evaluated Dorian.

‘All right,’ he said, much to Dorian’s intense relief. ‘Let’s make it different.’

*

On the thirteenth day, Dorian spent the evening in his newly arranged room with Saffy, Landon, Pick and Nalari. The full dorm of all thirteen younger mages had eaten with him in his room, examining the balcony and making requests to use Dorian’s bath the next day. It had been a bustling event; Dorian’s large room had felt almost cramped with them buzzing around it.

Most of them wanted to go back to their newly furnished dorm after dinner and Keenan went with them, even though Dorian could tell he wanted to stay with the other four.

Things between them had slipped back into normalcy with shocking ease. Dorian hated his sickly relief that Keenan genuinely didn’t seem to harbour actual feelings for him. He’d offered himself in the spirit of comfort and to Keenan, there was nothing unusual about that. He seemed to consider Dorian strange for refusing, clearly exasperated with the mage having gone and developed _feelings_ for Cullen.

Dorian had never been so grateful to be born in Tevinter.

‘Why do you have two copies of the same book?’ Saffy asked, trailing her fingertips over the spines of his books. ‘_The Watchful Ambler,__’ _she read out slowly, sounding each of the letters out. ‘Is it your favourite?’

Dorian managed something that was almost a smile. ‘It is, actually.’

‘What’s it about?’ Landon asked lazily.

‘Well,’ Dorian began. ‘It’s about a man—’

‘Is there fighting?’ Pick asked brightly. ‘And killing?’

‘Um, to an extent.’

‘Why have you written all over the blue one?’

Dorian jumped up off the bed, making a beeline for the girl as she careful leafed through the pages. ‘It’s a frightfully dull book,’ he told Saffy, trying to contain his need to snatch the blue copy, _his_ copy, away from her. Fucking void, he should have thrown it in the fire. She placed it back on the shelf, unruffled by his reaction. ‘I do the same thing sometimes,’ she whispered as Dorian pushed the book back a final quarter inch, as if he was making it somehow _more_ secure on the shelf. ‘It’s like adding yourself to the story, isn’t it?’

‘Read us something!’ Pick requested before Dorian could answer. ‘Something with lots of fighting!’

‘Something romantic!’ Landon added.

‘No, something adventurous!’ Saffy whined, scanning the titles.

Dorian looked to the quiet, self-contained girl sat at the foot of his bed. ‘What about you, Nalari, any requests?’

She smiled, that pretty young mage and shook her head. ‘I don’t mind what you read. I just like your voice.’

And that was how Dorian ended up falling asleep with a book open on his chest, four mages curled up around him like contented kittens, Nalari’s head resting on his thigh from where he’d been stroking her hair. For the first time in almost two weeks, Dorian truly slept.

*

Dorian had zero patience for preamble. ‘It’s been two weeks.’

Leliana was distracted, poring over a set of papers. ‘Yes, it has.’ As he waited, barely containing himself, birds cawed and crowed. Leliana wore a deeply ingrained frown, denting the space between her eyebrows to the point where it might have become permanent.

‘It’s been two weeks and I’ve done as you said.’

Leliana pulled herself away from what seemed to be a very small, cramped handwritten note on a tiny scroll, the kind of thing from a messenger bird. ‘It’s worse than I thought,’ she told him grimly.

Dorian’s stomach plummeted. ‘How so? Is Cullen… he’s not hurt or…?’

‘Cullen is fine for the time being,’ she answered, but that frown didn’t relent. ‘He’s unharmed and free of capture, at the very least.’

_‘Capture_?’

Dorian watched as Leliana closed her eyes. She seemed to be thinking and while he didn’t _want_ to interrupt her, there was simply no way to stop himself.

‘I want to go to him.’

She didn’t open her eyes. ‘No.’

‘It’s been two weeks.’

‘No, Dorian.’

‘I’ve done everything you asked of me.’

‘You can’t go to him.’

‘You can’t actually _stop me_,’ Dorian ground out. ‘I can leave, you know. I’m not a Commander or a Spymaster. I _can_ leave.’

When she opened her eyes, Leliana immediately scribbled something on a densely packed page of notes. Dorian watched her, his patience eroding by the second.

‘Look, I’m aware you’re busy and all—’

‘We are not where I hoped we would be at this point,’ she told him, still scribbling. ‘Lavellan and the others have been delayed greatly in the Emerald Graves and now they must journey to Emprise de Lion without returning here first. There has been an enormous influx of activity—’

‘I’m going to find him.’

‘No, you are not. Hawke has forbidden us to make contact with Cullen and we are not in a position of confidence to act yet. Cullen knew all of this when he left.’

Dorian could feel sharp, corrosive anger eating away at what remained of his ability to contain himself. ‘Why did you tell me to wait two weeks? Dangling a carrot to keep me alive?’

‘Would that truly be such a bad thing?’

‘_Leliana_.’

‘Oh, for Maker’s sake, sit down, will you? Standing there like you’re about to burst into a love-stricken monologue. I’ll explain what I can.’

It was only burning curiosity that made him take a seat, the same place he’d been when the Spymaster had told him that he needed to offer himself to Cullen and prepare to be hurt in the wake of it. The same place a few days ago when he’d burst out laughing from the sheer stupidity of a summary of his life.

‘It’s worse because we know far less than I hoped to learn by this two-week marker. By now, I expected to have made headway to uncovering Hawke’s true motive.’

‘His motive is that he’s an enormous fucking _prick_ who wants to destroy what he can’t control. Why are you expecting anything more?’

‘Dorian, I’m going to tell you something and in trusting you with this, I am aware that your instinct to run to Cullen will increase tenfold, but I need you to remain strong as you have done for the past two weeks. Yes?’

The mage considered. Information in exchange for more shackles, more restraint. His need to find Cullen, to explain everything to him, was powerful and ever present, central to the razor thorn of _ache_ in his chest. But… if Cullen was in danger, that mattered more.

‘Yes,’ he agreed reluctantly, knowing full well he’d just bought himself more time behind bars.

The Spymaster stood abruptly. ‘Follow me, then.’

*

As she led him out of the castle and down a predestined path around the mountain, Dorian couldn’t help but worry that this might be a trip from which he would never return. In the soft dusk of twilight, tiny feathery snowflakes dancing in the air around him, he tried to tell himself that Leliana would not have gone to such trouble to keep him alive, only to then take him somewhere and kill him.

‘Here,’ she said at last and the mage let out a tense breath. She’d led him to a recently excavated kind of outcropping in the base of the mountain. At the narrow entrance, she held out her hand. ‘Wait here.’ He watched her vanish inside and heard her softly speak the word, ‘_Partha,__’_ and a gentle rustle of air blew out through the obscured entrance. ‘Come inside.’ The mage followed with trepidation, blinking in the gloom. It reminded Dorian of a cavern; man-made, dug deep and wide. Leliana lit a few torches, revealing the breadth of the chamber. It was easily the size of the Great Hall though markedly colder. Dorian tasted wet earth and damp stone.

‘This is where you’ll teach the younger mages,’ Leliana said, placing another freshly lit torch back in its sconce. ‘We’ve made it very secure, though it would not appear so to a casual observer.’

_‘How_ is this secure?’ He thought of Hawke, glamoured and hiding in that room beneath the waterfall the entire time Dorian performed the ritual, watching as Dorian read Cullen’s letter.

Leliana guided him to the centre of the room. ‘Dagna has entirely outdone herself,’ she said. ‘Observe.’

Dorian watched as Leliana removed a necklace, a long thin chain with something round and circular hanging from it, a kind of coin. She knelt and pressed the coin into a small groove in the rough, stone floor. ‘Salroka,’ she said, perfectly accented, and something like a mild shockwave erupted from the epicentre of the coin. A thin, tight blast of air and light swept over Dorian, bounding around the walls of the cavern, illuminating the rocks faintly in patches of varying blue. He looked around, lips parted.

‘The chamber is… enchanted?’

‘Enchanted and highly intelligent. Dagna has imbued it with a complex form of Dwarven magic. It has been built specifically to recognise those who are deemed trusted friends by the keyholder,’ she indicated to herself as she donned the necklace once more. ‘It responds to words. I have named you a friend and it has recognised you as such. You may now come and go as you please if you speak the entry word, _partha_. When you leave, speak _kallak_ and the chamber will arm itself against anyone who is not known. Once inside, it is impossible to be heard or infiltrated from the outside.’

Dorian turned slowly, marvelling in the complexity of such intricate magic. ‘It’s _alive_, isn’t it?’ he said, watching the blue light filter through the rock like sunlight on dewy webs. His magic was responding to it, observing it curiously.

‘That is essentially what Dagna explained, yes. Construction is thus far unfinished, there are additions to be made, but for now it will suffice as a place to speak freely without fear of being overheard.’

‘Speak plainly, then, Spymaster.’

Leliana surveyed him evenly. ‘For a long time now, I have suspected that something, or likely some_one_, has been circling Cullen.’

‘You mean Hawke?’

‘No, not Hawke. If his demand had been to instil himself into a position of power, I may have believed that. I confess to having _hoped_ for that.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘Hawke gains nothing from disbanding the Inquisition. He will lose his leverage over us. His demands are, therefore, not his own.’

‘How does this relate to Cullen?’

‘Ever since the inception of the Inquisition, I’ve observed a sharp spike in what we call _interest_ in Cullen. Skyhold is filled with spies. Some of them are useful to me, their ineptitude is such that they can be used and observed that we know who would seek to undermine us. I allow them to stay in the place of better, more talented spies, you understand?’

‘I… not really, but all right. Better the demon you know, I suppose?’

‘Precisely. The level of interest in Cullen was substantial right from the start. Cullen had made a name for himself in Kirkwall. I assumed it was rebel mages at first, seeking vengeance. After Haven and in the wake of the alliance, the interest peaked drastically. There were attempts made on his life, some of them resulting in genuinely close calls.’

‘Cullen is aware of this?’

‘Of course. Even if I wanted to keep from him such information, he himself has been the victim of several attacks. You witnessed one such attack yourself on the way back from Halamshiral. That assault was the closest I came to identifying the source of the interest, but they slipped from my grasp.’

‘We were _all_ attacked that time, how do you know Cullen was the primary target?’

‘My search led to me a cage,’ she explained grimly. ‘It was intended to hold a man. I believe it was for Cullen.’

Dorian could barely hear her over the rushing sound in his ears. ‘So, all of this… is to isolate Cullen from the Inquisition?’

‘I believe so. To ensure he has no place left to return, no friends to help him. Hawke,’ Leliana gave a short, tight sigh. ‘Has a _master_. It is the very last thing I hoped for. Hawke is highly dangerous and capable. He alone would have made for a formidable opponent but this is so much worse. The enemy unseen has a distinct advantage over us. Distance and shroud are master weapons.’

Dorian lifted his hand, it was shaking. ‘You’re… you sent Cullen away to draw this thing out, didn’t you?’

Leliana was all stone. ‘It was his idea.’

Swearing fluently, Dorian rubbed a hand over his mouth. ‘Does Lavellan know?’

‘She does not. I will inform her as soon as she returns. I cannot risk such information being intercepted. It is critical that Hawke and his master assume we remain in the dark. That’s why Cullen had to leave. They assume that if we knew, we would never risk turning him loose.’

‘But you _do _know and he’s still out there, vulnerable and alone!’

‘Alone perhaps, but hardly vulnerable. Cullen is a proficient ranger, fully capable of travelling fast and evading tracking.’

‘Let me find him,’ Dorian asked in a quiet voice. _‘Please_.’

‘He is safer alone.’

‘Safer without me, you mean?’

‘Dorian, what do you imagine would happen if you went to him? Say you found him, which you would _not_ be able to, what do you honestly believe would happen?’

‘There are things I need to tell him.’

‘Your attempts to find him would likely lead any pursuer right to him.’

‘I… _fuck_.’ Dorian hadn’t thought of that. ‘But he shouldn’t be out there alone! Bring him back here where he’s safe, at the very least!’

‘We cannot risk the letter becoming widely known.’

‘Fuck the letter! Fuck the Inquisition! If it’s disbanding anyway, where is the impetus to capitulate to such demands? We may as well forge onwards and allow Hawke to spill Cullen’s secrets as he wishes!’

Leliana rolled her eyes. ‘Think clearly for a _moment_. We must play along with Hawke’s demands but that does not mean that we are going to give in. The Inquisition is all that stands between Corypheus and doom upon all the world. Once we have the letter and Hawke himself, we can reinstate Cullen immediately.’

Hope flared bright and painful. ‘Reinstate him? Lavellan said he would need to leave either way.’

‘She is wrong,’ Leliana stated flatly. ‘And I will make her see it. She carries the weight of this organisation and her strength is nothing short of impressive but she requires guidance from her advisors. She is young, still. Cullen is essential for so many reasons. Once we secure the threat to his reputation he _will_ return.’ She looked Dorian dead in the eye. ‘I swear to you, Dorian. I will bring him back.’

Dorian held her gaze. ‘Why is Cullen essential?’

‘You will likely find it distasteful.’

‘Shock me, why don’t you?’

Leliana’s mouth twisted slightly, her eyes darkening. ‘I do not anticipate that Ellana Lavellan will survive this war. She is brave and selfless. There will come a moment, as it did in Haven. Luck can only take her so far. Her fate is bound to the anchor.’

Something sour slid down Dorian’s throat. ‘You want Cullen to _replace_ her.’

‘If the Inquisition is still needed, yes.’

‘Contingency after contingency,’ he said, thick with disgust.

‘Such is the nature of a Spymaster’s war. I do not command trebuchets or soldiers, but the decisions I make are no less difficult. Cullen can be the face of the Inquisition, could lead it if need be. Our armies would follow him, he commands enormous respect from those who know him. I do not _want_ Lavellan to die, far from it. She is a better person than the Inquisition could ever have hoped for. She is…’ Leliana paused, finding her steel. ‘She gives everything of herself. People who do that usually end up dying for the cause they’ve undertaken.’

‘What of this unknown threat circling Cullen?’

‘It is not so imminent that it takes precedent over Corypheus. We must secure the letter and Hawke himself that we may return Cullen to his former position.’

Dorian paced, trying to ignore the biting cold. ‘And what about Vivienne and Fiona? Are they to be locked beneath Skyhold as well? Surely at this point, we’re running out of cells?’

‘They are not my concern.’

‘How long until he can return?’

‘That, unfortunately, is impossible to estimate.’

It sat like a lump of stone in his stomach, the mass of information. Worry and concern about this shapeless, formless threat towards Cullen set the mage on edge. The thought of him out there, alone and… _hurting_, it was unbearable.

‘What do we do in the meantime?’

Leliana drew herself to full height. ‘We do what we must always do in the absence of those so much better than ourselves. We carry on.’

*

Two weeks had passed since that day Dorian’s world collapsed beneath his feet. Dorian Pavus stood out on his balcony, wine glass in hand, and watched the sun set. It was the day he’d been waiting for, the only thing that got him through those two weeks of abject agony and now he’d been presented with _more_ time. Worse, an unspecified amount of time. Leliana hadn’t budged on when Cullen might return. It was unfair of him to demand a date, he supposed, but he didn’t know how he was supposed to _carry on_ without knowing when, or indeed if ever, he would see Cullen again.

He’d fucked it all up. That was the first time he really let himself feel the sheer scale of how much he had set about destroying what lay between he and the former Templar. Hindsight was a beautiful little bitch when she needed to be, showing him with crystal clarity _every single thing_ he’d done wrong.

Looking back, Dorian could see how stupid he’d been, but also how _determined_. It felt like he’d been pushing towards some unknowable extreme, seeking to test the limits of his and Cullen’s… well, there was no other word for it beyond _relationship_. Dorian had been in a fully-fledged relationship with Cullen and he’d methodically taken it apart, piece by piece.

He closed his eyes as the snowy, crisp air swirled around him and, once again, he let himself acknowledge that part of him that had always been there. A sharp sliver of his own self that _pushed_ when it should have clung. The part of him that hadn’t held onto the rocks of that canyon as tightly as he should have when he was a child. The part of him that hadn’t locked the door when he led Erisam down into his father’s wine cellar. The part that leapt before ever thinking to look and cared nothing for what became of his shattered, gravity wrecked body.

That part of him was… oddly quiet now. It had been growing steadily the last few months, pulling and stretching into something else entirely. Now it was small and sullen, disquieted by the knowledge of what came from not only falling, but _landing_.

He stared at the sky and felt so bereft that he couldn’t even quantify it. Every single cliché he’d ever sneered at was true. He was _lost_ without the man he loved. He could survive if he pushed himself. Without Cullen, he could live on but it would be a half-life. Something grey and _hard_ and barely worth it, save for the others who needed him.

It was bitterly cold now, colder than he’d ever noticed before. Winter was truly setting in. Blackwall had mentioned that morning that it had been many years since the Frostbacks had seen what they called a Deep White, some kind of unearthly deluge of snow and temperatures set to freeze a beast solid from prolonged exposure.

Dorian couldn’t help but feel a sting of painful concern for Cullen, the man’s love of cold air and snow be damned. He wondered what he was doing in that precise moment. Setting up camp perhaps. Building a fire, hunting for game, Dorian had no clue what _ranging_ entailed. He’d barely been able to tolerate trekking across Ferelden and Orlais with Lavellan in two-man tents.

He clung _hard_ to the hope Leliana had offered, despite all her other more worrying news. That Cullen was coming back. That he would see him again. Even if Cullen hated him, there were things Dorian needed to tell him. He would never be able to live with himself if he couldn’t.

He emptied the glass and breathed in the winter.

He’d gotten through two weeks. He could get through two more.

*

**Four Months Later**

‘Pick! You’ve a staff in your hand, I suggest you use it! If this were a battle, you’d be rather dead, my fine fellow.’

‘He knocked it _out_ of my bloody hand!’ Pick complained loudly, waving his empty hand as if submitting evidence while his opponent, Finn grinned widely.

Dorian gestured to the practice staff on the floor. ‘Use the _tractem_ spell to pull it back, then! How many times?’

‘Right, right, sorry!’

The _Nook_, as his mages had taken to calling it, was a far cry from the barren chamber it had been months ago. Now it was warm and well lit, small cloisters for studying towards the back and a wide, circular arena nearer the entrance for duelling and casting. Equipment, tables and chairs, everything geared towards experience and learning.

Dorian was holding a small study group comprised of Saffy, Cane, Aldis and Landon, sat around one of the round tables, reading from a book on _Focused Intent_. Keenan was leading casting practice with the other four pairs, something he was becoming steadily more proficient at day after day. He was a good teacher, better than Dorian, really. He had a way of communicating with them that Dorian could never hope to rival.

‘Can we try it now?’ Saffy asked, tapping the illustrated page of her book. ‘I’m certain I’ve got it down.’

‘She has,’ Landon agreed with a fervency that had Saffy rolling her eyes. ‘She _absolutely_ has.’

Dorian smothered a laugh, ever the consummate semi-professional. ‘Tomorrow, I think.’ He glanced at his dark purple hourglass, floating at the very end of the chamber. ‘Let’s head to dinner, shall we?’

Keenan began collecting the practice staffs and organising them in their holders along with the armoured robes and other practical equipment. Dorian and Saffy gathered the books and workbooks, quills and ink, her animated chatter filling the air. Dorian kept up with her easily, giving little orders here and there without breaking their stream of conversation. Saffy was exceptionally bright and she always had dozens of questions for Dorian about each new aspect they studied.

When everything was packed away, Dorian and the others filed out of the Nook, the older mage whispering ‘_Kallak,__’_ as he wrapped his woollen cloak around him to protect from the bitter cold. ‘Everyone stay close and for Maker’s sake, no _shoving_ like last time!’

Skyhold was absolutely deluged in snow. The Deep White had arrived last week with a vengeance. The entirety of the Frostback mountains were blanketed in relentless layers of snow, a spiteful wind lashing at all times. Today was by far the worst day, though. Dorian began to regret even bringing them to the Nook, but Skyhold had been unsettlingly quiet lately. His mages had begged loudly and vociferously and Dorian was weak in the face of their wheedling.

Almost two weeks ago, Cassandra had led the bulk force of the army and the older mages to fend off a significant Red Templar incursion in the eastern valley of the Hinterlands. The attack was thought to be a response to Lavellan’s efforts in Emprise de Lion. Due to Leliana’s agents, they’d received word of the attack enough in advance to march and defend the region and the people.

Because the incursion posed no significant threat to the Inquisition’s armies, Cassandra had reasoned that it was a good idea to give the older mages further battlefield experience. They were soldiers, the same as the non-mages and as there would likely be precious little in terms of preparation before what everyone sensed was the oncoming _final push_, the mages marched with them.

Anticipation of the Deep White’s arrival had tipped the decision over into certainty. The Inquisition’s armies could _not_ become trapped in the mountains. It was too risky by far. The signs had all been there, everyone seemed to know it was coming except for Dorian who bowed to their innate Southern expertise about things like fucking _snowstorms_. The threat of Corypheus using the storm against them, to isolate their reach, was too real. Better to move the bulk of the army somewhere mobile and unfettered, seeing off the incursion and giving the mages true marching experience while they were at it.

And so Skyhold was left with a skeletal militia, waiting out the storm, and Dorian had stayed behind. He’d offered to go, but Leliana adamantly refused. Skyhold could not be without a senior mage. Solas was with Lavellan and Vivienne had betrayed them. Dorian was _it_ in terms of seniority and experience.

Blackwall, Leliana, Josephine and Cole remained with him in Skyhold. Every day, Dorian waited for the holding pattern to break, for Leliana to come to him with good news or even just _news_. Leliana’s mood seemed to be slowly and very imperceptibly deteriorating. Three weeks ago was the last she’d heard anything of Cullen, as far as Dorian was aware, and with the incursion and the storm, he knew that she couldn’t prioritise her friend as much as she wanted to.

It had taken very few meetings with Leliana, the pair discussing Cullen’s wellbeing as he kept his distance from Skyhold and continually evading capture, for Dorian to realise that she cared for Cullen a great deal. Maybe even loved him, as much as she was capable. She missed him and it only became clearer as time wore on.

Dorian wished he could _miss_ Cullen. He envied the concept of such a simple feeling, unlike the dangerous riptide of unnamed emotions he fought to contain every moment he was without his former Commander.

The path back to Skyhold was short and usually safe, but in such weather, everything was made treacherous. Dorian used orbs of light and heat to guide them through the pre-melted pathway back up to the main drawbridge gate. Dorian glanced back and saw Keenan bringing up the rear, hands raised as he diverted the worst of the side drifts from them with his magic. The rest of the mages were huddled together in pairs, taking the path carefully.

Dorian couldn’t help but feel a small pang of pride, absent of hubris or arrogance. He was proud of _them_, not himself. They’d worked hard and the results spoke for themselves. He loved them all, his mages.

‘Can we eat in your room?’ Saffy called out, her voice almost entirely lost to the howling wind. ‘Nalari would like that.’

‘See if she’s feeling better when we get back,’ Dorian yelled over his shoulder. Nalari had _wanted_ to accompany them to their lessons, but the others, Keenan prominent among them, had forbidden it. She awaited them back in the Tower, likely curled up on Dorian’s bed and reading, perhaps stroking her growing bump. ‘She might need to defrost us all first.’

A massive and unexpected gust of wind slammed into Dorian and he almost overbalanced, compensating with his magic just in time. He looked back, panicked and ready for action, but the others were well protected by Keenan, who’d thrown up a strong shield that pushed them all back against the mountain face, protecting them from the wind.

After that, the journey was greatly hurried. Back inside Skyhold, Dorian let himself exhale shakily. That had been _far_ too close. There was no way he would risk anyone leaving the castle tomorrow.

‘Andraste’s _arse_!’ Blackwall exclaimed as they filed across the snow-laden grounds from the gate. The high walls protected them from the worst of the winds, at least. ‘You’re all mad!’

‘Nope,’ Dorian said with a cheery grin, teeth chattering. ‘Just mages!’

Nalari, bless her darling heart, had kept his room beautifully warm with her own brand of magical heat. She didn’t use the orbs like Dorian did, instead creating a floating circle of warm yellow flames. She was exactly where they’d left her, on Dorian’s bed, surrounded by books. She greeted them with a smile and the younger ones all rushed to her, speaking excitedly of how they’d almost died. Dorian was used to their tall tales by now, Pick’s especially. He smiled to himself, listening to the youngest boy regale Nalari about how he dived to catch Marcus before he tumbled to a snowy, certain death.

‘Shall we take your epic tale of bravery to the Great Hall?’ Dorian asked, casting a quick drying spell over himself and the others, careful to exclude Keenan who preferred to do all his own magic. ‘I’m starving.’

‘Leliana came by for you,’ Nalari informed him amid the chorus of excited yelling about something so mundane as _dinner_. ‘Said you need to find her as soon as you returned.’

Dorian’s expression smoothed out. ‘Oh? Any specifics?’

Nalari smiled ruefully. ‘You know how she is. Seemed stressed, though.’

The pair shared a brief smile and Dorian escorted them out of the room. Nalari took her time with the stairs due to her aching hips, Keenan hung back to help her. He fretted about the baby more than she did.

‘Be right down,’ Dorian called after them, diverting to Leliana’s desk where she was emphatically _not_ waiting for him. ‘Oh,’ he said to himself. ‘Well. Perhaps not.’

He wasn’t going _searching _for her. He was hungry and tired and sometimes she was in the strangest of places, that woman. But still, she might have news of Lavellan or maybe even…

He’d made up his mind to find her when she came up the stairs, breathless and flushed. _‘There_ you are!’ she panted, somewhat accusingly.

‘What? I’ve hardly been romping about the countryside!’ he said, a touch defensively.

Leliana shook her head, no nonsense to the extreme. ‘Never mind, just follow me.’

She headed back down the spiral steps and Dorian had to run to keep up with her. He wanted to demand what the fucking _hurry_ was, but if Leliana was running, it was serious and he trusted her to know what was necessary.

‘Is it Lavellan?’ he asked as they swivelled through the solar and out into a vicious blast of wind and ice, snowflakes the size of rose petals pelting Dorian’s face and his freshly dried clothes.

‘No,’ she yelled back, leading him around the side of the castle and towards the broken dip in the northern ramparts. Dorian made a shield for them when he realised that they weren’t headed anywhere _inside_. Within the protective bubble, Leliana shook the snow from her hair, wiping her eyes and he could see something frantic in them. Leliana was _never_ like this. ‘Down there,’ she said, grabbing Dorian and pointing. The mage squinted to see.

‘Down there _what?__’_

‘People.’

Dorian gripped the bricks, leaning as far forward as he dared. Even with the shield, he could feel the force of the wind rattling his magic. _‘What_? Where?’

He followed her outstretched finger, eyes catching on something, a tiny fragment of dark colour in the ocean of thick white. It was a person, no, _two_ people in fact, trying to make their way to Skyhold. Huddled together, their movements were slow and utterly waylaid by the storm.

‘We have to help them,’ Leliana said, eyes fixed on that distant point. ‘Dorian, can you maintain a shield and take us there?’

Dorian thought very quickly, his eyes riveted on the tiny specks barely moving through the onslaught. ‘You can’t come,’ he said, reliving the close call from before, of how his mages would have fallen were it not for Keenan’s magic. ‘You can’t protect yourself and I can’t waste magic protecting you as well as _them_. I’ll go alone.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dorian!’

The mage said, ‘They’ll die unless I help them.’

He was already moving, heading towards the drawbridge as if being pulled there by a rope. He didn’t feel afraid, he felt _capable_. He was the only one who could do this and he didn’t know why, but he _had_ to do this. ‘Have soldiers stationed at the entrance with blankets and stretchers. Keep as many torches lit as possible so I can find my way back in case the sun sets before we return.’

Darkness was encroaching, that would be his worst enemy, Dorian knew. In such a storm, maintaining direction would be difficult enough due to the density of the drifts, let alone attempting to do so in the _dark_. The two soldiers at the gate lowered the drawbridge on his command, revealing the monstrous blizzard between the mage and the stragglers.

The Spymaster shoved a thick, woollen cloak about his shoulders, tying it securely around his neck.

‘You,’ she said to a soldier who approached. ‘You have lyrium?’

The soldier, Dafonel, had two vials. Leliana took them and shoved them in the pockets of Dorian’s cloak. ‘Do you need your staff?’

‘No, better to have little and often than powerful, draining bursts,’ Dorian heard himself say.

‘Please, be _careful,__’_ she instructed in her sternest tone. ‘If you need help, throw up a flare of lightning. We will come for you… _somehow_.’

A guard looked between them, holding a thick bundle. ‘Should we make a pack for blankets and—?’

‘He can’t be overburdened, you fool,’ Leliana hissed at the man who blanched. It was incredibly unsettling to see her like this. ‘They are a quarter mile from the bridge, we will be waiting, no matter how long.’

Dorian nodded to himself, staring into the snowy abyss. ‘Don’t let _my_ mages know,’ he told her. ‘Understand?’

Her pale face was drawn tight. ‘I do.’

The moment he stepped out into the wind, he was almost knocked sideways off the bridge entirely. He threw his right hand out, using force to counter the impact of the wind as Keenan had done earlier. He made it over the bridge and as soon as he was on solid ground, his first few steps brought the snow up to his thighs. He ground his teeth hard, essentially _wading_ instead of walking. Rogue drifts of snow bombarded him, but he didn’t throw up a shield, reserving his mana for when he reached _them_.

Curiosity burned inside him, wondering if they were perhaps stranded strangers or two of Lavellan’s four. Lavellan and the others were due back in a week or so, but something could have gone wrong, could have forced them to return early but why risk trudging through the storm? He denied himself the possibility that it was Cullen because there had definitely been _two_ little figures, not one. Cullen was _alone_, Leliana had said it over and over.

He made himself move in what he prayed was a straight line, onwards through the agonising cold, cruelly biting at his skin, eating away at his warmth and strength. He controlled his shivering, pulling the cloak tightly about him, mouth firmly closed. His face was _burning, _the hood of his cloak refused to stay up. His lungs were strained, every breath required effort. He stopped and looked around, a painful stab of despair hitting him dead centre.

It was a wasteland of white, devoid of direction or landmarks. He couldn’t see mountains, trees nor any sign of the people he was coming for. The sky was a dull orange colour, bleeding light by the second.

Forget dying of a broken heart, Dorian knew how fucking easy it would be to die like _this_. The cold was just waiting for a moment of weakness, for him to grow tired and kneel down. The snow would bury him alive, freeze him solid and sap all the life right out of him.

He pushed on, feet numb as fuck, toes stiff and contorted with searing agony. He used magic to keep himself upright, nothing more and even that was sparing. Dorian knew without a shadow of a doubt if he was to get back alive, he would need every ounce of his mana.

It was almost impossible to keep himself in a straight line but he frequently looked back at his rapidly vanishing tracks to make sure he hadn’t veered off too drastically. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but he began to feel genuine terror when the last of the sun set, leaving only a dark brown sky, thick and heavy with further snowfall. The darkness was highly disorienting and he was forced to use magic to be able to see. A small orb of light hovering behind him so that he wasn’t rendered night blind.

After what felt like hours of painful trudging, over the high-pitched roar of the wind, he heard something. A woman’s voice, he thought. He stopped, looking around and straining to hear. When he heard it again, somewhere to his left, he sent another orb in that direction. It struggled in the brutal winds and without Dorian’s proximity to sustain it, the orb faltered and fizzled out.

‘Fucking _void_!’ He began to wade in that direction, keeping his own orb close by. ‘HELLO! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!’

The woman’s voice came again, more of a scream this time. He hurried, getting closer as he kept shouting. Her answering voice grew louder and louder until finally, fucking _finally, _he saw two people huddled together, one of them seemingly unconscious.

He threw up a domed shield, his mana groaning in protest, and another two orbs inside the shield to see who it was he’d practically killed himself to save.

If Dorian was shocked to see Vivienne, bedraggled and drenched, it was nothing to the shock of seeing a near unconscious Cullen slumped beside her.

*

‘Where is Solas?’ Vivienne yelled, all charm and ease stripped from her voice. ‘Where are the others?’

Dorian couldn’t look away from Cullen. The man was wrapped in some kind of blanket, a shabby brown thing but he had no armour at all, no weapons. He was bloody and _injured_ as well as three quarters frozen solid.

‘_Dorian?__’_ she demanded furiously. ‘Is it just you?’

He shook himself. ‘It’s just me,’ he confirmed. Vivienne swore violently. Dorian had never heard her swear before and in other circumstances, it might have shocked him. ‘What the fuck is this?’

‘He’s not going to last much longer,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Take him, will you? My arm is about to rip from its socket.’

There was no hesitation when he pushed through the thick snow to reach Cullen, but something in his heart was hammering out a warning. Cullen would not _want_ Dorian touching him.

Vivienne shoved Cullen into Dorian’s arms and she let out a broken cry when her own arm was free, cradling it and wincing. ‘What… _the fuck_ is this?’ Dorian repeated, struggling to brace Cullen’s near dead weight. The man was barely conscious, useless in terms of keeping himself upright, but he was moaning softly. Dorian might have said he was feverish, were it not for the frozen voidscape they were caught in. Cullen was, at the very least, _dressed_ and wearing boots. That was fucking something.

‘This is me,’ Vivienne snarled and she forced her arm to rotate, eyes clenched tight. ‘Saving the day—agh! Yet a-_fucking_-gain!’

Cullen’s weight was almost impossible to bear. Dorian wasn’t strong like Cullen was, didn’t have the upper body strength to carry him like he obviously needed to be carried. He could feel the power of his shield waning, his orbs flickering. There was no time to stop and talk, no breath to be wasted. They were going to die here unless they moved _now_.

‘Let’s go,’ Dorian said, gripping Cullen around the waist and slinging his arm around his shoulders, holding his hand tight. ‘Cullen, you have to walk, all right? Cullen? Can you hear me?’

‘He can’t,’ Vivienne said, looking around. ‘How far from the castle are we?’

‘Quarter mile.’

She looked at him. ‘Lyrium?’

He gave her one of the two bottles and she downed the whole thing. The second she threw up her shield, Dorian let his own collapse. They began to head back the way Dorian came.

Cullen could only walk one of every five or six steps, Dorian had to drag him through the snow for the rest. For a few minutes, they managed to make progress, the shield protecting them from vicious drifts and lethal, whipping winds but the cold was insidious. It was sapping Vivienne’s magic; Dorian could feel it. Her shield grew thin, wafts of sharp, freezing air penetrating it. Cullen was muttering on and off, caught in the throes of delirium. Dorian caught snippets of words, Cullen’s face pressing into his neck sometimes. The words were random and utterly nonsensical, but there was one time when he was certain Cullen said his name.

The path led upwards, the incline steep and dangerous in a way Dorian hadn’t even considered on the way down. The ground beneath them was rocky and uneven and wholly _frozen_, Dorian’s numb feet threatening to shatter if he stepped too hard.

When Vivienne stumbled and fell, her shield vanished and the wind hit Dorian and Cullen like a sledgehammer. As they fell, Dorian lost his grip on Cullen. It knocked him down into the snow and he was entirely submerged. He fought to get up, spitting snow from his mouth, ignoring the pain.

‘CULLEN!’ he screamed, plunging his arms into the deep ocean of white around him, unable to see anything except snow. Fear had him like a vice, all he could think was what if couldn’t find him? What if Cullen had rolled down the incline? He plunged again and again and _again_, turning in a panicked circle until his hands met something solid. He pulled as hard as he could, bringing the body above the surface of the deluge. Dorian made an orb, a faint one, and brushed snow from Cullen’s face and neck, relieved to hear the man spluttering instead of silent. He wrapped his arms around Cullen to keep him upright and began screaming for Vivienne, not daring to move until he had to.

It was a painfully long few seconds until she stumbled back to him, covered in snow from head to toe. ‘Are you hurt?’ Dorian shouted over the wind.

‘We have to keep moving!’

Dorian looked around and a painful breath punched from his chest. His sense of direction was gone. Maker, they would just have to follow the mountain _up_ and hope the soldiers had done as he’d asked with the torches.

They moved again, no longer using shields but force for balance and light for guidance. Cullen wasn’t muttering any longer, his breathing reduced to sharp, shallow gasps. Dorian had to drag him completely now and the fear of dying was nowhere near as prevalent as the fear of living and losing Cullen.

When his mana was completely drained, they stopped and he reached for the lyrium potion in his cloak, but found… _nothing_. He checked and checked again, a malicious sting of hopelessness choking him as he realised it had probably tumbled out into the snow when he fell.

‘Maker save us.’

‘What?’ Vivienne demanded tightly; arms wrapped around herself. Cullen, at least, had a kind of shabby cloak. Vivienne was in nothing but her mage robes, bare arms and all. Dorian forced himself out of his cloak, the one Leliana had wrapped around him, and he handed it over to her.

‘I l-lost the other lyrium bottle.’

The two mages stared at each other. The darkness was near total, the snow almost around their waists. Cullen was silent and still, utter dead weight now. Dorian didn’t dare examine him too closely.

They needed help.

He lifted his hand and tried to throw up lightning, a flash of light… _anything_, but nothing happened beyond a weak glow in his fingertips.

‘Fuck,’ he groaned. ‘_Fuck_.’

‘Dorian,’ Vivienne said, stumbling closer. ‘Hawke was feeding Cullen lyrium.’

The mage wasn’t certain he’d heard her correctly and tried to shake the snow from his ears as a result. ‘What?’

_‘Hawke_,’ she repeated, almost _growled_ between chattering teeth. ‘Has been feeding Cullen lyrium for weeks while holding him prisoner! It’s in his blood. You had a blood connection w-with him before. _Use_ it!’

Dorian looked down at Cullen, the man’s cheek plastered against his chest, expression smooth and unencumbered by the burdens of consciousness. Dorian couldn’t make out much in the near pitch black, but when he moved his nose closer and tried to scent his skin, he could tell that Vivienne wasn’t lying. There was lyrium in his system.

Dorian was going to _murder_ Hawke.

He didn’t stop to ask how Vivienne knew this, what in the fuck she was doing here with Cullen. He just knew they couldn’t die. _Cullen_ couldn’t die.

And if this didn’t work, then he would use blood magic. That was his absolute last resort.

Now that he’d noticed it, the lyrium in Cullen’s system was softly singing to him. He briefly faltered, wondering _how_ to use it. Push what little magic he had into Cullen and hope that the lyrium somehow amplified it? No, Dorian’s mana was bone dry. He had nothing to give.

He angled Cullen’s face up to his and swallowed painfully over the sob that threatened to bubble up. He lowered his mouth to Cullen’s and found his bottom lip, freezing to the touch. He sucked it into his mouth, warming and essentially _un_freezing it. When it became warmer and softer, Dorian bit it hard.

Cullen jolted violently, but Dorian held him still with every bit of strength he had left and he _drank_ his blood like a fucking monster.

He drank what little Cullen’s heart could move around his body and there was ample lyrium in it. To Dorian, it was no more than a teaspoon all told, but it was _enough_.

Dorian threw his hand skyward and his magic erupted from his fingers; a blinding coil of lightning, twisting up into the storm. He tried to make it last as long as possible, but it couldn’t have been more than three seconds.

It left him lightheaded, unsteady on his feet but he clung hard to Cullen, kept his chest above the snow. Vivienne came closer. She touched his arm, rubbed it with her hands.

‘You did well,’ she told him, lids heavy, shoulders slouched as the world began to darken and quieten.

Dorian didn’t realise how close he was to losing consciousness until a voice materialised right by his ear. ‘Sleep is a bad idea,’ Cole said. ‘You are nearly home. I will guide you.’

The mage almost cried with relief. Cole’s thin, spindly fingers were strong, prying Cullen away from his faltering grip. ‘I can carry him, Dorian. You must make your feet move. One and then the other. The storm is angry and anger does not simply vanish.’

Dorian didn’t trust Cole to take Cullen. He was heavy and unconscious and freshly _bleeding, _but he didn’t have the strength to stop the boy, who was surprisingly strong. Vivienne and Dorian half pulled, half dragged each other in the boy’s wake. He led them up the incline, shouting back nonsense every now and then. When the ground levelled out, Dorian’s eyes were met with burning flames, dozens of torches held by guards and soldiers. They’d made a human chain across the bridge, arms linked, flames protected against the onslaught of the wind by their backs.

Two soldiers helped Cole with Cullen, protected him either side and Dorian barely felt it when two other soldiers did the same for him and Vivienne, walking them across the bridge with care. ‘Almost home,’ Cole shouted back.

Only once they were inside the drawbridge and the mage saw Cullen being loaded onto a stretcher, Leliana lightly slapping his face and saying her friend’s name insistently, did Dorian finally pass out.

*

When he woke up, he was surrounded by teenagers.

They’d been whispering very loudly, but that wasn’t what woke him. If anything, their voices had created a pleasant kind of white noise while he slept. What woke him was a gut wrench of fear because Cullen had been on the verge of death and that information was a living thing inside him, no matter how dreamless his sleep had been.

He sat bolt upright, clutching at his left shoulder with a wince as he looked around blearily. ‘Whuh?’ he managed, throat sticking. Nalari was beside him, Keenan at the foot of the bed, Saffy and Pick on chairs close by. He was in the infirmary, his least favourite place in all of Skyhold. The slightly acrid scent of stewed elfroot, cleaning salve and vomit filled his senses.

‘You’re awake!’ Pick announced brightly.

Nalari handed Dorian some water which he gulped gratefully.

‘Where’s Cullen?’ he panted, wiping his mouth.

Keenen threw a pointed look directly to Dorian’s left. Cullen was three beds down, unconscious but _breathing_. Dorian stared. He was pale and bruised, his chest moving rapidly.

‘How long was I out?’ he croaked, his throat still not quite right.

‘You’ve been asleep for a few hours,’ Saffy informed him. ‘The healer expected you to sleep all through the night.’

‘We told ‘em you’d be up sooner,’ Pick said. ‘Nalari fixed you up good.’

Dorian wrenched his gaze away from Cullen, landing on the girl sat beside him on the bed. Her body warmth had seeped into his right side indicating that she’d been sat there for a while.

Nalari gifted him one of her soft, sweet smiles. ‘You hurt your arm with some kind of backfired magic. They didn’t really know what to do for it.’

He smiled weakly. ‘But you did?’

‘Of course,’ she answered easily. ‘No better spirit healer in all of Skyhold, for the time being at least.’

Dorian hugged her with his good arm. ‘What about Vivienne?’ he asked.

‘She wasn’t too bad,’ Keenan answered. ‘Few potions and a bit of treatment for frostbite on her fingers and toes. Leliana took her away.’

The Tevinter mage had questions, _so many_ fucking questions, but his gaze was drawn right back to its natural destination once more. ‘How is he?’

Their hesitation caught him off-guard. They shared a kind of _en-masse_ glance, born of worry and dread

Nalari told him. ‘The healer said he has less than a day before the fever takes him,’ Dorian’s brain _jarred_, everything came to a staggering, violent halt. ‘I offered to help, but they wouldn’t let me anywhere near him. The healer said his illness isn’t magic related. I can feel him though,’ she added, wincing. ‘It… feels like he’s drowning.’

Dorian’s heart missed a beat and then another. He was falling, fucking _plummeting_ and at the bottom was a familiar scene, waiting for him with all the cruel symmetry of _irony_.

Moving off of the bed was difficult, but Dorian managed it, despite one very indignant healer who came waddling over to forbid overexertion. Dorian ignored the portly man and made his way on shaky legs to Cullen’s bedside, Saffy and Keenan helping him.

‘…nowhere _near_ enough rest after what you—’

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Dorian demanded tersely, coming to stand by the narrow, high bed. Cullen’s covers reached his collarbone, bandaged arms laid out by his side. His breathing was a jagged, uneven mess and he was slick, absolutely _drenched,_ with sweat. Dorian’s eyes caught on something wrapped about Cullen’s wrists, straps of material that were tied tight and vanished beneath the bed. Was Cullen… tied to the fucking bed?

‘He has injury related fever,’ the healer explained impatiently. ‘Unresponsive to potions or salves. It’s only a matter of making him comfortable now, I’m afraid.’

‘Which injury has given him the fever?’

‘I’m not entirely sure, there were so many of them.’

Dorian was done listening to him. ‘Nalari,’ he bade, moving the covers down from Cullen’s chest. As his fingers brushed skin, he couldn’t contain a gasp. Cullen was white hot to the touch.

‘This is not a _magical _issue, Ser Pavus. It’s entirely medical and as such, you have no right to intervene!’

Saffy shoved the man aside none too gently. ‘Where’s the harm in letting her look?’ she demanded. ‘If he’s already dying, that is?’

‘Commander Cullen is not a mage; he is not your concern!’

Dorian was on the verge of doing something very stupid when Keenan shot him a stern look and shook his head fractionally.

‘I’m only examining him,’ Nalari said calmly. She laid a hand on Cullen’s chest and the man beneath her flinched slightly at the contact, but did not wake. Dorian thought of Rilenius, of how he’d been too far gone to even feel his lungs being impaled, and he let himself hope. Cullen’s eyes moved under his eyelids at a rapid rate but once the flinch subsided, he remained otherwise blanketed by fever. ‘His breathing feels _wet_,’ she said, frowning with concentration. ‘He _is_ drowning. That’s what it feels like. He’s dry, but he’s… drowning slowly.’

‘Ridiculous,’ the healer scoffed. ‘There’s nothing to be done for a fever this extreme. He hasn’t responded to any of the traditional—’

‘Shut the fuck up! Nalari?’

The girl closed her eyes and moved her hands over Cullen’s chest, no longer touching his skin, just hovering them. Cullen’s breathing became even more shallow, dangerously erratic, as if he could sense her.

‘His lungs,’ she said slowly, opening her eyes. ‘There’s water in them.’

The healer huffed. ‘He is _breathing_! How can there be—’

‘Move,’ Dorian instructed the healer even as he shoved him aside. _‘_Nalari, I’m going to talk you through it, all right? Saffy, stand here and invoke a paralysis glyph. It needs to be strong and contained _only_ to Cullen’s exterior, you understand? Keeping him still, but not preventing him from breathing.’

‘Got it.’

‘You cannot perform some half-cocked _spell_ with a bunch of children on someone dying of fever! I won’t stand for it!’

‘Keenan, get him out,’ Dorian instructed coldly. Keenan didn’t need to be told twice. The young mage was a full head taller than the healer and he didn’t need to use any kind of magic to haul him towards the door, shove him out of it and then bar it with magic.

‘Right,’ Dorian said, gripping the side of Cullen’s bed. ‘Pick, go get fresh towels, water, clean bandages and - this is very important - the thinnest, longest, blade or implement you can find. Go on.’

Pick was off before Dorian had even finished speaking.

‘What are we going to do?’ Nalari asked.

‘We’re going to get the water out and you’re going to heal him. There’s an infection in his lungs, it’s collecting his bodily fluids and… drowning him, as you said. I’m going to pierce his chest; you’re going to dry and remove the infection and then we’ll heal him from the inside out. I’m going to talk you through all of it, my darling.’

Nalari looked up at him then, her quiet, observant nature catching the tiny little crack in Dorian’s voice. She was a natural born healer, able to sense pain and injury no matter how small. ‘How do you know all this?’

Dorian managed a watery kind of smile that couldn’t hold. ‘I watched someone die of it once.’

Pick came jogging back to them, arms full of the items Dorian had asked for, Keenan carrying a bowl of steaming water behind him.

Dorian held tightly to the long, thin blade, staring down at Cullen, at his sweat slick skin and his many scars. The three long slashes across his abdomen that Dorian had not been able to help him with. _Heal me then_, Cullen had said and Dorian had been unable, had failed him.

He would not fail again.

‘Nalari, remember to let your instincts guide you as well as my words. I’m going to make the incision, just a s-small hole in his chest, nothing we can’t fix later so nobody panic or pass out, please.’

Nalari wasn’t shaken, not like Saffy and Keenan and, despite how much he was working to hide it, _Dorian_. She set her focus entirely on Cullen.

‘I’m ready.’

*

By the time the door was kicked down, Cullen’s breathing was slow and deep, his fever ever so slightly easing off. Nalari’s fingers were coated in Cullen’s thin, watery blood. Pick had watched everything with slack-jawed fascination. Saffy’s glyph had held like _stone_, even when Cullen went into a strong convulsion, even when Cullen had screamed. Keenan had been Nalari’s second pair of hands, applying hot fresh bandages and cleaning wherever he was instructed. All told, it hadn’t taken that long, but Dorian felt like he’d lost years of his life, felt significantly aged. Cullen’s infection was born of the cold but also _neglect_. Nalari had said it more than once, able to sense the origin of the illness when confronted with it. If Dorian had to give years of his own life to ensure that Cullen’s continued, then that was a fair exchange, as far as he was concerned.

The mage’s voice had not faltered even once, though it had come close during Cullen’s heaving cries and wordless please, eyes rolling and mired in sinister fever. He’d talked Nalari through the ugly process of draining the foul liquid from Cullen’s lungs, of cleaning the infection and erasing it entirely with magic. He had made the incision into each of Cullen’s lungs, one at a time. Pushed the thin, sharp implement, no thicker than a quill, through Cullen’s chest and pierced precious, if highly infected, organs. Cleaned them, healed them. Removed the rot from the inside out.

Nalari was exhausted and Keenan firmly led her away to sit on an empty bed, his arm around her middle. The door broke and gave, Keenan’s magic had worn off moments ago. Dorian finished applying the rest of the bandages, pressing a trembling hand to Cullen’s forehead even as guards flooded the room.

Cullen was still clammy, but he was a fraction cooler. The healing potions were _working_ now, able to coarse through his body and actually do what they were meant to, now that the vile, watery infection had been burned out of him. Cullen was breathing deep and slow and every breath felt like air in Dorian’s own lungs, like he was _surfacing_.

‘Get him _out_ of here!’

Dorian didn’t look away from him, found it hard to even try. Pale and drained, inching from the brink of death, Cullen was still _painfully_ fucking beautiful and everything inside Dorian sang for him. ‘For what? Saving his life?’

‘For mutilating him with-with _magic_! Probably blood magic too! A Tevinter mage taking over _my_ infirmary! This man was our Commander and deserves to die with some dignity; would turn in his grave to know _mages_ were fiddling with him like he was a class project!’

‘He’s not going to die,’ Saffy said sharply. ‘At least not _now_.’

‘Ser Pavus,’ a guard said and Dorian was resigned to it, had no intention or ability to fight. ‘Do you require assistance?’

Dorian blinked and finally looked over at the men who had kicked the door down. He recognised all three of them, knew them by name as he did with majority of guards now. They were staring at their once and fallen Commander, something fierce and admiring in their gazes.

‘I… no, thank you, Avery. We’re about done in here, I think.’

_‘Assistance_?’ the healer spluttered looking between the guards. ‘I gave you an order, you blithering idiots!’

Avery gave the healer a flat stare. ‘We don’t answer to you, Serrah.’

Leliana swept inside the room, trailing Vivienne. The healer winced; no one especially liked it when Leliana _swept_ in like that, like a bird of prey, looming low and large. But there was nothing predatory in her expression as she surveyed Cullen then, hand rising to her mouth. ‘He’s… you _saved him_.’

Dorian’s exhaustion came thick and fast. He sat on the bed beside Cullen, unwilling to leave his side unless dragged. ‘Nalari saved him and we helped. He’s still very sick and needs _proper_ attention.’

Dorian didn’t know where Leliana was going to find a replacement healer while they were trapped in a Deep White, but he trusted her when she gave him a tight nod, a promise.

‘If anyone wanted to start explaining things to me, that would really be quite wonderful,’ Dorian drawled at length when the silence wore on.

‘Yes,’ Leliana said. She touched Cullen’s forehead with the backs of her fingers, gentle and reverent. ‘Perhaps your mages should rest,’ she suggested. All four of the teenagers looked to Dorian, who nodded and winked. Keenan seemed on the verge of arguing, but Dorian knew he would go with Nalari who was visibly tired, though her eyes were bright with pride as she surveyed Cullen.

‘I’ll be up soon,’ he told them. ‘You were all amazing.’

There was no door to close behind them and the cold was seeping in slowly, but Dorian wasn’t concerned. Doors were easy to fix or replace and Cullen loved the cool air, loved to breathe it deep. He _could_ breathe deeply now; Dorian had seen to it. Given him that much, if nothing else.

‘Thank you,’ the Spymaster told him, giving him a strangely fierce kind of look. ‘The healer said he was beyond saving. I should have known you would find a way.’

Out of nowhere, Dorian felt some absurd need to be _generous_. ‘It’s extremely rare,’ he said. ‘I’ve only ever seen it once and afterwards, I researched it extensively. They call it dry drowning. It comes from prolonged exposure to the cold.’ He faced Vivienne, putting aside what Nalari had said of _neglect_, of what Cole had told him about Cullen not being able to get warm, no matter how close to the fire he sat. ‘So, what’s the story, Madam de Fer? Last minute attempt to do the right thing? Leveraging Cullen for a position of power?’

Vivienne’s features arranged themselves into something resembling pity, as if Dorian was a silly, know-nothing child. ‘Hardly last minute, my dear,’ she said, offering Dorian a small, folded piece of paper. ‘As I said before, saving the day.’

Dorian took the paper, unfolded it carefully. It had been water logged, likely from all the snow, but the ink hadn’t smudged very much, only the paper itself was bumpy and creased now where it had been dried. His breath caught in his throat, Cullen’s intricate handwriting filling his eyes.

Cullen’s _letter_.

He looked back at Vivienne, mouth open. ‘How…?’

‘Are you comfortable, my dear? Good. Then I’ll explain everything.’

*


	18. From Great Heights

‘Right,’ Dorian said slowly, nodding to himself when Vivienne finished speaking, taking the natural lull as a chance to gather his thoughts. ‘So, in summation, you went undercover?’

Vivienne’s head fell back and she uttered a rattling, impatient sigh. ‘Yes, well that’s _one_ way to reduce six months of highly involved espionage and manipulation down to an explanation fit for a toddler. The loss of your moustache clearly hasn’t impeded your ability to remain stunningly naïve about complex situations.’

Dorian was indignant. ‘There’s no need for _that_. It’s a lot to process!’

‘I did more than go undercover, _my dear_,’ the Knight Enchanted told him and the _my dear_ resonated more like _you fucking idiot_, but Dorian could pretend otherwise. Vivienne had explained extensively about her ruse to gain Hawke’s trust at Leliana’s suggestion. She stood at the foot of Cullen’s bed, occasionally fiddling with her bandaged fingertips. Dorian wondered if she had sustained permanent damage from the frostbite. ‘To rightly understand the information I bring, you have to first understand who, precisely, Hawke is.’

Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘I’ve had him in bed. I understand him about as well as I’d like to, thank you very much.’

‘How painfully typical of a man to assume that sex lends even the remotest understanding of a person.’

‘Yes, we men are _very_ stupid indeed, I’ve heard that once or twice.’

‘There are layers to this that must be appreciated.’

‘Fasta _vass_, you were working undercover, playing Hawke and attempting to retrieve the letter for us. Do I really need to know the ins and outs of Carver Hawke’s life for that?’

Vivienne heaved a regal sigh, something smug in the corners of her mouth. ‘That’s not even his name, Dorian.’

The Tevinter mage gawked. ‘It fucking well _is_!’

_‘No_, his name is actually Garrett. Didn’t discern that little titbit from your romp in the hay, no?’

‘Tevinters don’t _romp_, we fuck and I’d sooner be dead than take a _nap_ in a pile of hay, let alone engage in carnal relations.’

Leliana patiently sighed. ‘Dorian.’

He raised his hands, relenting. ‘Right, fine. Shutting up. Do go on, Madame de Fer.’

Vivienne continued. ‘In all fairness to you, I didn’t realise what his true name was until I heard Cullen address him as such. From what I could gather, he took his brother’s name as his own when he died. Cullen was provoking him by calling him Garrett, refusing to call him Carver.’

‘And this is relevant… how?’

‘And this is you shutting up… _how_?’

Cullen gave a sudden groan, his breath hitching. Dorian’s head snapped in his direction, heart lurching painfully, but Cullen settled quickly back into an uneasy sleep. The urge to touch him was, quite frankly, startling and Dorian’s hand twitched as if to stretch out, but he refrained at the last second. It was not his place, not anymore.

When Dorian looked back at Vivienne, she was observing Cullen with strange kind of sadness. It made Dorian want to hiss at her that Cullen wasn’t _dying_, he was fine. He would _be_ fine, once he was rested and full of many more healing potions.

‘Hawke holds a great deal of resentment towards Lavellan and the Inquisition, towards Cullen himself for some personal matter I was unable to comprehend. He is unhinged and he is powerful, but there is something worse. A detail I went to great pains to unveil. Someone important to Hawke is being held captive. He is not bound to this _master_ by loyalty. His service is indentured. His efforts to recapture Cullen will no longer be contained by shadows and caution. It will be all out war to regain his bargaining chip.’

‘Who does his master have?’

Leliana seemed especially bleak when she said, ‘It’s Fenris,’ and Dorian gasped softly.

Vivienne nodded. ‘I caught stolen glances of missives from his master, little more. The mentions were brief but the threat was clear and the request for Hawke to bring Cullen to him was proof positive that our Commander is what Hawke was after all along. One for the other. Which is another thing about Hawke.’ Vivienne looked directly at Dorian. ‘He’s been under this _master’s_ command long before he arrived here in Skyhold.’

Dorian slowly rubbed his hands together, fingers sliding back and forth across his palms in a slow, distracted rhythm, watching the Knight Enchanter. She did not fill the silence, watching him right back.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said softly.

_‘Do_ you?’

‘You’re thinking Hawke could have sent me here with Cullen, regain trust and work my way back in. Offer a sad story about how Hawke really wasn’t so terrible after all. How he was being controlled, made to do bad things against his will.’

‘It wouldn’t be the worst plan, would it? Bring us Cullen and the letter. How could we refuse such a boon in desperate times?’

‘You’ve only to wait for Cullen to wake up and verify all of my—’

‘Cullen was a prisoner, he’s hardly proof.’

Vivienne tipped her chin. ‘I nearly died to bring him here. I could have left him to die in the snow and saved myself.’

‘So you say. There’s no real way of _knowing_ though, is there? We just have to trust you.’

‘Dorian, I was the one who ordered Vivienne to seek Hawke out,’ Leliana said. ‘To engage him and make him believe that her allegiance could be swayed. I vouch for her, completely.’

The mage considered, unable to keep his gaze from Cullen for very long. ‘Very well.’

‘Very well?’ Vivienne echoed, tainted with doubt. ‘Just like that?’

‘If Leliana trusts you, well - I trust _her_.’

‘Hmm,’ Vivienne said, but mastered her surprise. ‘These contributing elements make Hawke very dangerous indeed. I tell you of his servitude not to evoke pity, but to point out that a leashed monster is far more dangerous than one able to run and hide when injured. He will be throwing himself against the castle walls to regain Cullen now. Without the letter, he’s lost some of his leverage, but it’s very likely he still has Varric.’

‘Will he offer a trade?’ It hurt to even _hear_ Leliana ask such a thing. Varric was a good man, he’d always treated Dorian decently.

‘If he does, it will be done in subterfuge and whoever attends the exchange, he’ll attack. He’s been on the edge for weeks now. Nothing brings out the worst in us like love. His grief for his brother forced him to shed his own name. I heard him speak of himself, of _Garrett_, as if he was dead. I have no faith whatsoever that Hawke can keep himself together long enough to even compose a _note_ demanding an exchange.’

‘There will be no exchange!’ Dorian snapped and then grimaced when Cullen’s breath shuddered, one of his restrained hands attempting to reach up, caught on the makeshift cloth chains. Dorian went to him, a horrible hot feeling in the base of his stomach. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to untie the restraints put in place by that _barbarian_ healer. He untied one with clumsy, cold fingers and took Cullen’s temperature while he was there. The man was definitely cooler. When his fingers touched Cullen’s forehead, Cullen let out a broken kind of sigh in the back of his throat and turned towards the contact, seeking it out. Dorian swallowed hard. ‘There’s no fucking exchange,’ he repeated quietly. ‘We have the letter now. We’re not negotiating with him.’

‘I agree,’ Leliana said. ‘Hawke needs to die and we must make good use of the storm. There will be no witnesses, no outsiders around to hear tell. If we keep this contained, we can make it seem like he died of exposure.’

‘And what of Varric?’

‘We’ll retrieve him,’ Leliana assured Vivienne, sounding every bit as confident as Dorian _didn__’t_ feel. ‘And Varric is resourceful, believe me.’

‘How did Varric even capture Cullen?’ Dorian asked quietly, wiping a few streaks of thin, dried blood from the side of Cullen’s bare chest, a flimsy excuse to remain close by.

‘Varric found Cullen quite accidentally.’ Vivienne chuckled. ‘Hawke didn’t believe for a moment that Varric had truly come to support him but it diverted much of the suspicion from me. Fiona watched me constantly, desperate for something to bring Hawke in order to elevate her status, grubby little woman. He had Varric scouting often, hopeful that one of you would attempt to contact him. Hawke was following Varric when the dwarf came across Cullen’s trail, far closer to the garrison than it had been before.’

‘Cullen had been circling the Frostbacks?’

‘Yes, _obviously_. Did you think he walked to Seheron? He was circling, very cleverly I might add. Hawke couldn’t pin him down, even though we were holed up barely three two miles from here. His route constantly changed and then when Hawke began to anticipate a pattern, Cullen would double back, change everything again. He was always close, but Hawke simply couldn’t _get_ him. Not until Cullen began to fall ill, anyway.’

_Neglect_. That was Nalari’s assessment. Dry drowning from fucking _neglect_. From exposure, from ranging and constantly moving all the time, from the _freezing_ conditions. If Dorian had been with him, he could have made him _warm_.

‘He kept Cullen for weeks as we waited for _something, _though Hawke never said what it was. He trusted none of us, not by the end. When he wasn’t obsessing over new, experimental magics - tricks taught to him by his master - he entertained himself with Cullen,’ Vivienne said, wrinkling her nose with distaste. ‘Indulged his petty torments but Cullen remained strong, despite falling deeper into illness by the day. He never once wavered. Sometimes he _laughed_ at Hawke, teased him about the name; spat blood and called him Garrett. That was when Hawke began force feeding him lyrium.’

Dorian knew he shouldn’t be stroking Cullen’s forehead like he was, knew he _definitely_ shouldn’t be pushing his fingertips into sweat soaked curls, longer than ever now. He tried to stop himself, but it was _hard_. The instincts to comfort and protect were deeply ingrained, even more so when Dorian could smell the lyrium in Cullen’s system. That acrid, burned scent of bottled ozone, not quite _right _inside a human. Hawke had poured it down his throat, _forced_ it where it did not belong. Into that space that was made for Dorian’s magic, for_ Dorian. _

‘And you watched, did you?’

‘I could not risk revealing myself.’

Jaw clenched, he removed his hand from Cullen. ‘No, of course not.’

‘The day before the storm hit, two men delivered a wheeled cage. It was intended for Cullen, to transport him to Hawke’s master. I delayed the journey by killing the horses, but Fiona caught me. It was the moment she’d been waiting for.’ Vivienne shrugged. ‘I knocked her out and left her there, made it seem like one of the horses had landed on her as she killed them. I told Varric and instructed him to bring it to Hawke’s attention, making his position more secure, or so I hoped. Hawke killed her in front of us both, heedless of what she was screaming. We were stuck on the outskirts of the storm and Hawke began to truly lose himself. He sent Varric to scout for more horses that morning and in the moment when he was distracted, I had a choice to make.’

‘You took Cullen and you ran.’

‘I made sure to do so when Varric was not there, that he could not be blamed, but I fear I did not do enough. I took the letter from Hawke’s lockbox, freed Cullen, while Hawke was keeping a lookout for Varric and the horses. The storm was raging, Hawke was terrified that Varric wouldn’t return. Cullen and I were out of the door when he caught us.’

‘How did you get away?’

‘Cullen defended me and managed to stab him with the crowbar I’d used to wrench his chains loose. It caught Hawke in the chest, but it wasn’t a fatal wound, not from what I saw and Cullen was too weak to do anything more. I locked him in a weak time swirl and we ran out into the storm and made for Skyhold. The rest you know.’

‘So, Hawke will come for Cullen again.’ It wasn’t a question. Dorian absolutely believed it. ‘Why didn’t he just… _take_ Cullen before when he was strolling around here freely? Why all this fucking subterfuge?’

‘He was instructed to do exactly as he did. The subterfuge, the _letter_, the forced isolation; all of it was mandated by his master.’

‘And you’ve no idea who this person is?’

‘I know it’s a blood mage,’ Vivienne said confidently. ‘And I know it’s a man. It was essential to the plan that _you_ become a blood mage in the process. The spell for you to recreate Cullen’s letter came directly from this man. Hawke told me, often complained about the confines of his parameters and how much easier it would be to simply lure Cullen away or even capture him as you said. This man _wants_ Cullen isolated and friendless before he kills him. It’s highly personal, just like it is for Hawke.’ She gestured vaguely. ‘Hence all the insanity. The vendettas of men.’

Dorian swore and Cullen jolted slightly.

‘So, you were playing him this whole time?’ Dorian asked in a quieter voice.

‘Hawke never made me an offer than I considered even for a moment. The man is highly unstable and honestly, he had nothing to give me, not truly.’

‘Well, we owe you a great deal, then,’ Dorian said, staring down at Cullen, tormenting himself about how _close_ it had come out there, in the snow. What if he’d tarried, what if he’d delayed? A few minutes later and he might never have found them. Would Cullen be laying here dead? Dorian couldn’t comprehend such a thing, but Cullen had been faced with it twice. Dorian’s death was no distant, vague thing to him. ‘I can’t thank you enough for saving him.’

‘You’ve nothing to thank me for, my dear. It’s high time at least _some_ of my talents were put to use. Commander Cullen is a good man who has my respect. I…’ Vivienne trailed off and when Dorian looked at her, he saw a small frown. ‘I briefly read his letter. I read what he endured in the Circle Tower. It has given me much to consider. There is, however, something I gleaned from his letter that I don’t think you’ve realised yet. A potential problem.’

Dorian sighed. ‘Well, of course, can’t have_ so few_ problems as all this, can we? What is it?’

‘The man who laughed—’

Cullen grabbed Dorian’s wrist so suddenly and so hard that when he swallowed a yell, he almost choked on it. He lurched back instinctively, trying to step way but Cullen held him with bruising force.

‘Cullen,’ Leliana said, stepping forward, but Cullen’s eyes were fixed on Dorian, eyelids fluttering. ‘Cullen, stop.’

‘It’s fine,’ Dorian said quietly.

‘Don’t hurt them,’ Cullen said, voice rasping and rough. ‘You don’t need… to hurt them.’

He was looking right at Dorian, but the mage knew he wasn’t really seeing him. There was a faraway quality to his stare, something detached about it. Leliana came to stand by Dorian’s side.

‘Cullen,’ she repeated, quite gently. ‘You’re safe now. Let go of Dorian.’

Cullen frowned and his grip faltered enough that Dorian could get free, wrist bones aching. ‘It was his fault.’

‘Rest, my friend.’ She lowered his hand by his side while Dorian put distance between them. Facing away, he tried to steady himself, but Cullen’s soft, slurred accusation had cut deep. He was shaking all over, heart pounding in his chest. ‘You too, Dorian. You should go rest.’

‘No, I…’ Dorian swallowed again, realising his instinct to stay with Cullen wasn’t really viable. He was the last person Cullen would want to see when he woke up in his right mind.

‘Go on,’ Leliana bade firmly. ‘He’ll sleep a while yet.’

He didn’t _want_ to leave and he was going to argue, but Vivienne took his arm in hers and guided him away.

‘Come, my dear,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk with you.’

*

‘I never thanked you.’

Dorian raised an eyebrow at her as they walked across the snowy grounds, the air cold enough to burn his lungs. ‘I think we’re even at best. You risked your life many times for the Inquisition and for Cullen.’

‘I wasn’t offering my thanks, merely stating a fact,’ she said in a haughty way that Dorian couldn’t take as anything more than teasing. ‘I am grateful, though. Dying in the snow isn’t really the way I would have liked to go.’

‘Well, no one _wants_ to die in the snow.’

She took a rather sudden breath but then shook her head as if to dispel it. ‘Yes, indeed.’

‘What? What was that?’

‘Nothing.’

Dorian brought them to a stop, cold be damned. ‘Vivienne, _what_?’

‘I didn’t say anything to Leliana,’ the Knight Enchanter said reluctantly, something subdued in her tone. ‘But Cullen told me to leave him in the snow several times. He said it was a better way to die, a quicker way.’

Dorian’s head _spun_. ‘He was— he was delirious.’

She looked down. ‘He knew who I was when he asked it.’

‘Because he was trying not to hold you back in that asinine way heroes do sometimes,’ Dorian found himself snapping. ‘_Go on without me _and all that malarkey.’ He thought of Cullen left behind, snow piling over him. Alone and cold and lost until the storm broke and _then_ what would they have found? ‘Complete fucking _moron _that he is,’ he scathed, anger ripping through him and fraying his composure. ‘I’m grateful you didn’t listen.’

‘He spoke of you sometimes.’

‘He did?’

‘Hawke did,’ she clarified all too late for his treacherous little heart. ‘Before he found Cullen, he was plotting to take you and use you as bait. He was certain Cullen would come for you then.’

Dorian huffed a broken chuckle. ‘He would have been _greatly_ disappointed.’

‘That’s what I told him,’ she said calmly. ‘Cullen spoke of you once, actually. He told me something about you. Do you want to know what he said?’

‘What I _want_ is to be able to keep doing my job here,’ Dorian said, fists curled tight against the bitter wind. ‘So, thank you, but no.’

‘It wasn’t a bad thing.’

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘Yes, that’s rather what I was dreading.’

‘Oh, I see. For whatever little it’s worth, I am sorry, my dear.’

He managed a smile when all he really wanted to do was cry.

‘It’s worth more than you realise and thank you. Let’s get inside before we render our magnificent journey through the storm entirely redundant, eh?’

*

When Dorian opened his bedroom door, he was met with sudden splashing sound followed by panicked squealing and a flash of Landon’s pale arse that the mage really could have done without.

‘Ah, perfect,’ he said, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. ‘Just perfect.’

‘Sorry, _sorry_!’ Landon babbled as Dorian kicked the door shut behind him and waited. He heard scrabbling, sloshing and hissing. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Landon repeated breathlessly. ‘You said we could use the bath and—’

‘I don’t quite recall giving you leave to use it for _this_,’ Dorian sighed. ‘Are you decent yet?’

He was surprised and yet entirely _un_surprised to hear Saffy say, ‘Yes we are.’

They were shoddily dressed, cheeks flushed and hair dripping. Dorian looked upwards and shook his head, hoping for strength, receiving none.

‘Right, time for a chat.’

Landon looked as though he’d been sentenced to death. _‘A what_?’

Dorian walked over to his table. ‘Let’s sit down together and have a pleasant chat.’

Saffy didn’t seem especially concerned. She sat beside Dorian, leaving a few of the simpler, rough wooden chairs from their dorm for Landon to take. They often ate with Dorian in his room. Landon was glancing between the table and the door like he was considering making a run for it.

_Sit your pasty arse down, Landon_, Dorian did not say. ‘Landon, take a seat,’ is what he went with. ‘Right, where to even begin?’

It was a reasonable question and Dorian rather hoped a flash of sudden inspiration would befall him, but nothing came to mind so he decided to follow his instincts. ‘So.’

Landon looked miserable while Saffy, aside from the way her damp hair was slightly curling at the ends, seemed entirely at ease.

Dorian’s silence had stretched on far too long and Landon threw his hands up, eyes screwed shut. ‘All right!’ he wailed. ‘We were having sex!’

Saffy nodded sagely. ‘We were.’

‘But!’ Landon added with a touch of theatrics that impressed even Dorian. ‘We’re in love, so you can’t punish us!’

‘We’re not in love.’

_‘Saffy_!’ Landon grumbled, looking pointedly at Dorian.

The girl laughed, carefree and light the way Dorian wished for Ellana sometimes. ‘Dorian is the last person who would believe I was in love with you, Lan. We were having sex.’ She took over effortlessly, speaking to Dorian as if he was her friend, not someone about to attempt a _sex talk_. ‘It’s true, but I stole a decent amount of witherstalk and made it into a potion so I can’t get pregnant. Also, in our defence, we thought you’d be with your Commander for the entirety of the day.’

‘Making up,’ Landon added, eyes wide, beseeching forgiveness.

‘Making _out_,’ Saffy added under her breath, smirking.

‘…right.’ Dorian looked around the room, wondering if Cole wanted to conveniently appear just then, but the spirit hadn’t been around much since Dorian had arrived back with Cullen. He couldn’t feel his warm presence just then. ‘I’m very pleased about the witherstalk. That’s good.’

‘This talk isn’t really necessary,’ Saffy told him gently. ‘I’ve been sexually active for the last three years.’

‘What about you, Landon?’

‘Yeah, me too,’ Landon said in a very _manly_ voice. Saffy shot him a look and he relented with a small eye roll. ‘Well, all right - not three years.’

‘I took your virginity last week, Landon.’

‘You did _not_!’

‘You came in my thigh crease.’

Dorian was having an out of body experience, staring at the centre of his table, eyes wide and the rest of him utterly resigned to the doom he’d mired himself in when he’d suggested this _chat. __‘_There might be healthier ways of—’

‘It was dark, Saffy! I was tired and we had to be quick.’

Saffy leered. ‘You had the latter part down, for sure.’

‘_Anyway_,’ Dorian cut across as Landon turned beetroot, mouth open, brow furrowed. ‘The witherstalk is reassuring, but there’s no need to steal it. I’ll just… keep a supply in here and anyone who needs it can have it.’

‘Fiona said we weren’t free to use it,’ Saffy told him. ‘She said it encouraged promiscuity.’

It was on the tip of Dorian’s tongue to say that Fiona was very much dead now so there was little point in heeding her advice or even worrying about it a moment longer. ‘Precisely the kind of thing prudes tend to say. Sex is always going to happen, one way or the other. You’re a smart girl, Saffy. Keep right on being careful.’

‘I’m smart too,’ Landon pointed out.

‘Very,’ Dorian didn’t hesitate to say. ‘But this girl is going to break your heart if you’re not careful.’

‘I will,’ Saffy agreed calmly. ‘I won’t be tied down, Lan. I’ve got dreams and ambitions. None of which involve marrying you or giving you children.’

‘Keenan and Nalari don’t seem to mind it,’ Landon groused.

Saffy made a face, a kind of, _oh really_, face that had Dorian curious, but he didn’t press it.

‘Do you have any questions for me?’ he asked and when Landon’s expression brightened, he almost immediately regretted it.

‘I have a few,’ the boy hedged. ‘But can we, y’know, without Saffy here?’

‘Oh no,’ Saffy deadpanned. ‘Can’t have me here while you ask Dorian how to find my—’

‘I _would_ have found it if you weren’t so busy slapping my face! I was confused and honestly a little bit alarmed!’

Dorian couldn’t help but feel a twinkle of amusement when Saffy shrugged languidly, no trace of shame. ‘I doubt Dorian is going to be able to help you with this particular treasure hunt, darling, but knock yourself out.’

*

To say that Landon had questions was a drastic understatement. Over an hour later, Dorian was getting sick of the sound of his own voice and coming to dread Landon’s. The young mage’s questions had taken a turn for the deeply embarrassing about half an hour ago but Dorian was galvanised by a fierce determination to do this _right_.

‘It’s just that she’s got all this experience,’ Landon complained. ‘I never _liked_ anyone but her so when everyone else was messing around, learning stuff, I didn’t get involved and now I regret it.’

While pleased that Landon seemed to be veering back to a territory less deluged with graphic questions, Dorian didn’t _especially_ want to hear about the various escapades of what he essentially considered to be minors, despite their age. They were children to him in many respects, even though they were far from it.

‘Well,’ Dorian said, ploughing on bravely. ‘Like I said a while ago, learning from experience is a good way to go.’

‘But I _love_ her!’ the boy declared, dropping his head on the table with a _thunk_. ‘I love her and she barely looks at me! The first time was so embarrassing, I thought I was going to _die_. She’s right, I did… y’know, in her thigh crease. I didn’t even realise it wasn’t _in_. How can I be anything but the man who came in her thigh crease from now on?’

‘You could stop _saying_ it, if you wanted,’ Dorian suggested lightly, dying inside. ‘And yes, your first time was a disaster, but that only grants you initiation into the club, Landon.’ Upon being fixed with a hopeful stare, Dorian sighed. ‘My first time was going _reasonably_ well when my father and a servant barged in. Hardly ideal.’

‘Oh shit,’ Landon said, clearly basking in a little soothing epicaricacy. ‘What happened then?’

‘I got dressed, horribly scolded and then I threw up everywhere. Thankfully, Erisam had left by that point, though.’

Landon cocked his head. ‘How does it feel being queer?’

Dorian shrugged. ‘It feels normal, until other people make it _not_ normal. Men are both easier and more difficult than women. It’s not a simple path to walk in Tevinter. Imagine my surprise coming south and finding that all these mage-hating philistines couldn’t give two shits about men shacking up with men.’

‘I wish I was queer sometimes. Keenan would have been _super_ nice to me the first time. Saffy,’ he whistled and shook his head. ‘I love her, but she’s kind of crazy in bed, y’know?’

‘I’m very happy _not _to know, if it’s all the s—’

‘The first time she called me puppy and said she would _punish_ me unless I ate out of her hand. I did it, better safe than sorry. Not what I expected, my first time but it still felt good, even if it wasn’t her actual… _area_. Keenan would have been better, but I just couldn’t imagine it.’

Dorian kept his expression neutral as he was used to when speaking with his mages. ‘What do you mean, about Keenan?’

Landon seemed to be concentrating on more important matters, like Saffy and her rather dark sexual nature, when he said, ‘Y’know, how he’ll take your virginity if you want. Better him than a guard, or so it was in the Circles. Oh _fuck_.’

Landon caught Dorian’s _no longer neutral_ expression and visibly paled.

It was one of those moments when Dorian badly, fucking _sorely,_ wanted to lose his cool because sometimes these kids, they came out with the most heart-breaking truths he’d ever known. Inflamed a kind of anger on their behalf that he had no way of venting. Made him want to go stalking into the cells beneath Skyhold and kill every single one of those scumbags down there, awaiting judgement from an absent Inquisitor.

‘I see,’ was all he said, swallowing down his feelings and remembering to be the blank slate they needed. ‘I… see.’

‘Maker, please don’t tell Keenan I said anything. He trusts you and respects you; he wouldn’t want you to think less of him. _Fuck_, I’m so stupid!’

‘Landon, it’s fine. I’m not going to say anything. Everything we’ve talked about here is completely between us.’ When Landon still looked miserable and worried, Dorian added, ‘I promise.’

That, at least, seemed to ease the boy’s concerns. ‘All right, thank you. Can I ask you another question? It’s not a sex thing.’

‘Of course,’ Dorian said, mildly relieved that it wasn’t going to be another foray into female anatomy.

‘Are you in love with your Commander?’

It hit like a punch; a soft, sucker punch right in his windpipe where he was vulnerable. Dorian had been well and truly distracted from the former Templar lying unconscious in the infirmary and then, _bang_, all his mind was flooded with Cullen once more.

The instinct to delay and obfuscate was set aside in favour of honesty, regardless of how painful. ‘Yes, I am.’

Landon nodded slowly. ‘They don’t understand it, the others. They think romantic love is a waste of time, a trick. But I love Saffy. I’ve always loved her and even though she doesn’t love me, it doesn’t make me care about her any less.’

‘You’re a good man, Landon.’

‘Your Commander made you sad when he left, though,’ Landon persisted gently, curiously. ‘Now that he’s back, will you reunite?’

Dorian let himself imagine that for a second. Imagined saying everything he needed to say to Cullen, the man listening and taking it all in. Then… after the silence, Cullen might swallow and nod. Bite his bottom lip and look flustered, rub his neck as the truth sank in, the truth that Dorian loved him more than anything in this world.

It was strange to realise that Dorian didn’t especially care what happened _afterwards_ in that momentary fantasy. All he really, truly wanted was for Cullen to know that he was loved, that it was real between them.

‘I don’t think so,’ Dorian said at length. ‘I hurt him very badly.’

‘Oh. But he likes it when you… hurt him, right?’ Landon ventured cautiously, clearly unsure of how to go about saying such a thing, but risking it to offer Dorian comfort. ‘I heard people saying that you two, you hurt each other sometimes. Like Saffy, a little bit, yeah?’

‘This was different,’ Dorian said, his throat over-thick. ‘There’s many different ways to hurt someone and one of the worst is lying to them. I lied to him and I let him think something that wasn’t real. Now he doesn’t believe _anything_ was real because, well, why would he? I lied about one thing, so I could have lied about everything. He trusted me and I betrayed that trust.’

‘Oh,’ Landon said again, looking down at his hands. ‘Well, just… get it back.’

Dorian couldn’t help but smile at Landon’s suggestion; the simple, straightforward advice as if Cullen would ever look at him again, let alone listen. ‘Would that I could.’

Landon shrugged. ‘Show him you love him. Show him it was real.’

‘He won’t—’

‘_Show_ him, Dorian. If you love him and he loves you then all this other crap really doesn’t matter, does it? People are dying all around us; your Commander nearly died last night. I’m just saying,’ Landon sighed, his gaze flicking up to Dorian and then away again. ‘If I had someone who loved me, I wouldn’t give up on it. I’d do whatever I had to.’

Dorian had gone very still with the exceptions of his fingers softly tapping on the surface of the table. ‘He’s not _my_ Commander, Landon.’

‘He was before,’ the boy said plainly. ‘And everyone knew it. He didn’t _care_ who knew it. How common do you think that is? For someone of his rank, who’s supposed to _hate_ mages, to fall in love with one and then _not care_ what anyone thinks of it?’

‘You’re very kind to try and help me,’ was all Dorian could bring himself to say.

‘Well,’ he said, somewhat deflated. ‘Just don’t give up so easily, is all I’m saying. Anyway, I should get back. Thank you for everything. I feel better about the whole sex thing now. I’m sure I can do the top and tail, at least.’ He got to his feet and Dorian did the same. ‘You’re the best,’ Landon said and then he hugged Dorian. A brief, tight hug and then away. Dorian smiled.

‘You’re most welcome. Please just ask if you want to use the bath next time and perhaps give me some advance notice.’

Landon laughed, but it faltered towards the end. ‘I’ll try. She’s all about the spur of the moment, though. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to keep up with her.’

Dorian gave him a sober look. ‘Let me tell you something, Landon. There is little in this world sexier than confidence. Be _confident_ with her. If she’s wild, let her be wild, embrace it, absorb it, so long as it’s what you want. You are kind and brilliant and anyone would be lucky to have your affections. You’re worthy and then some.’

The boy was quiet for a while before he nodded and lifted his eyes to Dorian, something determined in them. ‘So are you.’

*

Everything was weirdly backwards. Dorian was tired, but it was the morning and he had things to do. The sun had risen an hour ago, although heavily obscured by the density of the Deep White. The sky was thickly grey, brimming with boundless snow.

Rotation training had been ongoing even despite the lack of adult mages. Dorian had worked with Blackwall to train their remaining soldiers, a small cluster defence to protect Skyhold, but the blizzard was such that when Dorian braved the courtyard that morning, he was met with a very snowy Blackwall.

‘No training today,’ he told Dorian. ‘Fucking snowed under.’

Which left Dorian with a horrible chunk of free time. His mages liked mornings to themselves. To wash and dress and do whatever they wanted without him there. Dorian tried to think of other things to occupy himself with and settled for attending to the library, even though it felt like a weak excuse to avoid the infirmary and really, who the fuck was he kidding?

He sat alone in his library, surrounded by books that had stacked up in the months before when he’d been far too busy to organise them. A shipment of rare tomes on mage history and Imperium lore had arrived a few weeks after his furniture. Another _gift_ from his father, though there was still no note. Dorian had ignored them, devoted his time elsewhere.

Now was a good time to viciously sift through them, he supposed.

But after less than an hour, he realised it wasn’t working. The work was meaningless, it required no attention and so the thing he absolutely dreaded began to happen.

In the four months since Leliana had told Dorian about her concerns for Cullen, Dorian had devised a schedule to keep himself going. It had to be busy, positively jam packed to ensure he had as little time as possible to mope and suffer.

And for four months, he had survived. Hour to hour, day to day, he’d forced himself to eat, sleep, move and exist. He never repaired the mirror, was still too afraid to see himself. Deep down he knew he was _avoiding_ himself, strange as it sounded. His outfits were unadorned and plain, he shaved when he needed to by the feel of it and he shaved blind. His hair was getting far too long, sometimes when he leaned forward, loose black curls would fall into his eyes. He didn’t care, pushed them back and got on with the business of being alive.

It was all he knew how to do anymore.

He’d gotten through the four months, verging on five, being this way. Now, there was a chunk of free time and Cullen was inside Skyhold. Dorian couldn’t focus, couldn’t think of anything besides how much he wanted go and check on him, make sure his fever had abated.

See him. Talk to him.

_I just need you to know that I love you more than anything in this world. _

Maybe help him, even. That healer had left Cullen tied to the bed to _die_. Dorian knew Leliana would take good care of her friend, but the nagging worry persisted. Maybe he should just poke his head around the door and…

‘Ugh,’ he groaned, dropping his face into his hands. ‘This is a new level of pathetic.’

‘Don’t sell yourself short,’ came Leliana’s voice from above. ‘What about that day when you cried in the Great Hall and Cassandra though you were choking?’

‘I _was_ choking, thank you very much and that’s some fairly unsubtle spying from you there, _Spymaster_.’

He heard her chuckle; the tower was that fucking quiet. Her footsteps were soft as she made her way down to him. ‘I was writing to Lavellan, informing her that we have Cullen’s letter,’ she said as she approached. ‘And that we have Cullen back again, though we weren’t aware that we had even lost him in the first place.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Dorian said, without even needing to think about it.

Leliana half sat on his desk as Dorian leaned back in his chair. ‘If not my fault, then whose? I should have known Hawke had him. Cullen was overdue to check in by four days. I should have _known_. Gone after him.’

‘How is he?’

‘Better, thanks to you. He’s still not yet awake. Cole is with him, keeping watch. He’ll come find me as soon as he wakes. He’s exhibiting withdrawal symptoms,’ she added with a small frown. ‘Shaking, twitching. The way Templars get without lyrium.’

Dorian closed his eyes. All that Cullen had gone through, all he’d _suffered_ to be free of lyrium, of the Chantry’s leash… was for nothing. He’d have to repeat the whole process again, start from scratch.

_Addiction is slavery_, Cullen had said. Now he was collared once more.

‘When you told Vivienne to watch for Hawke,’ Dorian said. ‘Did you know he was targeting Cullen?’

‘I was uncertain. I did not expect him to target Cullen _through_ you, however. That did not occur to me even once. Another failure.’

‘If it’s self-pity you’re after, you’ll find you’re in good company today,’ Dorian offered her with a wan smile. ‘You did what you could. All that matters now is how we move forward.’

‘I should have protected you.’

‘Leliana—’

‘I should have _protected _you from Hawke. He came at Cullen through you and I was so angry because I never once anticipated it. I tried to protect Cullen, but I made it impossible for you to come to me. I failed you too.’

‘You didn’t fail me.’

‘You’re a blood mage now, Dorian. How could I have failed you any worse than that?’ In the space of the silence left by her statement, Dorian quietly tried to hide how much that hurt, how gutted he felt by it. She sighed tightly and her expression crumbled. ‘Maker, I’m sorry.’

_Better I died than become a blood mage, is that it?_ Dorian of old might have said, wound tight and ready to snap if need be.

_‘_No need to apologise,’ this Dorian assured her. It was easy, being kind; it required less energy.

‘It’s hard to see the true path. Everywhere we turn we are waylaid with darkness and distortion.’

Dorian allowed himself a small trace of a smile. ‘It’s always darkest before the dawn. We just need to hold on a little longer. The storm will pass, Cullen will be fine.’

‘The storm is set to last another week at least,’ she said. ‘And we need to use that time. The storm is our shroud. Our chance to dispose of Hawke without anyone knowing.’

‘I have no objection to killing him,’ Dorian said. _‘Believe_ me, but are you certain this is the right approach?’

‘I am. We have the letter and better still, we have his leverage. He will come to us in rage and desperation. He’ll make a mistake and that’s where we’ll slip in. I will be ready this time.’

‘What about Varric?’

‘We’ll get him back. I’m confident that Hawke will offer him in trade for Cullen.’

‘You would not trade Cullen for Varric, though,’ Dorian pointed out quietly.

‘No, I would not, but Hawke does not need to know that.’

‘Look, I already know what you’re going to say, but…’ Dorian sighed. ‘What about Fenris?’

Leliana shook her head. ‘Dorian, _no_.’

‘Putting aside the fact that we would likely be sentencing him to death without at least giving Hawke the _opportunity_ to make the exchange, Fenris was a friend of Cullen’s.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘That Cullen might _want_ to help him.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘This is already too complex. We should say nothing to Cullen of Fenris.’

‘Because he would pursue him?’

‘Because he wouldn’t allow me to kill Hawke. Dorian, the entire world is under siege by Corypheus. We cannot become side-tracked with personal missions, not to this extent. Hawke needs to die; Cullen must resume his position as Commander. These are necessities to ensure the survival of countless people across Thedas.’ She looked around. ‘It’s so quiet in here. It feels like our decisions affect us and only us, but out there, people are dying. They are being slaughtered by demons and Red Templars and all manner of foulness, commanded by Corypheus. The Inquisition was made to stop him and we must see it through. I need you on my side, Dorian.’

‘I am on your side.’

‘That means a great deal to me, my friend.’

‘But if Cullen wants to find Fenris, I’m not going to stop him.’

She looked at him. ‘You’re going to tell him.’

‘I’m not going to _lie_ to him, there’s a difference.’

‘If we tell him about Fenris—’

‘Leliana, Cullen will not abandon his duty to the Inquisition. I can’t believe you’d even entertain the notion that he’d be _able_ to. Cullen lives for the Inquisition. If he’s to become a part of it again, he wouldn’t forsake it. Not in a thousand years.’

‘I do not doubt his devotion to the cause.’

She didn’t say what it was that she _did_ doubt and Dorian wasn’t about to ask. Leliana slid off his desk. ‘Would you do me a favour?’

‘Of course,’ he said quickly and, he would later reflect, stupidly.

‘Go check on Cullen.’

‘Oh… no. No, I can’t.’

‘I’m asking in my official capacity as Spymaster. Cole is vigilant and watchful, but if Cullen’s fever were to return, he wouldn’t know what to do. Please?’

*

When Dorian arrived in the infirmary, greeting two of the three guards who had kicked down the door only hours previous, the mage was met with a soft, pleasant melody. Someone was singing. _Cole_ was singing.

‘Oh, good,’ Cole sighed as soon as he caught sight of the mage, his singing interrupted halfway. ‘My arms are getting tired.’

‘How is he?’

‘He’s swimming in the blue again,’ Cole answered, peering at Cullen curiously. ‘It was purple for so long, he thought it always would be.’

Cullen’s forehead was cool and dry when Dorian felt it and the blond stirred beneath the contact, a dry, broken sound coming from his throat.

‘Stay here,’ Cole whispered. Dorian swallowed hard. ‘Stay here.’

‘His fever has broken,’ Dorian said, mostly to himself. ‘I’ll change his bandages before I—’

‘_Dorian_.’

Cullen’s eyes were still closed and the mage wondered if he’d imagined it, Cullen speaking his name. He froze, waiting to see if it happened again.

‘Dorian.’

Oh, fucking Maker, what was he supposed to do? Take Cullen’s hand and kiss it like he was desperate to? Say Cullen’s name in return? Fall to his knees and beg forgiveness because… because Cullen didn’t sound angry or hateful. It was the way he used to murmur Dorian’s name first thing in the morning, all wrapped around him, warm and content.

‘I’m here,’ Dorian forced himself to utter. ‘I’m right here.’

Cullen moved towards his voice, one hand lifting slowly to search for him and Dorian took it, thoughtlessly driven by instinct. He held it like spun glass, cradled in the mage’s own. ‘Dorian,’ Cullen said again and this time he shifted, trying to sit up and his eyes fluttered open.

‘Cole, tell Leliana he’s awake,’ Dorian said, never once looking away from the former Templar. Cullen’s gaze was glassy, eyes sliding around the room in search of…

‘Dorian.’

‘I’m here,’ the mage repeated, apparently _unable_ to say anything but the truth even though the truth was barren. ‘I’m here, Cullen.’

‘I slept too long.’

‘No, you’re fine. You needed to sleep.’

Cullen’s free hand joined the other, thumb rubbing over Dorian’s knuckles absently and he tried to sit up again, failing with a wince that sent mild confusion skittering across his features. He gasped, eyes widening even as Dorian shushed him. ‘Wh-what happened?’

‘Don’t strain yourself,’ Dorian said, trying to settle him down, but that only made things worse. Cullen was disorientated, panic increasing every second as he took in his surroundings, the bandages on his arms and chest.

‘Why do you… you look so d-different,’ he stammered, strong arms actively struggling against Dorian to sit up now. The mage gave in and grudgingly helped him to prevent further strain. He clung to Dorian, panting harshly. ‘It hurts to breathe,’ he told Dorian, looking at him plaintively, with trust and confusion.

‘I know it does,’ Dorian said, voice trembling. ‘There was an infection in your lungs and we removed it. Sit still and I’ll get you some water.’

‘No,’ Cullen said, gripping Dorian hard. ‘No, stay. Stay with me, love. Please.’ Dorian wasn’t sure what expression moved across his face but Cullen caught it and he _paled _at the sight of it. ‘Oh, Maker, please tell me, what is it? What’s wrong… what’s…’ Cullen frowned, confusion winning out over worry and Dorian watched it happen with taut and terrible agony as Cullen slowly began to remember.

Dorian knew what it felt like to fall from a great height. He would never forget that feeling of his body plummeting too fast for his stomach to keep up. This was worse.

‘You…’ Cullen breathed, pulling his hands away from Dorian, leaving the space he’d been previously desperate to remain within. The mage saw _betrayal_ trickle into those amber eyes, loss and devastation. Terrible knowledge of terrible things. ‘No. Oh… please _no_.’

Blinking back tears, Dorian released him. ‘I’m sorry, Cullen.’

It was flooding back thick and fast, Dorian could tell. It came like horror. Distance built in the gap between them, the warm confusion evaporating like steam, like the steam from Cullen’s skin that night in the bath. He’d never seen his skin make steam like that, was absolutely awe-struck by it, by so much that Dorian had shown him.

Dorian watched because that was all he could do, helpless and _useless_ bystander to Cullen’s recollection of everything. Saw it come back, saw Cullen realise it all a second time and it was… it was unlike anything. Impact driven deep, a knife in the heart instead of a flesh wound.

And then he watched Cullen master himself. Saw all that pain put away and locked in a cage as the man he loved reigned himself in. Every muscle was taut, tendons in his neck strained as he closed his eyes and exhaled forcefully, thin tears spilling over the blank mask he was crafting. Retreating inward, armouring himself. Building a wall so high that Dorian could never hope to scale it.

‘Get away from me.’

Dorian would rather Cullen had hit him. He tried to make himself move away, _wishing_ he could leave but… something was screaming inside him, demanding that he tell Cullen everything while he was there, while he couldn’t leave and pretend that he hadn’t heard.

‘I’m going to,’ Dorian said. ‘But first I need to tell you something.’

Cullen’s jaw clenched so hard it looked like it might break. ‘Get _out.__’_

‘I can’t.’

‘No, of course,’ Cullen said in a rush of breath, staring anywhere but at the mage. ‘Of _course_, I have to sit here and listen to Dorian Pavus’s encore display. Did you rejoice that I’ve nowhere to run anymore and no fucking strength to carry me?’

‘Just let me say what I need to and then—’

‘Fucking _say it_ then!’ he spat.

Sick, hot anxiety pulsed inside Dorian like a living thing. His armpits burned with sweat, hands tingling and his mouth was painfully dry. ‘I…’ his voice broke, mind turning helpfully blank now he was granted permission to say all the things he needed. Oh _please_, not again. No, no, he _would _say it this time. No silence, no silence for Cullen to fill with things that weren’t true.

‘I love you so much,’ he blurted out, heedless of how stupid it sounded, how _whiny _and _nasal_ it was. Stripped and raw, ugly and true. ‘I love you more than anything in this world and every single thing I feel for you is completely real. You are _everything_ to me.’

Throughout the whole thing, Cullen’s eyes were closed as he breathed through his nose, fists gripping the bedsheets hard enough to bleach his knuckles. Dorian took a trembling breath when he finished, suspended in the moment of splitting himself wide open and showing Cullen everything. He waited and he _waited_. It wasn’t going to be good, he knew that, bone deep. It wasn’t going to be good, but he needed Cullen to know it and now he did.

‘I never thought,’ Cullen said slowly, so quietly that Dorian had to strain to hear him. ‘That you could sink any lower than you did on the day I left. I hoped, like the naive, _stupid_ man I am, that whatever you had to say, it would be something like an apology.’

‘Cullen—’

‘But you can’t even do that, can you?’

‘Cullen, I _am_ sorry! I—I’m so fucking sorry; I can’t apologise enough!’

‘And what are you apologising _for_?’

‘For—for what I did to you, for lying, for going behind your back with the letter!’

‘No!’ he barked. ‘_No!_ If you’re going to apologise to me, apologise for what _matters_. Apologise for letting me believe that you ever felt the same.’

Dorian let out a strangled sound, moving closer. ‘Please don’t say that.’

_‘That’s_ what you apologise for, if anything, and then let me move on with my life. Give me that much at least.’

‘I _love you_,’ Dorian choked, trying to take Cullen’s hand, but it was snatched away and when Cullen looked at him, eyes _blazing_ so dangerously, Dorian let slip a broken sob. ‘I know I hurt you but this is real, everything was _real!_’

Cullen wouldn’t let him take his hands, but Dorian couldn’t contain himself. He was frantic, driven by desperation. He took hold of Cullen’s face and he fully expected Cullen to hit him, hoped for it even. If he could just make Cullen angry, push all that rage out of him and clear his head, maybe he would see that Dorian was telling the truth.

But Cullen went abruptly still and motionless. Dorian was hyperventilating, gripping Cullen’s face hard enough to leave a bruise but he… he _had_ to make him see it.

‘I love you,’ he repeated fiercely. ‘I _love you,_ you fucking idiot, how can you even doubt it?’

Cullen was so close, but yet unreachable when he said, ‘Then why are you still alive?’

‘I…I don’t—’

‘Did you lie about the curse? Did you invent it as a way of keeping me at a distance?’

_‘What_?’

‘An excuse for not having to lie about your feelings for me? It would be convenient, wouldn’t it? Keep me at arm’s length.’ Cullen sneered colder than anything the Deep White had to offer. ‘You needn’t have bothered. If only you’d been brave enough to be _honest. _I would have respected that, honesty. Even if it hurt, even if tore me up, I would have actually respected it from you. You don’t love me; you don’t feel the same. You only had to treat me with the most basic of decency, _human_ decency, but then what was I really expecting from a _mage_?’

Dorian let go and stepped back. ‘I didn’t lie about the curse.’

Cullen’s sneer tightened. ‘Just about loving me, then? You disgrace yourself, coming here to offer consolation and _pity_!’

‘I would _never_ do that!’

‘There is no limit to what you would do! You are a mage, a _blood mage, _in case you’ve forgotten! You’re a liar and you have—' Cullen broke off, biting the words back before they could spill forth. He wrenched his gaze aside, chest heaving, nose furling.

‘I’ve what?’ Dorian asked in a quiet voice, a shockingly _normal_ voice. ‘Go on, don’t hold back. I _what_? Disgusted you? Let you down? You’re not saying anything I haven’t been told before, so let me hear it.’

Cullen closed his eyes, shaking his head. ‘You broke my fucking heart.’

In the chasm of silence following that, Dorian tried desperately to think of what to do. It fairly cut him in half to hear Cullen say such a thing and know that he _meant_ it. All his coldness and his fury stemmed from it, that single sentence, five words that sat at the core of everything bad and broken between them.

‘I don’t know why the curse isn’t _functioning_,’ Dorian said after a while. ‘I don’t understand it, but the curse is real and my feelings for you are real. I’ve never loved anything like I love you.’

Cullen laughed bitterly, a single breath from his previously water-logged lungs that Dorian had fought to save. ‘Just _stop_. You’re not making it any better, for me or for you. I’m not going to _die_ because you fucked around with me, Dorian. I’ve survived worse than you.’

‘I know you have. I’m not saying it out of pity, you know I wouldn’t do a thing like that.’

‘_Pity is worse than hatred,_’ Cullen said with a nod, gaze riveted on the other side of the room. ‘I remember. I remember everything you ever said to me. I just can’t listen to anymore. Please… _please_ leave me alone now. I let you speak. Just leave me alone.’

There it was. Dorian’s failure, perfectly crystallised. He’d been honest and it had done nothing. He’d spoken his truth to absolutely no avail. The damage was _set_, scar-like and deep. Too little, too late.

‘I’ll leave,’ Dorian agreed through numb lips, looking away blindly. He couldn’t feel his body, couldn’t process anything beyond the way his ears were ringing and he felt like he was about to throw up.

‘Wait,’ Cullen said. Dorian came to a halt, not daring to hope. ‘We still need to work together,’ Cullen told him, voice tight and empty. ‘Lives depend on our ability to work together. I would not give less to the Inquisition because of what we… because of this.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’m offering civility, that we might get through this war and save as many as we can. There is enough to deal with already.’ He heard Cullen take a breath. ‘I’ll be civil if you will.’

_Civility_. It was more than Dorian had any right to ask for and yet the word was abhorrent to him. He thought of _before_, way before, when Cullen had looked at him with barely restrained disgust and hatred, when he’d walked into him rather than stepped aside for the mage. Civility was lower than that, it was the void of everything they’d shared. The death of their extreme.

‘I appreciate it,’ is what Dorian heard himself say as he walked out, pausing at the door. ‘And I _am_ sorry, just not for the reasons you think.’

*

Cullen was up and about faster than Dorian expected, faster than he should have been for someone who almost died. Dorian didn’t hide away, didn’t lock himself in his room the way he’d done months ago. He felt… empty, but he was functioning. He’d gotten good at it, truth be told.

When Leliana convened a meeting, Dorian dragged himself to the War Room. He spoke with Josephine and Vivienne until Leliana, Blackwall and Cullen arrived. Leliana gave Dorian a smile, Blackwall a friendly wink, as was his way, and Cullen…

Cullen looked right at Dorian and gave an indifferent, courteous nod.

‘There is much to discuss,’ Josephine said, after she hugged Cullen. ‘But first, how are you feeling?’

‘Fine,’ he said, giving her a gentle smile before swivelling his gaze to the Tevinter mage. ‘I understand that I’ve Dorian and the younger mages to thank for that.’ Dorian’s lips parted as Cullen surveyed him like he was a benign stranger. ‘I’m very grateful,’ he said in the way Dorian had heard him address people of stature; his polite voice was crisp and just a fraction more high-born than came naturally. ‘I will visit with your mages at some point, if that sits well with you, and thank them myself. I owe you all a debt of gratitude.’

‘N-no you—’ Dorian started to say and then caught himself. ‘It was Nalari that saved you.’

‘Indeed, though she didn’t risk her life in the snow to bring Vivienne and I here. You’ve my gratitude, as I said.’

‘Cole saved us,’ Dorian pointed out, unable to let it go, unable to bear the weight of Cullen’s _civil gratitude_ and that voice that was meant to keep people at a distance.

But Cullen seemed to lose interest rather abruptly as he looked away. Dorian couldn’t help but _marvel_ at the shields the man had built in the small time since that morning. It was like he barely knew him. ‘Tell me of the last three weeks,’ he requested of their Ambassador.

Josephine filled him in and every now and then, he would ask a question, ask for details before he allowed her to continue. Dorian noticed that Cullen wasn’t wearing his mantle and then he felt very stupid because _obviously _he wasn’t wearing it, he’d probably lost it, probably left it back where he was being tortured and force-fed lyrium by Hawke.

‘What percentage of the militia remain in Skyhold?’

‘Five percent,’ Blackwall answered.

‘And what of food supplies?’

‘They’re lower than we would like, but if the storm abates within a week we will manage,’ said Josephine, offering Cullen a ledger. He skimmed through it and handed it back to her with a nod.

‘The Deep White could last longer than a week. I’ve witnessed a few when I was younger; there’s a kind of halfway point, a darkening of the skies for an entire day. Blackwall tells me we haven’t yet seen it.’

Josephine bit her bottom lip. ‘If we’re not at the halfway mark, our food stores will be dangerously low by the time it breaks.’

Cullen was utterly calm when he said, ‘Tomorrow evening, I’ll execute the prisoners in the cells and free us of their dependency. We can ill afford to waste rations on keeping them alive for a sentencing overseen by Lavellan.’

‘Do you think that’s wise?’ Vivienne asked. ‘Justice should come from the hand of the Inquisitor, no?’

Cullen gave a small shrug. ‘She’s not here and I won’t let a single good person starve while a bad one eats their fill. Unless anyone has a material objection, I’ll do it quietly. No need for a show.’

‘We are at least shrouded well by the storm,’ Josephine said, scribbling something. ‘There are a number of reasons we can give as to their… demise. The cold, lack of rations, an escape attempt.’

‘Good. This afternoon, I want to lead a scouting party around the outer perimeter of the castle.’

‘That’s too dangerous,’ Dorian said before he could stop himself and then for good measure, added, ‘You almost froze to death yesterday.

‘I’m fine,’ Cullen said blandly.

‘What is even the _point_ of—’

‘Hawke will be watching. He needs to see that I’m alive and well,’ Cullen explained, moving a small marker on the map. ‘The garrison is here,’ he said, placing the marker on a hilly area very close to the castle marker. ‘To Skyhold’s east. He needs to see me.’

Leliana and Dorian exchanged glances. ‘I told him about Fenris,’ she said simply. ‘Commander Cullen agrees with me that until the threat of Corypheus no longer remains, we cannot do anything for him. Hawke, however, will be frantic to regain Cullen. Seeing him will increase this.’

‘Frantic can be good,’ Vivienne said. ‘Frantic breeds mistakes.’

‘Our concern here is Varric,’ Cullen said, staring down at the map intently. ‘Hawke may be on the ragged edge, but he is highly intelligent. He will anticipate much of what we are planning.’

‘What _won__’t_ he anticipate?’

Cullen was silent for a moment, thinking and considering. ‘He wouldn’t expect me to actually trade myself for Varric. He’ll expect a trap.’

‘You can’t actually trade yourself for Varric.’

‘No one is saying that,’ Leliana assured Dorian. ‘But we can use Hawke’s expectation of a counter-attack to our advantage.’

‘How?’

‘Leliana and I have devised a rough plan,’ Cullen said. ‘But in the meantime, there is much to be done. I am mostly concerned about the low supplies. What of lyrium for our remaining soldiers?’

‘The lyrium supplies are holding well,’ Josephine said. ‘I do not anticipate a shortage, even if the Deep White lasts a month.’

‘That’s good,’ Cullen said. ‘All right. I’ll meet with the cooks and discuss rationing recipes. They make excellent dishes, but there are ways to make the food stretch.’

Dorian wanted to ask how Cullen knew such things, but held his tongue.

‘The young girl, Nalari,’ Cullen said as he came to stand beside Josephine, peering at her ledger and pointing. ‘She will be given priority, of course as she’s with child. All the younger mages, in fact.’

‘If the mages are to receive larger portions than everyone else in the castle, it would be better for them to eat in private,’ Vivienne said, not unkindly.

‘They are children,’ Cullen said, frowning at something on the ledger distractedly. ‘The fact that they are mages is secondary. Why has this not been rectified?’

‘We were waiting for confirmation,’ Josephine answered him quietly as Vivienne sighed.

‘When people get hungry enough, they won’t see children and adults, they’ll fall back on old prejudices.’

‘They won’t,’ Dorian said. ‘There’s not a soldier, guard or worker in this castle who would resent the youngest among us eating slightly more than them, I assure you.’

The Knight Enchanter slanted her brow, but fell silent.

‘Agreed,’ Cullen said, looking back up at the room. ‘What of firewood for heat?’

‘Again, lower than we would like.’

‘Could the mages help with that?’ Cullen asked Dorian.

‘With… firewood, I don’t—’

‘With warmth.’

Dorian stared at Cullen, schooling his features into something resembling _normality_. How was Cullen so fucking talented at acting like Dorian was a stranger, like they hadn’t been inside each other, like he hadn’t _moaned_ when Dorian’s blood hit his tongue? ‘Yes, we could help with that. Heating orbs can self-sustain for five hours at a time. Keenan and I could make rounds, refresh them as necessary. It’ll put a strain on the lyrium, though.’

Josephine was already calculating. ‘The supplies _should_ hold.’

‘How far along is Nalari?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Nalari, how far along is she?’ Cullen repeated patiently.

‘We’re still relatively uncertain, but seven months, eight at the most. Why?’

‘Because Deep Whites can last a long time,’ Cullen said. ‘And Leliana tells me we are without a senior healer. I would not wish for her to go into labour while we are in such a state of isolation, but it is better to be prepared anyway. Joy has birthed several children and helped two of her own daughters. She’s likely better qualified to help than the healer who left me to die. I’ll speak to her later. Blackwall, are there any issues with the soldiers?’

‘Aside from being unable to put them through their drills in this downpour, no.’

Cullen considered. ‘We should make use of the hall,’ he said. ‘Move the tables to the side. It’s a vastly underutilised space as is. Drills can resume tomorrow. Dorian, would you like to bring some of your more experienced mages along?’

Dorian thought of Keenan and Saffy, Marcus and Cain too, who had all been begging to train alongside the soldiers. ‘Because it would be easier with small numbers, wouldn’t it?’

‘Precisely. Leliana tells me of the outcropping you’ve been using up until now, but it’s too much of a risk to make the journey. I’m sure we can make do with the hall until the storm breaks.’

The meeting had taken on a dream-like quality, so far removed from the reality Dorian had come to associate with Cullen. Part of Dorian was astonished by the apparent ease with which Cullen could disassociate from their previous relationship, resentful of it even.

The other part of him knew better. Knew Cullen well enough to recognise _tiny_ indicators of stress. The clip of his accent, the way he immersed himself in the thick of a million details. When things were bad, Cullen became the _Commander_. Stepped into the role and wore it like armour.

‘Good idea,’ Dorian said, averting his gaze.

‘Is there anything else?’

After discussing a few smaller, but serious concerns about the storm and how it would affect day-to-day life in Skyhold, Leliana declared that to be it for the time being.

‘Let’s keep this meeting once a day, at this time,’ she suggested. ‘Until the Deep White breaks, at least. It’s better to stay on top of any small issues than to let them develop, so please - anything you’re concerned about, bring it up here. In the meantime, everyone stay on alert for any sign of Hawke. He obviously knows the castle well enough to slip inside undetected, but the storm will make it much more difficult for him to approach unseen. Anyone who sights him, call for Cole and send him to find either Cullen or myself.’

‘Where _is_ Cole?’ Vivienne asked.

Dorian glanced around, feeling for an especially warm corner. ‘There,’ he said, indicating by the window. Vivienne frowned.

‘How can you tell?’

‘I can feel him. Cole?’ Cole appeared in the blink of an eye, leaning against the wall, facing down. ‘Yes, see? He’s usually around.’

‘Have you been here the entire time?’ Josephine asked him.

‘Just towards the end,’ Cole answered dreamily. ‘I can only walk on broken glass for so long. It goes deep, splits red and blue, lilac unmade once more. Back, back, back again. Revert and regress. It’s a long way down beneath the surface. I can hold my breath, watch me and count.’

‘Cole,’ Cullen said, like he hadn’t heard any of that. ‘If someone calls you, go to them right away, you understand?’

‘I always go where I’m called, stay where I’m needed.’

Cullen stared at Cole for a moment, something speculative in his eyes. ‘Meeting dismissed then, unless anyone has anything else to discuss? No? Good. Cole, follow me please.’

‘Where to?’ the boy asked.

‘My quarters.’

‘I don’t like it there,’ Cole said, shaking his head, playing with his thumb. ‘It’s cold and impersonal and full of blood.’

‘Cole,’ Dorian warned quietly, but Cullen raised his hand at the mage, gesturing not to bother, like it was _fine_.

‘Stay here with me then, Cole,’ Cullen said like it made no difference to him. ‘We can speak after the others leave.’

‘Stay here,’ Cole echoed softly, musically. ‘Stay here, stay with me, in the blue, in the deep blue. It was purple but now it’s all blue again. I’ll stay here, like you said. Don’t be sad, my love.’

Blackwall cleared his throat very loudly and Dorian resigned himself to leaving, though he badly wanted to stay and discover what Cullen was going to discuss with Cole. As he moved to leave, he brushed close by Cullen and that was when he caught the scent. Burnt ozone, earthy crystals and cracked mana. Stronger than before, _so much_ stronger than before, even when he’d drunk Cullen’s blood to access it.

His feet stopped dead, sending Blackwall almost crashing into him but he didn’t care. He stared at Cullen, shock rooting him to the spot.

‘Did you take more?’ he asked before anything resembling control came over him. Cullen’s gaze was implacable and calm.

‘Excuse me?’

Leliana was at Dorian’s side in an instant, her hand on the mage’s arm. ‘Dorian, why don’t we—?’

‘Did you take lyrium?’

The room collectively seemed to quieten and still, but Dorian’s world had narrowed to one person as it was wont to do. Cullen stared at him for the longest time before he spoke in a voice used to address a hostile stranger, ‘I do not believe that’s any concern of _yours_.’

*

‘How could you let him?’

_‘Let_ is hardly the word, Dorian. He bathed, he shaved and changed his clothes and in that slot of time when he was alone, he obviously visited the lyrium supply room as well.’

Dorian paced furiously, gesturing with his hands whenever he spoke. ‘You left him alone? He was force fed lyrium; of course he was going to struggle with it!’

‘I did not anticipate—’

‘Well you should have!’ Dorian yelled. ‘You fucking should have known, you’re his friend, you should have…’ His breathe gave out painfully. It cost him dearly to put a hand over his heart and feel the damage there.

‘I’m as upset as you are, believe me. You are right. I should have anticipated it.’

Dorian groaned. ‘Ugh, no. Just ignore me. You’re a _person_, not an omniscient god. You thought he would be exhibit withdrawal symptoms before he caved.’

She nodded. ‘I did.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Dorian, I don’t think there’s anything we can do.’

He looked at her, eyes wide. ‘What do you mean? He almost fucking killed himself to get clean of this shit; it ate away a _hole_ in his body and now he’s back using again.’

‘Perhaps he is using it out of necessity. You saw him in the War Room.’

‘Yes, I _saw_ him,’ Dorian scoffed breathlessly. ‘Capable and in control and utterly caught in the claws of a potion that’s slowly killing him. I can’t _believe_ he’s just—just given in like that!’

‘We are hardly fit to judge him.’

‘Well who the fuck is, then? Who loves him like we do?’

‘You need to calm down.’

She was right and he knew it, but a trembling sense of outrage was coursing through him because he simply could not accept that Cullen had given up so spectacularly. He was furious with him when he had absolutely no right to be, but it was inescapable. He loved him and he couldn’t bear the idea of his capitulation to something that would ruin him.

‘I can’t.’

‘Try harder.’

‘I have to talk to him.’

‘And do _what_, Dorian? Please, get a hold of yourself. You’re only going to make things worse.’

Dorian gripped the back of his chair hard enough that the wood creaked. ‘He’s doing it because of _me_.’

‘Cullen would never stoop to such pettiness.’

‘No, he’s using again because of me. Because of what I did, what I… took. He doesn’t have any _reason_ to be strong and resist it anymore.’ Dorian closed his eyes. ‘I know it. I can fucking _feel_ it.’

‘It’s been a fraught day,’ she said softly, rubbing his shoulder lightly. ‘Get some sleep. Tomorrow we will see things more clearly.’

*

The next day brought further snow, stronger winds and a sick, sharp feeling in Dorian’s gut that contracted horribly when he met with Cullen and Blackwall in the Great Hall.

Dorian could taste it in the air and all around the Commander. He’d _never_ been able to detect it this strongly, not since the first time he’d met him in Haven and even then, not like this.

And Cullen was practically _glowing_ with it. He was keen and sharp on so on point, it left Dorian a little dizzy. He was involved with every single part of their training and he was… he was exceptional, there was no other word for it. The handful of soldiers left in Skyhold, a strong group of thirty, made no effort to hide how thrilled they were to have their Commander back. Dorian had watched from the side-lines as Cullen greeted them, officially explaining that he was, indeed, their Commander once more. He addressed the younger mages, huddled closer to Dorian and thanked them personally for what they did to save him and then explained what was going to happen.

Keenan was listening to everything Cullen said, taking it all in without ever breaking his focus. All but Nalari and Pick were present.

Cullen first wanted to put the soldiers through their drills but he used the mages to do so. He had them create obstacles, fire and ice, no lighting. Then it switched. He began instructing the mages on how to meet a sword, how to cast a shield while maintaining footing. He went _on _and _on_ about footing to the point where Marcus was sighing loudly and pointedly. The first time Marcus got a chance to practise in his pair with a soldier, Cullen neatly kicked his leg out from under him with no effort whatsoever. Marcus went down hard and indignant, but he understood. Footing mattered.

The move, however, left Dorian dry mouthed and almost _aroused_. Disgusted with himself for the inevitable association, Dorian threw himself into the drills, into supporting his mages and encouraging their experience of hand to hand. He did not use his own magic, did not _want_ to in front of Cullen and luckily, there was no call for it.

‘That’s good,’ he heard Cullen tell Keenan. ‘Keep your shield higher, though. Protecting your chest is all well and good, but a sword to the face will hurt just as much.’

Dorian wasn’t sure what to expect from Keenan. He knew that the young man didn’t especially like Cullen, but he’d helped save his life yesterday.

So, while he wasn’t sure what he expected, he definitely didn’t anticipate the cold look Keenan gave the Commander. Keenan’s element was ice, it came to him as naturally as Dorian’s lightning once had. It was there in his eyes as he stared at Cullen, unblinking and still. Cullen didn’t look away, did not flinch at all.

Then Keenan’s gaze flickered to Cullen’s mouth. ‘I suppose you would _know_, wouldn’t you?’

Dorian was already moving towards them, ready and able to spout some ridiculous, highly distracting nonsense if need be, but Cullen was not the least bit riled. He simply said, ‘Yes, I would. So raise your shield.’

Only when Cullen moved away, focusing his attention on others, did Keenan marginally relax. Dorian touched his arm, eyebrows slightly raised.

‘All right?’ he asked under his breath.

Keenan nodded and smiled, like nothing had happened.

After a while, Cullen deemed they were ready for a practise. Soldier against mage. It would be controlled, he assured them. Dorian felt a flutter of nerves, of _concern_. They weren’t ready, nowhere _near_ ready for a demonstration.

‘The red Templars are our enemy,’ Cullen was explaining. ‘Our armies are battling them right now. They fight for Corypheus and they are formidable.’

‘More so then regular Templars?’ Saffy asked.

‘Red lyrium turns them into little more than abominations. Even so, they retain the basic abilities of Templars. Holy Smite, Cleanse, Silence and so forth. These abilities may be grossly misshapen by the red lyrium, but at their core they remain the same. There are ways of dispelling and diverting these abilities, specific magics to protect yourselves.’

Landon half raised his hand. ‘Like what?’

Cullen looked pointedly at Dorian and waited.

‘The best way to counteract Templar abilities,’ Dorian said, stepping forward after clearing his throat. ‘Is to use a combination cast. A very concentrated _Dispel_ with a simultaneous _Mind Blast_, for example.’

‘Simultaneous cast?’ Aldis sounded excited. ‘We haven’t learned _that _yet!’

‘It’s very advanced,’ Dorian said, glancing sideways at Cullen with a small frown. ‘Not something you can learn in a day.’

‘Why don’t you just show us, then?’ Saffy suggested brightly. ‘Give us a demonstration.’

‘Oooh,’ Marcus said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Yes!’

‘No,’ Dorian refused quickly, shaking his head. ‘No, that’s not—’

‘I have no objections to a demonstration,’ Cullen said smoothly. ‘I’m sure you’re all familiar with Templar abilities, growing up in Circles, but seeing them in action against a veteran mage can help you prepare for the reality of it.’

_‘No_,’ said the veteran mage.

Keenan mistook Dorian’s refusal for something else and he stepped forward. ‘I will,’ he offered. ‘I’ll fight you, Commander.’

And before Cullen could say anything, even though Dorian knew it would be a refusal, he swiftly approached the Commander, something like panic fluttering in the lower regions of his stomach. ‘All right,’ he said irritably. ‘All right, fine. A _short_ demonstration. Everyone move back, that means _you_, Marcus!’

He didn’t want to do this, there were so many reasons, but the primary one was highly childish. Cullen was _going _to see his magic, sooner or later. Better now, he supposed.

With the tables pushed against the sides of the hall and the chairs stacked atop them, there was plenty of room for what was necessary. Dorian picked up his staff from where it rested against the wall and rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck. When he faced Cullen, the Commander had no sword, only a shield. Dorian wanted to snap at him to pick up his fucking sword, but he didn’t know _why_ he would have said that. They weren’t enemies, they were… allies, at least. Civil allies and they weren’t going to hurt each other. It was a demonstration, nothing more.

So why did it feel like they were going to fight?

‘Shall we do this in stages?’ Dorian asked loudly. ‘Make it clear step by step or…?’

‘No,’ Cullen said, slipping his hand through the holder of the shield, not the one Dorian had fixed, just a random, rounded shield. He wasn’t armoured either, but if he wasn’t using a sword there seemed to be little point in telling him to don protective gear. ‘We’ll just let them see the reality of it. The risk.’

Something cold ran down Dorian’s spine. ‘Keenan, make a shield around us,’ he instructed, not looking away from Cullen. His instincts were rising like hackles. Cullen was… _fuck_, he was looking at Dorian the way Leliana used to. The way _Cullen_ himself used to before everything.

Dorian had already resigned himself to getting hurt when Cullen gave him a short nod to signal the beginning.

The air tightened and compressed, turning rigid in Dorian’s lungs as Cullen drew on his lyrium to cast something. It felt so _wrong_ that Dorian couldn’t stop himself from gasping. Cullen was not meant to draw power from lyrium, every sense in the mage’s body warned him that this was not how it was meant to be.

But this was how it _was_.

Dorian threw _Mind Blast_ and Cullen deflected it masterfully with his shield and before the mage had a chance to think of what to do next, Cullen cast _Wrath of Heaven_ really fucking hard. The light was blinding, stinging the back of Dorian’s skull and he felt like he’d been whacked about the head. It was all _blue_, everything was blue and Dorian hated it so much it set his teeth on edge.

He smashed his staff down against the stones of the Great Hall and lightning rained upon Cullen; thick, dark amethyst coloured bolts striking all around him, but not quite _touching_ him. It was a display. He couldn’t bear to hurt Cullen. White and lilac were now blue and blackberry. Everything was different and it was _plain_ to see.

Cullen stared at the lightning for a moment after it faded before his cold gaze slid back onto Dorian and oh, the mage could _feel_ his disgust from all the way over there. He summoned his magic about him, ready to defend himself and it felt as though they were _alone_, as though they were genuinely going to fight and the outcome was uncertain because hitting and clawing and hands tight around throats was one thing, but Cullen had never weaponised himself against Dorian like this. The mage had always known it was a possibility. Many times, in the early days, he was almost certain that Cullen would try to kill him, but that was before he’d known how Cullen loved him.

_Silence_ shattered around the walls of the domed shield. It rattled Dorian’s bones, fucked him up intensely but at the very last second, he’d protected himself with a _Dispel_. It wasn’t like what Cullen had dropped on Hawke, the flavour was all wrong, the _sensation_ was wrong. It was grainy and it screamed off key in Dorian’s ears, clawed at him clumsily but viciously.

Not Cullen’s magic, not Cullen’s _way. _

The cast had weakened Dorian’s connection to the Fade, but it had not severed it. He shook it off, drew himself to full height and threw a stinging flash of _Pyromancer _and then it was cast after cast, hardly time to breathe in between. Cullen was relentless but all he sought to do was cut Dorian off from the Fade, from his magic. Render him weak and human and _powerless_ and it began to feel so fucking impersonal that Dorian was becoming angry. The most Cullen had done was hit him with a stinging _Holy Smite, _the impact of which had caused his nose to bleed, but that was as offensive as Cullen had gotten.

He cast _Wall of Fire_ multiple times, locking Cullen in a cage of thick, violet flames as he closed the distance between them. His own fire couldn’t hurt him, but it was hurting Cullen and he—he didn’t stop it. Dorian was so fucking enraged, so desperate to burn through all this civility and icy tolerance, cold bland looks. Cullen used his shield to protect himself, eyes locked on Dorian. Close combat was a _bad_ idea. Cullen could literally kill him with his bare hands and Dorian could not. Mages needed distance but distance was killing him.

‘Stop _draining_ my mana,’ Dorian hissed, locking them both inside the fiery cage, raising the flames high enough to make them feel invisible. ‘And fight me!’

Cullen didn’t respond and when he tried to cast again, Dorian found it was _easy_ to stop him now. He only had to shove him back with _force_, push him and make him stumble into the wall of wine-coloured fire. Cullen winced when his shoulder collided with the flames and he jumped back. Dorian was delirious with some combination of fury and satisfaction. He wanted to show Cullen that lyrium wasn’t good enough for him, it couldn’t give him what he _needed_.

‘Hurt me,’ Dorian provoked. ‘Or can’t you do that anymore? Does the poison in your blood forbid your from being anything but a good little _Chantry boy_?’

Cullen was silent; a mask of barely contained rage but he didn’t give in, didn’t even _try_ to hurt Dorian and that was worse than if he’d spat in Dorian’s face.

_Not worth hurting, not worth raising a hand to, not worth anything. _

It was an old, rotting insecurity and Dorian knew he was critically far gone at this point, that he’d let himself get way out of control but there was no going back. That compulsive need to _push_ when anyone else would have backed off, it was fully in control.

Dorian hissed an incantation under his breath and a _surge_ of power coursed through him. He didn’t need his staff anymore and so he tossed it aside. He aimed both hands at Cullen, levitated him slowly with a magic that _hummed_, permeated the very air around him. Cullen’s arms were spread wide, head tipped back and something ugly and dark inside Dorian_ purred_ to see him like that, submissive and strung high, yet brought _low_ before the mage.

_See_, the dark thing whispered, curling around Dorian like a lover. _See how powerful we are when we use it_.

And then he realised what he was doing.

There was blood on his lips from his nose.

Blood fuelling his magic.

_Blood_.

Dorian lowered Cullen immediately, retracting his fire, retracting _everything_ and he turned away, wiping the blood from his nose onto his forearm. It was barely anything, a mere trickle.

He dissolved Keenan’s shield and the outside world came rocketing back. Fresh, cold air, a rush of whispers and hushed voices. When he looked back at Cullen, he regretted it. The Commander was on his feet, but the way he stared at Dorian then, like he was truly an enemy, it gutted the mage, left him hollow and reeling.

The blood mage and the Templar.

‘There you have it,’ Cullen said, his voice positively _trembling_ with the effort of remaining calm. ‘The risks, made plain. That’s enough for today. You all did well,’ he addressed the mages with a brief glance. ‘Dorian, with me, now.’

Cullen was making for Lavellan’s quarters in great, furious strides. He threw his shield to the side before he vanished through the door; it clattered noisily on the stones, sending waves of whispers throughout the hall. Dorian gave Keenan a nod, letting him know to take over and get them all up to the tower.

Against all his instincts, he followed Cullen.

*

The second he was behind a closed door, Cullen’s hand gripped his throat and slammed him against the wood, squeezing tight. The back of Dorian’s head collided hard and he briefly saw stars, dark purple swimming in inky blue.

‘What the fuck was that?’ Cullen demanded, raw and shuddering. ‘Did you really just use _blood magic _on me?’

Dorian struggled, but Cullen’s hand wasn’t crushing the life from him, just pinning him in place. Keeping him there the way Dorian had _kept_ Cullen yesterday.

‘I didn’t mean to,’ he rasped. ‘I _didn__’t_.’

‘What is wrong with you? You _want_ me to kill you, is that it? Showing everyone that you’re a fucking _blood mage_, controlling me with blood magic? Do you even realise what you—?’

Dorian shoved at his chest, trying to get him to move away but his movements were clumsy and his ringed hand caught Cullen’s face, knocking him aside and catching on his lip.

Cullen stumbled back, hand to mouth and he _stared_ at Dorian, astonished and rendered mute.

‘No,’ Dorian rushed to say, dragging in air as panic smashed into him. _‘No_, I didn’t mean to do that, I’m sorry.’

Cullen took a step away like—like he was _afraid_.

‘Vivienne told me you used my blood out there in the snow,’ he whispered, touching fingers to his torn lip and looking down at the deep red mess Dorian had made. ‘She said it was for lyrium but… did you use me for blood magic?’

‘I haven’t used it since that day with the letter!’ Dorian insisted harshly, pursuing Cullen as the Commander slowly backed up the stairs into Lavellan’s room. ‘Today was—it was an accident; I don’t even _know_ how I did it!’

‘You’re out control, then? That’s what you’re telling me?’

‘I’m telling you it was an accident, Cullen! They didn’t see, I’m _sure_ they didn’t see it!’

‘I did, though’ Cullen breathed. ‘I saw it. I see what your magic is now. How you’ve corrupted it, burnt and blackened it.’

‘And how is that any different to what _you__’re_ doing with lyrium?’ Dorian spat, shaking all over. ‘You’ve given up, just given _in_! Addiction is slavery, isn’t it? So, you’re settling for a shinier collar?’

Cullen was at the top of Lavellan’s stairs as Dorian followed. The room was dark and cold, curtains drawn over the closed balcony doors. It smelled faintly of her; of whetstones and rose soap.

‘That’s nothing to do with _you_!’

‘But the source of _my_ power is your business, is it, _Commander_?’

‘If you’re a blood mage, it’s my responsibility to put you down.’

A stuttered breath punched out of Dorian’s lungs, cold and hard. _‘Put me down?’_

_‘_You used blood magic on me!’

‘It was an accident!’

‘And what instincts did your _accident_ tend towards? Incapacitating me? Beating me? No,’ Cullen sneered, bottom lip trembling ever so slightly. ‘You held me and you raised me up like a sacrifice. Have you ever seen blood mages at work? Did you ever wonder what it looks like when they bleed someone?’

‘I didn’t—I would _never_—’

‘Did you like seeing me that way? Powerless and pliant?’

‘No! It was a fucking _mistake_!’

‘Is that what you want? You want me spread out in supplication for you, Dorian? You want to fuck the lyrium right out of me, do you?’

‘Stop it, stop it _now_!’

But Dorian had followed Cullen all the way over to the wall where Cullen had nowhere left to turn. His lip was still bleeding, Dorian could taste the lyrium in the air, mingling with his plasma. He could taste _Cullen_. The power in the mage’s veins had almost _had_ him, it was desperate to have him again.

‘I’m not good enough to love, but I’m good enough to humiliate?’

That made Dorian so angry that his vision greyed around the edges. ‘You stop this _now!_’

‘Good enough to hold down.’

‘Cullen, shut _up_!’

‘Think of all the things you could do to me, hmm? The range of _control_ with blood magic is beyond anything you’ve ever felt, I’m sure. You could have me begging for you, mad with desire.’

Dorian smashed his palms against Cullen’s chest, shoving him against the wall but also keeping him there, keeping the pressure, trapping him and caging him. Cullen never took his eyes off of Dorian but he didn’t fight back either.

‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll _make you_ shut up!’

‘Do it, then.’

‘No.’

‘Take what you want.’

‘Never!’

‘Shut me up, make me sorry.’

_‘Please _just stop!’

‘Make me whatever you want because that’s what blood magic does. Bends man to the will of magic. _Bend_ me, then. Bend me until I break.’ Cullen leaned in close to Dorian, breath ghosting over his lips. ‘Break me, Dorian. I dare you.’

And it wasn’t that Dorian was afraid.

It wasn’t that he was vibrating with emotion.

It was that he _wanted to_.

He wanted to shut Cullen up, he wanted to make him sorry, he wanted to break him. He wanted to take him and kiss him raw and bloody, _control_ him in a way that went beyond anything they’d shared before because control had always been a toy, an object between them; your turn today, mine tomorrow. This was different.

It built and it _built_ and there was a moment where the madness in his blood screamed so loudly that Dorian wanted to give in just to earn himself silence, just to feel Cullen because Cullen was _everything._

But he didn’t.

He didn’t break Cullen, he let himself break instead. He let go of Cullen abruptly, a low, wretched sob tearing free from his throat.

‘It was an accident,’ he ground out, looking away, looking anywhere but at the man he loved. ‘I’m going to control it from now on, completely. I didn’t know… I didn’t realise it could control _me_ like that. Please believe me.’

‘Why the fuck should I believe you?’

‘Do you honestly think I would use blood magic on you in front of three dozen soldiers and the children I love more than the waking day? I know you think very little of me, Commander, but I would never _stoop_ that low.’

He was cold and he was shattered. Torn by spindly fractures throughout his self and his magic. The lure had crept through him, weaving webs of glass until it had cracked and now, _now_, he could see the damage.

‘I believe you,’ Cullen said, quiet and rumbling. ‘Your magic was so beautiful once.’ Dorian closed his eyes and fresh, hot tears spilled down his face, grieving so many things. ‘Now its monstrous. Demonic and insidious, like the weapon of every other blood mage I’ve ever cut down. Was it worth it?’

‘What do _you_ think?’ Cullen fell silent, declining to answer and Dorian didn’t dare look at him. ‘Did Leliana give you the letter?’

‘Yes. I’m going to destroy it, properly this time.’

‘You haven’t yet?’

‘I wanted to be sure there was no way to undo what you did.’

Dorian turned, couldn’t help it. ‘What?’

‘I wanted to be sure there was no way I could reverse what you did, the blood magic. I’m hardly an expert and I—I wanted to make sure before I destroyed it.’ Cullen closed his eyes as if in pain. ‘Stop looking at me like that.’

‘There’s no way no way to undo it,’ Dorian said very quietly. But it means something that you… thought to try.’

Cullen’s fists were tightly balled, a muscle in his jaw flexing. ‘You’re important to the Inquisition.’

‘I would undo it if I could, believe me.’

‘Like I said, I believe you about that. I know of your distaste for blood magic, you spoke of it often.’ Cullen exhaled in a controlled way. ‘It’s everything else I disbelieve.’

And really, what could Dorian say to that? He would only be repeating himself, over and over, screaming his love for someone who wouldn’t, _couldn__’t, _believe him.

Dorian wiped his face. ‘I’ll control the magic, I swear I will.’

‘I don’t see how. You know the lore. You know what happens. You’ve sentenced yourself to death, Dorian, one way or another.’

The mage whipped around. ‘That doesn’t— you can’t do the _same_,’ Dorian spluttered, words failing to convey what he _felt _because he could feel it then, he could feel it as if Cullen had said it aloud. ‘You can’t do the same fucking thing with lyrium just because of what I did!’

Cullen looked up at him, something challenging about him. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I _can_ control it!’ Dorian insisted wildly, voice breaking.

Cullen pushed away from the wall, shields firmly back in place. ‘Then so can I.’ He headed for the stairs and as he descended, he threw over his shoulder, ‘Don’t give me any more reasons to kill you before this war ends.’

*

‘Are you having a panic attack?’ Vivienne asked, surveying Dorian doubtfully. ‘Because honestly, I am not the right person to go to for such a thing.’

Dorian stood before her, shook his head. ‘I need to control what the blood magic is doing to me.’

Vivienne closed her book and nodded to the door. Dorian had never been in this room before, didn’t even know where it was until he’d asked someone. It was lavish and brightly coloured and he could barely take it all in, he was so fucking _gone_ with the terror of what had happened.

‘Yes, Hawke spoke of that sometimes,’ she said. ‘Take a seat and tell me what happened.’

So, Dorian took a seat and he began talking, but far more came out than the simple facts about his foray into blood magic. He told her about his connection with Cullen, the one he’d _severed_ with blood magic. About Cullen using his magic while the connection was intact. About the _blood_, about what he’d done today, whispering an incantation he’d never heard of before. It all fell out of him in a graceless tumble, pushed by panicky breaths and the feeling of running, _running_ while something snapped at his heels.

He thought of Cullen plastered against Lavellan’s wall, the way he’d seemed _afraid_ of him. There was so much _bad_ between them now, it could never be bridged. They’d reverted to type, to the most basic and worst versions of themselves.

The blood mage.

The fucking _Templar. _

If they ever got Varric back alive, he would be positively thrilled to write about such starkly defined symbolism.

‘Take a breath,’ Vivienne said. ‘Please don’t faint on my floor.’

Dorian let loose a miserable, dry chuckle. ‘I won’t.’

‘Good, now listen. I don’t have much in the way of reassurance for you, _but_ you’re panicking about a fate that awaits you many years from now. I know enough about blood magic to know that it won’t start controlling you for a long time. The kind of blood magic you used wasn’t to kill or ruin someone. It was to create something. That’s a positive aspect so it won’t run rampant through your mana, corrupting you in the space of a few short years.’

‘I know all this,’ Dorian said. ‘And yet it _happened_ today in the hall! It took control of me, it… I lifted Cullen into the air like he was a ram for slaughter.’

‘Dorian,’ she sighed. ‘Have you embraced this magic yet?’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I mean exactly what I just said. Have you embraced it? Explored it, gotten to know it? This is a new element of your life, of your body. Have you thoroughly explored it or have you just ignored it as much as possible until today?’

Dorian blinked. ‘It’s _blood magic_, Vivienne. I don’t want to explore it.’

‘Andraste save from me the stupidity of men,’ she breathed, eyes rolling skyward. ‘It’s _your magic_, Dorian. Just because it’s different now doesn’t make it any less yours and if you _don__’t_ explore it and come to know it as well as you did with your previous magic, then of course it will take you by surprise when you least expect it. You were distracted with Cullen and your magic sought to serve you the best way it knew how.’

Dorian swallowed down his disgust. ‘By controlling him?’

‘You were fighting him, weren’t you? Your magic doesn’t know Cullen, not the way the other did. If you don’t know it, you can’t control it and if you can’t control it, it will control you. That’s the nature of magic.’

‘My magic before would never have—’

‘Because it was the magic you were born with,’ she interrupted swiftly. ‘But it’s not the magic you’ll die with. Embrace the change, explore the nuances and get full control of it. Especially if you’re facing off with Cullen. Your emotions will make everything more volatile, as you well know.’ She gave him a hard stare. ‘Are you exercising extra vigilance against possession?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Well, good. The last thing we need is an abomination roaming the halls. Blood magic makes you much more susceptible to—’

‘I _know_.’

‘Well if you know everything then why are you here?’

Dorian looked down, fingers tapping against his knees. ‘I just… I’m afraid.’

‘Fear breeds weakness, my dear,’ she said, placing her hand over his dancing fingers. ‘You cannot be weak. Master yourself, master your magic. All else is a matter of will. You can live a great many years before the corruption will take you.’

‘What if—?’ Dorian closed his eyes tight. ‘No, you’re right. Of course, you’re right. Thank you.’

She patted his hand and then withdrew it. ‘You’re welcome. Off you toddle now. I’ve much to do.’

‘Can I help with any of it?’

She laughed gently, musically. ‘While I appreciate the gesture, no my dear, you cannot. I advise that you stay with your mages, keep them close. I fear an attack is coming soon and I cannot predict what Hawke will do. He is quite deranged.’

‘What do you _think_ he’ll do?’

She inclined her head, considering. ‘I think he’ll slip inside unseen and then do what he does best; cause chaos. In the chaos, while people are tripping over themselves to get to safety, he’ll find what he wants and take it. I only hope that Cullen and Leliana’s plan _works_. Cunning verses blind panic is never a bet I would take, especially for someone as dangerous as Hawke.’

‘I suppose we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?’

‘Indeed.’

She was waiting for him to leave but he didn’t especially _want _to_. _There was another question he had for her, given her experience with such things and he was trying to think of the best way to phrase it.

‘Spit it out, darling.’

‘When I was twenty-four, my father put a blood curse on me,’ he told her. She showed no trace of a reaction, unflappable as ever. ‘He tried to turn me straight, to ensure our family line would continue given that I refused to marry any of the poor girls he attempted to foist on me. When it didn’t work, he lost his temper and essentially screamed at me that he’d rather I died than be in love with another man.’

Here, she frowned. ‘And the curse took it as instruction?’

‘I felt it solidify inside me. I can feel it there still. It was _pleased_ that my Father said that. It created this…’ he sighed, trying to think of the right words. ‘This _trap_ for me and I’ve always been able to see it so clearly. I avoided anything resembling a relationship from that day on but with Cullen I,’ he laughed. ‘I never really stood a chance.’ He dropped his head into one hand and heaved a deep, painful breath. ‘I love him so much and I _told_ him this but—’

‘You’re still alive.’

He lowered his hand slowly. ‘Why am I still alive, Vivienne?’

‘Well, I’m sure you know this but blood curses are extremely tricky things. If given room to manipulate and torment, they will. Did you fully examine the language your father used? No loophole in his demand?’

‘I’ve been over it a thousand times and all I can think is that I didn’t love Cullen the right way,’ he said quietly, _ashamed. _‘That the way I love him just isn’t right.’

‘And now, of course, Cullen doesn’t _believe_ that you love him?’

‘No, he doesn’t.’

‘Hmm, that’s one way of keeping you single, isn’t it? Like I said, blood curses are insidious and intelligent, though they can’t operate outside their parameters. I would look closer at what precisely your Father said to you. There will be a loophole somewhere because I can tell you, with reasonable confidence, that you are very much in love with Cullen Rutherford.’

Dorian rubbed his eyes. ‘If you wouldn’t mind telling _him_ that, I’d greatly appreciate it.’

Her smile was almost teasing. ‘I don’t interfere in relationships, or haven’t you heard?’

He laughed weakly and then tilted his head, remembering something. ‘By the way, what was it you wanted to tell me in the War Room?’

‘Oh, that,’ she said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘Don’t worry about that, my dear. It’ll keep, trust me.’

*

Dorian, Nalari and Saffy were reading together that evening after dinner. Dorian found that there was very rarely a night these days when he was alone. He didn’t stop to analyse that fact beyond being grateful for it.

This was one of his favourite things to do of an evening, reading with the girls. When the boys of their dorm were around, they tended to be a little louder and sharper, keeping up easily with all the banter and playful interactions, but when they were alone with Dorian, they were softer around the edges, Saffy especially. Much more relaxed. They would cuddle up to him on either side and he would read aloud whatever book they’d chosen. Sometimes they’d fall asleep this way.

He was barely a chapter deep when someone knocked and he called for them to enter, expecting a young mage.

It was like a bucket of water being tipped down his back when Cullen stepped cautiously inside.

Dorian shot upright, almost dropping the book. ‘Oh!’ he said, blinking rapidly to make sure he hadn’t drifted off into the Fade. ‘Um. Hello?’

Saffy and Nalari sat up, stretching like cats. Nalari, at least, had been on her way to falling asleep.

‘Commander,’ she greeted respectfully. ‘How are you feeling now?’

Cullen hovered close to the door, the very picture of awkwardness. He didn’t quite rub the back of his neck but Dorian could tell it was a near thing.

‘Yes, I feel much better now, thank you. It’s the reason I came, actually. Well, twofold. I visited the others in the dorm on my way here to thank them again and deliver some news, they told me you were here so I… came… here.’

Saffy slid off the bed and yawned. ‘It’s a little _late_ to swing by Dorian’s quarters, isn’t it?’ she commented in an overly friendly way and Dorian barely repressed an eye roll at her mischievous ways.

‘Yes, I apologise for that,’ he said. ‘May I come in?’

Dorian wanted to point out that he was already _in_, but he took the Commander’s meaning and, bolstered by the presence of the girls, Dorian found his voice strong and steady when he said, ‘Yes, please do.’

Cullen closed the door behind him in a move so painfully reminiscent of _before_ that Dorian had to numb himself to it.

‘I wanted to thank you again, both of you,’ he told the girls. Nalari’s legs dangled over the side of Dorian’s high, wide bed as she rubbed her lower stomach with a wince, probably from the position she’d been drifting off in. ‘But also, to let you know that this evening I personally executed the guards who had been sentenced to death for crimes against the Inquisition.’

Dorian looked at Cullen sharply, then at Nalari. Her face was expressionless and unreadable.

‘I wanted you to know that while the official sentence handed down through record is technically treason, I told them that their crimes were the atrocities committed against mages and that never again will such behaviour be tolerated or enabled. I am very sorry that I failed to protect you all from such men.’

Dorian was _floored_. Cullen spoke as if he was alone in the room with Nalari and Saffy, didn’t pay a jot of attention to the Tevinter mage and not, Dorian could tell, out of spite. He was intent and genuine, contrite in many ways.

‘How did you kill them?’ Saffy asked, coming to sit beside Nalari on the bed, her arm wrapping about her friend’s waist.

Cullen looked to Dorian then for permission and Dorian hesitated to give it. Now that he was seeing Cullen, really _seeing_ him, he noticed that he’d changed his clothes, that his hair was ever so slightly damp and there were faint pink patches on his forearms where he’d scrubbed too hard. He’d cleaned himself of blood spatter before coming here.

But they were strong, his mages, and only the truth was good enough for them so he nodded.

‘I didn’t behead them,’ Cullen explained. ‘There were too many for such a procession. I went into their cells one at a time and stabbed them in the heart.’

Dorian winced at that. Not because the idea of such a death gave him pause, but because it was so fucking _dangerous_, stupidly risky and typically Cullen. They could have fought him, likely did. How much easier it would have been for Cullen to ask a mage to accompany him through the cells and cast freezing spells, slow their hearts and leave them to die like that? But no, that wasn’t Cullen’s way.

Nalari stared at Cullen, her mouth in a thin line. ‘Did you check them all?’ she asked tightly. ‘Make sure?’

‘I did.’

‘Was—did you kill the tall one? The one with black hair?’

One had to know where to look, but Dorian, who was well versed in all things _Cullen,_ caught the way the Commander’s neck tendons tightened, the way he suppressed a swallow. ‘I killed him last,’ he said, confirming Dorian’s suspicions that Cullen had at least suspected which of his men had done this to Nalari. ‘He’s dead beyond any shadow of a doubt, I swear it.’

‘Good,’ she exhaled softly. ‘Thank you.’

‘Did you kill Erimond too?’ the Tevinter mage asked.

‘I killed everyone residing in our cells. We don’t keep people there for anything less than unforgivable crimes and they were living on borrowed time as it was. We now have plenty of room for Hawke, should he deign to make an appearance.’

‘Vivienne is certain that he will.’

‘I agree. It’s only a matter of where and when.’ Cullen looked back at the girls, his expression softening in a way that Dorian had to look away from because it _hurt_, it fucking killed him, that look. ‘I owe you both a debt of gratitude,’ Cullen was saying, while Dorian walked slowly around his own bedroom. ‘If you ever have need of me, I’m at your disposal.’

‘We’ll keep that in mind, Commander,’ Saffy said with a smile in her voice.

‘Thank you for killing them,’ Nalari said, much quieter, almost strained. ‘I didn’t want the baby to be born while he still breathed.’

There was another awkward, stilted silence before Cullen asked, ‘And how are you faring with the… uh…?’

‘The pregnancy?’ Nalari generously rescued him. ‘It’s fine. Dorian’s been taking good care of me.’

‘Of all of us,’ Saffy added staunchly. ‘He’s a great man, Dorian. One of the best. Handsome, talented, well read, bilingual.’

Nalari whispered, ‘Dorian doesn’t like _girls_!’

‘Bi_lingual, _not—’

Something loud and clunking rent the air. Dorian spun around, seeking the source of the racket; it had come from the door. Cullen was closer and when he pulled on the handle, it didn’t budge. He pulled again, harder, throwing his full weight behind each yank but it was set in stone. Dorian joined him, using magic to try and open it but all his efforts were for nought.

They looked at each other, sharing a single moment of dread and concern before Dorian jogged towards his balcony doors. They didn’t budge either. He tried to break the glass, but it was protected by magic wrought like iron. When he applied a simple exposure spell, a thin, wiry web revealed itself, spanning through the walls and doors. The colour and _feel_ were unmistakable.

‘It’s Hawke,’ Dorian said grimly and then he called out, ‘Cole!’

The boy did not appear. Cullen and Dorian shared another very subtle, very adult _oh fuck_ kind of look and Dorian yelled the boy’s name again, a touch louder.

From outside in the hallway, Cole’s voice came though the gaps in the door. ‘I can’t come inside unless he opens.’

‘Cole, what’s happening?’ Cullen asked.

‘They’re all closed, locked tight until his hand touches one. I can’t move through the magic. It’s sharp like razor-wire.’

Saffy let out a gasp, her eyes wide.

‘Is it… a lockdown?’ she asked in a bare whisper. Nalari was pale, breathing shallow as she rubbed over the bulge of her stomach.

Dorian frowned. ‘A what?’

‘In Circles,’ Cullen said slowly, looking back at the door. ‘Whenever an incident occurred, there was a protocol in place. A kind of failsafe.’

‘It would,’ Nalari said thickly, swallowing. ‘Lock everyone down, regardless of where they were, while the Templars searched.’

‘Cole, is everyone else locked in like we are?’

‘Yes,’ came the boy’s breathless answer after a few seconds of tense silence. ‘And Hawke is here. Moving where I can’t feel him. He’s not alone. I will try to focus on who walks beside him, see if I can find them.’

‘No,’ Dorian said, almost yelling. ‘No, go and station yourself outside the mage’s dorm,’ he told him. ‘If you’re the only one who can move around freely, then you need to protect them!’

‘I’m not the only one,’ Cole said. ‘Leliana was walking outside. She can’t get in now.’

‘Oh Maker,’ Cullen said, looking at the glass doors. ‘She’ll freeze to death.’

Dorian was trying to think, desperately trying to find some kind of solution when Nalari let out a sharp, surprised cry. He ran to her.

‘What is it, darling?’ he asked, running his hands over her face as he crouched low. ‘Is it the lockdown? We’ll be out soon, I promise, we’ll be free in no time.’

‘Oh _shit_!’ Saffy squeaked and when Dorian followed her astonished gaze downwards, he saw a trickle of faintly pink water dripping off the side of his bed onto the floor.

Nalari met Dorian’s gaze, terror in her pale features, mouth lax and eyes round as saucers.

‘Well,’ Dorian choked out a breathless, terrified laugh. ‘Fuck.’

*


	19. Best Laid Lockdowns

‘What does that mean - _fuck_?’

By some heretofore unknown reservoir of strength, Dorian did _not_ snappily explain to Cullen what the word _fuck_ meant and instead focused on Nalari. The girl was slowly draining of all colour, her breath coming thick and fast.

‘It’s too soon,’ she said in a strangled voice. ‘Isn’t it? It’s too soon, oh Maker, what’s _happening_?’

‘Everything is going to be all right, love,’ he said, stroking her face. ‘Saffy’s here and I’m here and—’

‘What’s happening? This can’t be _it_!’

‘Cullen,’ Dorian called out calmly, belying the terror he felt. ‘Get Cole back here would you please?’

‘What should_ I_ do?’ Saffy asked. ‘Get boiling water or something?’

‘How about some cold water in a glass?’ Dorian said smoothly, hoping to convey with his light tone for Saffy to remain calm. ‘And from my clothes chest, something loose and floaty for Nalari to change into.’

‘Cole’s here.’

‘Tell him to go find Joy and then come right back.’

‘He said she’s in the kitchen, he already found her. He can get a message to her through a guard caught in between the hall and the kitchen.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ Dorian said, determinedly cheery. ‘So, now please tell him to go and inform her of what’s happening and what we should do.’

‘What—that’s a little vague, isn’t it?’

Dorian was the very picture of patience and serenity. ‘Yes, vague is a very good place to start, I think.’

‘My back really hurts,’ Nalari said, her fingers digging deep into the material of the bed. ‘It all feels too tight. I thought… maybe my clothes were too tight while I was asleep or something, but it didn’t hurt like this.’

‘What else do you feel?’

She looked down, shaking her head and biting her lip. ‘Just very heavy. Everything feels low and heavy.’

Saffy came skidding over with a bottle green billowy blouse of Dorian’s and a glass of water. ‘Here you go,’ she offered Nalari but the girl refused it with a small shake of her head.

‘Have some water,’ her friend offered again, holding the glass out with a tentative expression.

‘No, I don’t want to move,’ Nalari replied rigidly. ‘I don’t want to trigger it.’

Dorian angled to look her in the eye, to hold her gaze. ‘Nalari? I don’t know much about these things, but _this_,’ he gestured vaguely to the liquid dripping down the side of his bed. ‘This is generally past the point of no return, my darling. Let’s get you changed, all right? Style and comfort are two areas in which I _am_ an expert, at least.’

Once she was changed, throwing aside her damp trousers with the extended waist Saffy had sewn for her months ago, Dorian helped her move back on the bed and stuffed his pillows behind her. ‘I don’t want to ruin your sheets,’ she said quietly.

‘I’ll be sure to bill for you for them,’ Dorian chuckled with a slightly dry mouth, stingingly numb hands and a heart that was racing. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and smoothed back her hair. ‘Better?’

She sipped her water and nodded. ‘Yes, a little but I can feel something coming,’ she said, handing the glass over as her voice tightened, expression screwing up. ‘_Ahh_, it’s like my stomach is in a vice!’

‘Should I look to see if the baby is coming?’ Saffy asked, still all aflutter despite Dorian’s implacable calm.

‘Cullen?’ Dorian called out patiently. ‘Any news?’

‘Joy said to get her on a bed,’ Cullen called out, gaps in his speech as he received the information freshly from Cole. ‘Make her comfortable and keep her hydrated.’

‘Ah-_hah_!’ Dorian said, smiling and patting Nalari’s bare knee. ‘We’re doing _very_ well so far.’

‘Then time the contractions.’

Dorian’s smile never faltered. ‘Which means what, pray tell?’

There was a short delay before Cullen answered. ‘Whenever she feels pain coming, time how long the pain lasts and also time the gaps in between.’

‘Right,’ Dorian said, casting his hourglass, black and shimmering, with only a hint of purple in the lighter crystalline flickers. He held the grains in the top half of the slope and waited. ‘Anything else?’

‘Not until she knows the times, as precise as you can manage.’

Nalari clung hard to Dorian’s hand. ‘He’s going to come in here, isn’t he?’ she breathed, eyes moving nervously from Dorian to the door and back again. ‘Hawke, he’s going to get in here and—’

‘_No one_ is getting in here unless you want them to,’ Cullen told her very firmly. ‘And I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you.’

‘Her stomach is like _rock_,’ Saffy whispered, hand skimming over the surface of the bump. Nalari’s face creased and she screwed her eyes tight.

‘Something’s happening,’ she groaned.

‘All right, love, count with me. One, two, three.’ She counted aloud with him all the way to forty-five and when she relaxed back against the pillow, deeply shaken and wallowing in fear, Dorian activated the hourglass. ‘That was brilliant. How are you feeling?’

‘I don’t want to die,’ she mumbled, bottom lip tripping over the words. ‘Women die all the time giving birth. What if something happens while it’s coming out of me? What if there’s a fight and you have to leave?’

‘Nalari,’ Dorian said, stroking her face. ‘I pity the man who tries to bypass our ferocious Mabari guard dog over there and neither myself or Saffy are going anywhere until that baby is in your arms, are we, darling girl?’

Saffy looked at Dorian, eyes wide. ‘No, of course not,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘Have to entertain you, don’t we? Keep you comfortable.’

‘There’s no need for _anyone_ else to entertain you if I’m around,’ Dorian said, letting it sound arrogant and drawling even if it felt unnatural. ‘Everything is going to be absolutely fine.’

‘Dorian,’ Cullen called, voice low.

‘Coming. I’ll be one moment, all right?’

‘No, please stay!’

‘I’m going to be right over there and then I’m coming straight back.’

‘I’ve got her,’ Saffy said.

Dorian hurried to the door. ‘What’s wrong?’

Quietly, so only Dorian could hear it, Cullen whispered, ‘Joy said to check frequently to ensure she’s not bleeding and if she is, to tell her right away. She also said to be ready to heal her if there’s a serious tear.’

Dorian winced. ‘I’m terrible with healing, as I’m sure you remember.’

Cullen seemed a little bit lost. ‘I can sew stitches, if need be. We also have to keep everything around her very clean.’

Dorian waved his hand. ‘I can take care of that with magic. What else?’

‘Cole can sense vaguely where most of our people are. Leliana is still outside, Blackwall and Vivienne are locked in the Herald’s rest. Josephine is trapped outside the War Room. If there’s a door anywhere, it’s locked. Your mages were apparently throwing all kinds of magic at their door, but it didn’t budge.’

‘Cole,’ Dorian called through the door. ‘Tell Keenan to stop drawing attention to the tower. Tell them to be quiet and vigilant.’

‘Cullen already gave me that message,’ Cole answered.

‘Oh, well… good. Thank you.’

Cullen nodded. ‘Varric is being held in the Great Hall, inside a heavily shielded magical cage with three demons pacing around him. Cole still can’t find Hawke, though.’

‘The fucker is talented at glamouring himself and sneaking around,’ Dorian admitted grudgingly. ‘This magic is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.’

Cullen looked at the door. ‘Is it… blood magic?’

Dorian pressed his hand to the wood and _analysed_. Let his magic extend to feel and examine. Immediately, the other magic resisted; it was foreign and hostile, stretched and highly strained. At the base of it, there was something very _dead_. A thick, vibrating kind of sludge, brimming with power, _red_ power.

It hummed a high-pitched frequency and when Dorian tried to push at it, a sharp shock ran through him, jolting his mana unpleasantly.

He shook himself and withdrew. ‘Bit uncalled for,’ he said, shrugging it off. ‘It’s definitely Hawke’s magic, but it’s…’ He thought for a moment, letting his instincts guide him. ‘It’s greatly amplified. I think it’s safe to assume it is blood magic.’

‘Even _with_ blood magic, this is an astonishing show of power, isn’t it?’ Cullen asked, running his hand over the door. ‘I’m not a mage, and even I can _feel_ it.’

Dorian wanted to point out that under no circumstances should Cullen be able to feel it whatsoever, but he held his tongue. ‘I can only imagine it must be an incredible amount of blood. Where he got it from is rather worrying.’

Cullen frowned, lines deeply carved into his forehead when they smoothed suddenly, eyes filling wary suspicion. ‘Do you think he… no, surely not.’

‘What?’

Their eyes met and it was like Cullen couldn’t bear to say it. Dorian was caught in the strange pull of simply staring at one another right up until Cullen broke it by urgently whispering through the door for Cole.

‘Yes?’

‘Cole, can you find the _source_ of this magic?’

‘It is… not his,’ Cole said. ‘A river of red running through Hawke’s hands, gifted and goaded, not mine, but I’ll take it anyway.’

‘Is it blood magic?’

‘Blood magic is your last resort, Hawke. This failure is such that your penance must run red. I will bleed all the nature from you like I bled it from _him_. Find a river, strike lightning through it and lock them down.’

Cullen’s lips thinned. ‘It _was_ the prisoners, then’ he said in a deadly quiet voice. ‘Hawke is using their blood to power this. _Fuck_!’

Dorian threw a worried glance at the girls and then looked back at Cullen. ‘He’s using the blood from the men you killed earlier this evening?’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed miserably. ‘And that opportunistic prick was waiting for me to do it. This is all for me, I’m the one he wants.’

Dorian scowled. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘Couldn’t even if I wanted to,’ Cullen said with an irritable eye roll. ‘We’re stuck, remember? Because of me. People are in danger, yet again, because of _me_!’

It took Dorian a moment to realise that Cullen was shaking. When the mage let the realisation sink in, he noticed that Cullen was shaking _all over_. Head to toe. It was a very fine tremor, barely noticeable at first but it was there. He scrutinised the Commander even more, drinking in his pallor, the light sheen of sweat on his brow, the darkening beneath his eyes.

‘What’s wrong?’ Dorian asked quietly.

‘Nothing.’

‘Cullen, now is really not the time to implore the stiff upper lip mentality. If something is wrong, tell me _now_ so I can anticipate when everything goes to shit later on like it normally does.’

The Commander swallowed and blinked hard. ‘It’s… there’s no air.’

Dorian understood right away. ‘Because we’re locked in.’

Cullen nodded tightly, jaw working. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘When was your last philter?’

‘I’ll be _fine_, go see to your girl.’

‘Answer me.’

‘This morning.’

Oh, _perfect_. Absolutely, amazingly perfect.

‘Fuck.’

The Commander laughed hollowly. ‘Quite.’

‘Cullen,’ Dorian said, imploring more than he likely had any right to. ‘We need you here, all right? _I_ need you here to get through this. Stay strong and don’t do anything stupid. Stay with me, please.’

Avoiding the mage’s gaze, Cullen breathed, ‘I’m here.’

Nalari made another high-pitched keening sound and Dorian had to leave, had to go to her but it hurt to remove himself from Cullen’s side when he knew he could have helped more.

They counted through the pain together, her bottom lip trembling, body taut as it underwent undulations of primal agony and Dorian knew not what else.

‘Fifty seconds and the gap between was four and a half minutes,’ Dorian told Cullen, who then relayed it to Cole who, Dorian assumed, spirited away to tell a guard who would tell Joy. They waited for the veritable chain of whispers to bring news.

‘Joy said if it keeps happening like this, then it won’t be long. A few hours at most. It could stop and start, though. Keep her relaxed—’

_‘Relaxed_?’ Nalari fairly scathed through gritted teeth.

‘And also, walking around might help, or a lukewarm bath.’

‘A bath?’ Nalari said, wide eyes beseeching Dorian. ‘I want a bath.’

‘How can she give birth in a bath?’ Dorian asked Cullen and waited as the Commander listened at the door.

‘Joy said women have been giving birth in water since the dawn of time and if she tells us something, listen to her the first time.’

Saffy bit down a laugh. ‘Well, that was _highly_ uncalled for,’ Dorian huffed. ‘Shall we make you a bath, darling?’

Nalari nodded. ‘Yes please. I need to be in the water, I can feel it.’

‘Saffy, why don’t you go see to it that the bath is extremely clean, use a double cleansing rune first and then make a nice warm-ish, but not too hot bath, yes?’

‘Of course,’ she said, shuffling down off the bed. Nalari watched her go. She was positively trembling, pale and damp with sweat; a variation of Cullen in many respects, but her suffering was rooted in _actual_ pain and terror, whereas Cullen’s was markedly lesser; the shadow of a fear long since ingrained and a chemical thirst he couldn’t quench from there.

‘I don’t know if I can do this.’

‘You, my darling, are the absolute strongest, most amazing person I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing,’ Dorian told her firmly. ‘If _anyone_ can do this, it’s you.’

‘No, I mean I don’t think I can marry—’ her breath caught in her chest suddenly and she closed her eyes. ‘_Ugh_, Maker, it’s coming again!’

They counted together and Dorian took note of the hourglass, able to pinpoint the time with precision. Nalari’s entire body was rigid with pain as she panted, short and shallow, through pursed lips.

‘That was a big one,’ Saffy pointed out unnecessarily when it finally abated.

‘Sixty-three seconds contraction and four minute ten second gap,’ Dorian dutifully reported to Cullen.

‘Joy says you need to look and uh… see.’

‘See _what? _What am I looking for?’

‘She said to make sure there isn’t a foot.’

‘A foot? Is that bad?’

‘She said a foot would be bad, yes.’

‘Right,’ Dorian said gently. ‘Now, I’m going to need to have a look, Nalari, but at any point if you’re uncomfortable or—’

‘Maker’s _sake_, Dorian, I couldn’t care less! Just tell me there isn’t a foot!’ Nalari snapped, voice strung tight like a harpsichord. She opened her legs and drew back the shirt, gathering the material between shaking fingers.

‘No foot,’ Dorian announced after a full ten seconds of peering. ‘No head either which I can only assume is good.’

‘No bleeding?’ Cullen asked quietly.

‘No bleeding.’

‘Bath’s ready,’ Saffy announced.

Nalari was eager to get into the bath and Dorian helped her walk, bracing her the whole way there. The water was clear and tepid as she stepped in, sighing tremulously as she sat on the lowest step. The surface reached her chest as the green, silky material ballooned and bobbed in front of her. ‘That’s better,’ she said, letting her eyes flutter closed. ‘Saffy, get in with me. You too, Dorian.’

Saffy didn’t hesitate except to remove excess clothing, leaving her smalls and undershirt on and casting a quick _Cleanse_ over herself. Dorian cast the same, leaving on his black cotton trousers.

The water was almost unpleasantly lukewarm to Dorian, who loved scalding temperatures and steam curling from skin.

‘Another one,’ Nalari groaned in warning, reaching for Saffy and Dorian. She made a strangled sound in the back of her throat. Dorian held her hand, held it throughout until the pain eased.

‘Fifty-eight seconds and…’ Dorian peered at his hourglass. ‘Three minutes twenty seconds. Ask Cole where Leliana is.’

Dorian heard Cullen’s voice, sharp and clear. _‘_Thank the Maker! She's inside my quarters.’

‘How the—bloody _void_, she climbed in through that hole in your roof, didn’t she?’ Dorian grinned and shook his head, relief pounding hard between his temples. ‘To think of all the times I cursed that thing!’

There was a strange moment where he and Cullen shared something that wasn’t quite a smile, more an intense, amicable _stare_, before they both remembered the state of the world and dutifully looked away.

‘At least she won’t freeze to death,’ Cullen said, returning his focus to the door.

‘Hang on,’ Dorian said. ‘If she got in through a gap instead of a door, does that mean we can use other ways that _aren’t_ doors?’

‘There aren’t any windows in here,’ Cullen pointed out.

Dorian thought fast. ‘Nalari, stay here love, I’ll be one minute.’

Nalari nodded, Saffy took the hand Dorian had been holding. ‘You want me to sing for you?’ she offered her friend. Nalari laughed and told her that things weren’t so dire as all that.

Dorian’s legs were awkward with the weight of his water-logged trousers as he climbed out. He went to the wall beside the door and placed his hand there. He could feel the magic running through the stones lining the hallways, reinforcing the bricks. He followed it around, slowly trailing his hand and letting his senses detect the strange cage until he felt a lull. A weak spot. It was equidistant between the main door and the glass balcony doors.

‘Here,’ he said, not really knowing what _here_ even was. ‘All right, everyone just… brace yourselves.’

Cullen frowned. ‘Dorian, what are you—’

The mage let the full brunt of his magic take over. Gave it reign and let _force_ and _heat_ flow through his hands. He focused on that one stone in particular, concentrated it as much as he could and then…

The stone cracked and gave, it crumbled and the force of his magic pushed it all the way through, out into the freezing night. Icy air poured inside, tiny snowflakes wafting in like they were curious about the inside world.

‘That could have been a load bearing stone,’ Cullen grumbled, even as he left the door and approached swiftly.

‘Oh, do shut up!’ Dorian said, the Commander’s tone not remotely affecting the afterglow of his success. ‘The magic is heavily limited to doors and in certain points, it’s weak enough to poke holes in; do you realise what this means?’

‘That it’s going to be freezing in here soon?’ Saffy suggested wryly.

Cullen touched the hole, fingers trailing the broken pieces of stone and he breathed deeply. Dorian didn’t comment, tried to make it seem like he wasn’t staring while Cullen centred himself and gathered strength from the cold, winter air.

‘It _means,__’ _he said, looking down. ‘That I can make a hole in the floor and it’ll open up to the level beneath.’

Cullen looked at him suddenly, eyes wide. ‘I’ll be able to access the entire stairwell; it’s one big spiral without doors. Leliana has weapons in her desk.’

‘Precisely.’

Cullen looked at the door, then the bath and then back to Dorian.

‘Do it, and then seal it after me.’

‘Uh, what?’

‘Seal it after me,’ Cullen repeated like it was obvious. ‘Keep yourselves safe.’

‘I’m not _locking you out_, you absolute fucking moron.’

Cullen glared. ‘He’s here for _me_, no one else. I can draw him away and then—’

‘And then what? Let him take you? Don’t be so stupid!’

‘I’m not going to let him take me,’ Cullen said, but Dorian simply didn’t believe him, did not trust for one second that Cullen could be anything other than self-sacrificing and horrendously noble. ‘But I can’t risk him coming here in search of me. I can draw him away from the tower, at the very least. Now that we know about the walls, I can use an axe or a maul to get through some of the weaker stones and—’

‘I told you to stay with me.’

The moment he said it, Dorian knew it was painfully uncalled for. Cullen flinched like he’d been hit, averted his gaze and tried to recover from it.

‘Well, I can’t.’

‘Well, I won’t make the hole then.’

‘Dorian.’

‘You’re not gallivanting around Skyhold. Hawke is playing you, or can’t you see it? This whole thing is designed to drive you right to him! He knows you, Cullen.’

‘Dorian, make the hole.’

‘No, _no! _We need you here, for protection; to—to listen at the door for instructions from Joy. I need you here, I told you that. You can’t leave.’ Dorian crossed his arms. ‘I forbid it.’

Cullen was getting angry. ‘You lost your right to forbid or approve of anything I do the day you broke my trust, now make a fucking hole in the floor and seal it behind me so I can at least keep _them_ safe!’

He flung the word _them_ at Dorian like a weapon, hitting where he knew it would hurt. Dorian would do anything to keep the girls safe, to keep his mages in the tower safe from whatever dread chaos Hawke was bringing them and Cullen was highly aware of that.

‘And what about you?’ Dorian asked in a bare whisper. ‘What are we supposed to do without you when Hawke takes you and delivers you to this _master_? How am—how are _we_ meant to fight this war without you?’

It was a mistake to look up, to see the blazing intensity present in Cullen as he stared at Dorian. It sent frissons of something bittersweet and painful through the mage, like biting down on a broken tooth. The kind of moment where, had things beet different, he knew they would have been about to kiss. Cullen was intensity personified, he _burned _with everything he didn’t say.

‘I’ll come back,’ Cullen offered, near silently.

Nalari was panting amid increasingly loud noises of pain. Saffy looked over at Dorian.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Dorian declared and he swept away before Cullen could say anything. He stepped into the water and took Nalari’s hand. ‘I’m here, darling. Breathe with me, let’s count together, all right?’

But Nalari was struggling to count, to make words or even to breathe in anything other than ragged, tearing bouts. The sounds coming from her throat were deep and gurgling.

When Dorian looked down, the water around her thighs was slightly pink. Nalari’s grip on his hand was strong enough to genuinely break it and she let out a real scream, the kind of cry that sent primal fear through Dorian.

‘Oh, Maker,’ Saffy said, watching her friend with horror. ‘Is it happening?’

Nalari was still screaming; it sang of pain beyond the meaning of the word, beyond tolerance, beyond appreciation.

‘Cullen, _get over here!__’ _

When her long scream ended, Nalari was openly sobbing. ‘I can’t, I can’t,’ she cried, shaking her head. ‘Make it stop, _please_ make it stop coming!’

Cullen crouched awkwardly by the edge of the bath awaiting instructions. ‘Lift her onto the top step,’ Dorian told him and he helped Cullen to ease Nalari out of the water enough that the top of her thighs breeched the surface of the water. ‘I need to see what’s happening love—’

‘NO!’ she screamed. ‘Stay here, please don’t leave my side, _please_!’

Cullen kicked off his boots. ‘Let me help.’

Saffy managed to perform the _Cleanse_ rune one-handed, a shimmering, bright green glow rolling over Cullen.

‘Get in the water,’ Dorian told him, voice shockingly strong. ‘Nalari, Cullen is going to help, but he’s going to do everything I say and nothing more, is that all right?’

She managed a nod as her heaving breaths came faster and faster.

‘Cullen, what can you see?’ Dorian asked, smoothing her hair back as she began to howl and scream in the most visceral way he’d ever heard.

‘There’s… I think it’s the head. I can see a few inches of the head.’

‘Not a foot at least. _Cole_! Cole, can you hear me?’

The spirit’s voice floated through the door. ‘It’s hard to hear over all the newness, but yes I can!’

‘Cole, in the outer wall of the room, there’s a hole in the stones! Can you bypass the magic—oh, _thank_ the Maker.’

Cole appeared inside the room, hurrying over to the bath.

‘The head is getting… uh, wider?’ Cullen said. ‘She’s bleeding a little bit too.’

‘Cole,’ Dorian spoke loudly over Nalari’s screams. ‘Go tell Joy what’s happening and ask what we should do next.’

The boy vanished and just as Nalari’s scream tapered off into a full-throated cry, he was back.

‘Tell her to push. Push hard, push long. Catch the baby when it comes, put it straight to mother’s breast and then cut the cord,’ Cole said, thankfully devoid of his usual structure of riddles and poetry. He came to kneel beside the bath, peering curiously with wide eyes. ‘Oh, it’s so _beautiful_,’ he said, smiling.

‘Cullen?’ The Commander rolled his sleeves up, hands in the water between Nalari’s legs. He looked absolutely terrified, but determined, so very fucking determined.

‘The head is almost out,’ he said. ‘Won’t the baby drown? Shouldn’t we get her out of the water now?’

‘The cord is full of air,’ Cole informed him sagely. ‘Babies are made in water; they breathe through mother.’

Nalari wrenched Dorian’s hand _hard_, as if trying to detach his arm from the socket. Her screams rang in the mage’s back teeth. Saffy was saying uselessly soothing things, telling her friend it would all be fine, everything was fine.

‘I need you to push, darling,’ Dorian said. ‘Push as hard as you can.’

‘The head is out,’ Cullen said in a weirdly broken kind of way. ‘It’s… Andraste preserve us, the head is _out_.’

Cole vanished and reappeared quickly. ‘Joy said to _pull _the head.’

Dorian and Cullen looked at Cole, identical scowls of disbelief firmly in place. _‘What_?’ they echoed in unison.

‘Wiggle the baby out by the head. Help the journey,’ Cole said, smiling beatifically. ‘And what a wondrous journey it is!’

Cullen looked scandalised. ‘I’m not pulling a baby out _by the_ _head_!’

Nalari gave a scream that could have shattered glass; it was a deep, powerful thing, exploding from her throat as though letting all the pain in the world loose as she bore down, physically pushing _down_ and then the water rippled, turned faintly red and Cullen was frantically grasping for something, for…

He lifted the baby out of the water, astonishment writ large all over him. It was so small; a tiny little creature with a stringy, purple chord leading back to its mother. The baby’s skin was a strange reddish-grey and it struggled in Cullen’s grasp, arms and legs rigid and extended.

The world stopped turning, Dorian felt like he’d been removed from it completely. Cullen stared down at that little baby like it was he himself who had just been born. Then the baby let out a tiny piercing noise, a kind of splutter followed by a bigger one, followed by a throaty little cry.

Nalari was panting, sobbing weakly still with her hair in sweaty ringlets, shaking all over but she released Dorian and Saffy, reaching for her baby. Cullen gently handed it over, awkwardly trying to support the baby’s head and Dorian saw it was a _girl_. A tiny little girl, crying for her mother, who took her and held her close, cradling her as she caught her trembling breath.

Dorian couldn’t take his eyes off of the baby. Saffy was crying and kissing her friend’s face. Cullen was staring, slack jawed and wide eyed.

‘Help me take the shirt off,’ Nalari croaked softly, her voice wrecked from all the noise that had torn from it. Dorian used a touch of magic to sever the sides of the shirt and make it so that Nalari could expose her chest and bring the baby to it.

The new-born made little back and forth motions, seeking out her mother’s nipple. Dorian watched in absolute fucking _astonishment_ as she found it and immediately began to suckle. Nalari let out a sweet, broken sob and bent to press a shaky kiss to her daughter’s head.

‘Hello little one,’ she whispered.

‘We should—’ Dorian cleared his throat, trying to gather himself. ‘Let’s get you to the bed.’

Cullen moved forward and scooped Nalari up with such _care _that Dorian found it almost painful to witness. He lifted her under the knees, strong arm around her back and carried her slowly out of the bath, over to Dorian’s bed. The two mages followed, drying themselves distractedly with magic.

Dorian saw Cullen lower Nalari onto all Dorian’s silks and satins, saw him settle her as gently as possible onto that huge bed that had once been intended for _them_.

‘You were amazing,’ Cullen told her.

Nalari looked up, something fierce in her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she told him. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ Cullen insisted and not in the awkward, gruff way Dorian expected. He sounded so _young_ and stripped back, nothing left but wonder and kindness. ‘You did all the work. It was… an honour to help in any way.’

‘We still need to cut the cord,’ Saffy said, sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes riveted on the baby.

‘Can you do it, Dorian?’ Nalari asked, meeting his gaze with abundant warmth.

‘Of course,’ Dorian said without even thinking. He looked back at Cole, who was still peering interestedly into the bath. ‘I assume that’s an _actual_ cutting of this here cord, with scissors?’

‘Yes,’ the boy said dreamily. ‘Cut it close to baby’s stomach and tie the end off with string. She is dreaming now, her first dream with light in it. Born in the dark, but so _full _of light and magic and the kindness of others. She is the sunrise, the best of everything. She _can_ be. She can be _anything_ because as of yet, she is nothing. Oh, babies are _wonderful! _I wish I could make one.’

Cullen and Dorian looked at each then, eyes catching in a mixture of affectionate exasperation for the things Cole came out with and… something very much else. If Cullen had been alive with intensity before, it was nothing to the raw, stripped back state of him now; like every stress or insecurity, bad memory or heartache was wiped clean. He _smiled_ at Dorian. A shaky, real half smile before he looked back at the baby.

Dorian cut the cord with extremely clean scissors, tied the cord with strong, silken thread and then went about making blankets from his finest materials, cutting up shirts and bedding to make them blanket sized. Dorian knew that once this madness was over, he was going to spend every coin to his name buying all the most beautiful things for that baby.

A small time after the cord was cut, Nalari seemed to be in some amount of pain again and Dorian almost had a heart attack when she pushed something _else_ out; birthed a large, rubbery kind of _organ_ that was attached to the cord. Her stomach deflated a little more immediately after and she sighed, apparently relieved.

‘What the fuck was that?’ Saffy whispered, peering on the bed with impossibly wide eyes.

‘Joy said it has to come out,’ Cole told them. ‘It was the baby’s life source. Air and food and goodness, not needed anymore.’

Cullen scooped it up off of the bed and stood there for a long moment, holding the _thing_ in two hands, looking around for where to put it. Eventually, Dorian took pity on him and offered up a decorative bowl as temporary placement.

The baby was quietly but determinedly feeding, wrapped in turquoise silk. Nalari sang softly to her, stroking her head with the backs of her fingers.

‘You did well,’ Cole told Cullen and Dorian, standing between them and placing a hand on each of their shoulders. ‘Joy says so and I agree. Shall I go tell the other mages?’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, still shaken by the magnitude of everything. ‘And please do a quick check to make sure everyone is still… y’know, alive.’

Cole vanished again. Cullen hovered nearby, glancing at the missing stone in the wall. ‘You should seal it,’ he told Dorian quietly. ‘Not with magic, just to stop the cold from coming in.’

‘But you—’

Cullen sounded stern when he said, ‘The baby needs to be warm.’

‘What’s her name?’ Saffy whispered to her friend while Dorian stuffed the hole with wadded material and added a few extra heating orbs for good measure.

‘I like what Cole said about her,’ Nalari whispered back, voice cracking slightly from the strain it had previously suffered. ‘That she’s the sunrise.’ She ran her finger over the baby’s cheek, ruddy and soft. ‘I think her name is… Dawn. Yes, my little Dawn.’

And if Dorian’s throat was thick with _mostly_ un-shed tears, at least when he caught Cullen’s eye, he knew he wasn’t the only one.

*

It was a mere matter of minutes after that that things began to _happen_ in rather rapid procession. Dorian felt like he hadn’t even been able to catch his breath before Cole appeared and told him that the glamoured man was moving closer to the tower now, though Cole was having trouble tracking him.

Cullen and Dorian shared a glance.

‘I need to leave.’

Dorian stared at him, trying desperately to think of a reason why he had to stay _beyond_ the fact that Dorian didn’t want him to go, couldn’t bear to let him out of his sight because Cullen was stupid and prone to outbursts of worrisome things like _heroism_.

‘What about—’

‘He’s close,’ Cole said, frowning intensely. ‘His blood is wearing thin, stretched into shape and too tight, too long. Soon it will fizzle and pop, collapse like a broken spider web, tangled and pulled apart.’

‘Make the hole,’ Cullen said, throwing an unreadable glance at the three girls on the bed. ‘Seal it behind me.’ Dorian could tell her was gearing himself up for some kind of _fight_, but… but he hadn’t had lyrium since that morning and he was tired, Dorian could tell.

‘Are you sure you’re up to fighting him alone?’

Cullen’s glare was dull and somewhat insulting. Dorian went to the edge of the room, seeking out the weakest part of the blood magic. There was a low ebb, a frayed portion of it in the floor. Dorian made sure it was close to the edge of the wall so that it wouldn’t compromise the structural integrity of the room.

‘Here,’ he said and he coaxed his magic forth, brought it down through his arms as he placed both hands palm down on the wide, gritty stones. He was going to concentrate the force and the heat, make it as tight and circular as possible.

‘Wait!’ Cole yelled, starting forward so suddenly that Dorian nearly fell back onto his arse. ‘Wait, something isn’t _right_.’

He vanished without another word.

Dorian stared, open mouthed and beyond indignant. ‘Did that really just happen?’ he asked Cullen quietly.

Before Cullen could reply, Cole reappeared. ‘He has Blackwall and Vivienne now. He’s put them in the cage too. Varric says if you come down, alone and unarmed then no will get hurt.’ Cole moved towards Cullen then, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘He’s lying, though,’ he told the Commander, like it was a secret. ‘He’s still going to hurt people. It’s very easy to _switch_ when blood makes things slippery. Trading faces, wearing skin and smiles. He’s going to hurt everyone until he gets you and even after. It’s new and it’s clever, but it takes a piece of him each time. Worth it for _him_. Follow the lyrium, follow the lines, they lead home, even if home is broken and empty. I owe him this much.’

‘All right,’ Cullen said, patting his shoulder with a brief smile, the kind he would have given a freshly recruited soldier before battle. ‘Thank you, Cole.’

‘Don’t go with him, Cullen,’ the boy warned, frowning. ‘It’s swimming and circling, single eye fixed on the surface, waiting for you to sink lower and lower. It’s too deep, you’ll never draw breath again, not the way you’re meant to. Jarring and jagged and tearing, lyrium is a terrible thing in anything but a mage.’

‘Dorian, make the hole.’

‘You can’t go right to him, even _you_ must see what a terrible plan that is.’

Cullen rubbed his eyes impatiently. ‘Well, astonish me with a _Dorian-esque_ plan then, why don’t you?’

‘All I’m saying is that Hawke is doing this,_ all of this_, to get you and if you just walk right up to him, what kind of fucking plan is that?’

‘Don’t talk like that in front them.’

Dorian spluttered. ‘Don’t tell _me_ how to speak in front of my—in front of people I care for!’

‘Let me go.’

‘Do you even have a plan?’

‘I do.’

‘Is it a good plan? Or something along the lines of, _on the count of three_?’

Cullen gave a tight, furling sneer. ‘I don’t need to justify my plans to _you_.’

It was the first time in the last hour that Dorian remembered how things actually were between them. That he and Cullen weren’t on anything resembling good terms, that Cullen literally despised him.

And _fuck_ if it didn’t hurt.

‘Fine,’ he said shortly, making himself look away. ‘But I’m coming with you.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Cole can stay with the girls and protect them.’

‘Dorian, _no_.’

‘Cole is strong and proficient and this threat isn’t something you can take down alone. I’m coming with you or you’re not going at all.’

A muscle in Cullen’s jaw was flexing, his eyes burning with barely reigned anger but he relented and gave a stiff, highly displeased nod.

‘I will stay here,’ Cole assured Dorian, as if the mage hadn’t just stated such as fact. ‘I will keep them all very safe, do not worry.’

‘I know you will, Cole. If anything happens, come and find us straight away but otherwise, guard them with your life.’

Dorian quickly got dressed and then made his way to the girls. Nalari was almost dozing, held safe and upright in Saffy’s arms as tiny Dawn, all swaddled in torn finery, nuzzled and fed.

‘Darlings,’ he said softly, a gentle whisper so as not to wake the baby. ‘I’m going with Cullen. Cole is going to stay here; you’ll be completely safe.’

Nalari shook her head, a pained expression sharpening her previous soft sleepy features. ‘No,’ she breathed. ‘No, please stay with us!’

‘We’re going to get rid of this bastard once and for all, then I’ll come right back. This is the safest place for you to be.’

‘I’ve got them,’ Saffy said, wrapping her arm more securely around Nalari. ‘Go on.’

Dorian forced himself to leave, even as Nalari was tearfully shaking her head, silently entreating him to stay. He didn’t look at Cullen or Cole, just made a tight, circular hole in the floor, catching the bricks before they clattered below.

*

Skyhold was utterly and eerily _silent, _save for the high whistle of the wind outside. Cullen and Dorian moved together quietly after liberating two daggers from Leliana’s secret drawer, which certainly wasn’t a secret to Cullen. It was impossibly strange to see the Commander wielding such small implements.

‘Can you even fight with those?’ Dorian whispered. Cullen shot him a very dry look and declined to dignify his question with an answer. ‘Well, all right, forgive me for questioning your never-ending abilities!’

‘Maker, _shut up_,’ Cullen growled. ‘You’re annoyingly chatty when nervous.’

Dorian sniffed derisively. ‘Chatty, exquisite – make up your mind.’

It took Dorian a good five seconds to realise he’d said that _out-loud._ The indicator was that Cullen had stopped dead in his tracks and when Dorian looked back to ask why Cullen had come to a halt, the look on his face said it all.

‘Fuck, I—I’m sorry,’ Dorian stammered as Cullen grit his teeth and shouldered the pain, silent and stoic. ‘I really am _sorry_, I didn’t mean that, I—’

‘Stop.’

‘Yes, I’m trying.’

‘No, _listen_.’ Cullen had gone still, eyes moving slowly around the lower portion of the tower. Leliana’s birds were either absent or had decided to add to the atmosphere by rendering themselves silent. Cautiously, he peered over the ledge, down into Solas’s office.

Dorian followed, eyes latching onto the flaming orange, hulking mass of a demon slithering around. The rage demon circled Solas’s desk once before it headed back out towards the hall.

‘Maybe,’ Dorian breathed as quietly as possible. _‘Now_ is a good time to tell me the plan?’

Cullen winced slightly. ‘The plan I’d devised with Leliana really does _require_ Leliana.’

Dorian gaped. ‘So your_ new_ plan is to… what? Let Hawke take you?’

‘No, that is not my plan.’

‘Thank the Maker for _some_ small—’

‘My plan is to let him _think_ he’s taking me and to then get free once we’re out of Skyhold.’

‘Ah.’

_‘_Ah?’

‘_Ah_, we’re both going to die.’

‘Well, this is the plan.’

‘A completely _shit_ plan.’

Cullen scowled. ‘I don’t even dare _ask_ if you have a better idea because I know you’ll think you do but really, it’ll end in destruction and catastrophe like all your plans,’ Cullen said, stilling suddenly when the demons from the hall gave an especially loud, echoing snarl. He waited for silence to return before he spoke. ‘I’m improvising. We need to get him out of Skyhold and the easiest way to do that is to let him think he has me. How else will we get Varric and the others free? Not to mention that he could be anywhere.’

The mage rubbed his eyes. ‘Fucking void, Cullen. Do you honestly believe Hawke will let us all go once he has you? So that we could track you down and execute a daring rescue once we regroup? If he’s brought Varric here, his only real leverage, then he’s not planning on leaving anyone behind.’

‘You don’t know that.’

Dorian chuckled. ‘I won’t take the chance. What do you think all this _is_? He’s lurking around, waiting for us to make a move. We have to make the right one. I’d have thought all those hours playing chess might have rubbed off on you, but that’s apparently asking too much of the boy from Honnleath who loves snow and hates common sense.’

Dorian wondered if it was the adrenaline making him say such ridiculous things or maybe just his own excitement at being _near_ to Cullen. Either way, he cursed himself for it.

Cullen’s mouth thinned. ‘I—’ he shook himself. ‘I don’t want to put anyone else at risk. Leliana is inside, but my quarters are without a furnace or fireplace and aside from my sword, no other weapons. Varric, Blackwall and Vivienne are caged and surrounded by demons and Josephine is trapped outside the War Room with nothing but a candle to keep her warm. People all over the castle are trapped because of _me_ and I just want to—’

‘Shhh!’

Dorian heard the footfalls, soft and cautious. He yanked Cullen aside swiftly, throwing a clumsy _glamour_ over them both as they ducked into a shadowy corner. Cullen’s body was pressed into his side as Dorian clung hard to his forearm, holding his breath. The proximity was nigh intolerable; this close, he could smell Cullen’s skin, practically taste him. Soap and leather and lyrium and something else, uniquely Cullen. The natural scent of him beneath everything; _beneath_ his pale skin and even beneath his bones. It was overwhelming and intoxicating, cruelly teasing Dorian of all the times he’d been free to burrow into that skin and breathe deeply… but had simply not taken the opportunity to do so.

When Dorian saw who the footfalls belonged to, the spell cast by Cullen’s proximity shattered _hard. _The mage shrugged off the cloaking magics. ‘_Keenan_, what the void are you doing?’

‘I managed to find a weak spot in the magic,’ the younger mage explained, hurrying over, keeping his voice to a harried whisper. ‘Made a hole in the wall big enough for me to get through.’

Dorian looked him up and down. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine,’ Kennan said, eyes sliding to the Commander with a frown and Dorian realised how close they’d been standing.

‘Nalari had her baby,’ he told Keenan, putting minimum safe distance between himself and the Commander. ‘She’s fine, the baby too.’

‘I know. I went straight to your room. We heard her screaming. You saw her give birth, then?’

Dorian smiled. ‘We did.’

‘It was incredible,’ Cullen said distractedly, warily glancing around.

Keenan frowned. ‘_You_ were there?’

Dorian quickly intervened. ‘You need to get back up there and look after the others, Keenan.’

‘No,’ the young mage replied stubbornly, giving Dorian his steeliest glare. ‘I can help and I _want_ to help.’

‘Can you provide cover fire?’ Cullen asked as Dorian’s heart twisted painfully with an unusual kind of panic.

He shoved at Cullen’s shoulder and hissed, ‘He’s going back to the tower, he’s not providing anything!’

‘You can’t stop me!’

‘I fucking well can and I will! You’re not old enough to be risking yourself like this!’

‘Dorian,’ Cullen said, quelling the mage. ‘He’s older than me when I was stationed in Kinloch and he’s here now, besides. Let him help.’

Keenan seemed almost resentful of Cullen’s support, but he didn’t argue it.

‘I’ll not have him facing down demons.’

‘I’ve fought demons before,’ Keenan reminded him coolly.

Dorian bit his cheek and swallowed all his instinctual arguments. ‘Fasta vass, _fine_! But you do exactly as we say, understand? Anything goes wrong, even _slightly_, get straight back to the tower, no looking back. Yes?’

‘I will,’ Keenan agreed easily now that Dorian had given in. ‘I promise. What’s the plan, then?’

Dorian thought very quickly. ‘We have to break the magic of this lockdown. Otherwise Hawke can run anywhere and we can’t follow.’

‘It’s blood magic, isn’t it?’ Keenan said grimly, looking around at the walls. ‘I can feel it.’

Cullen seemed uneasy, still distracted by something. ‘Yes, from the blood of the men I killed this evening.’

Keenan blinked. ‘Wait, they died at your hands. _You_ drew their blood first?’

‘Oh shit,’ Dorian said, eyes widening. ‘Cullen… you killed those men. I didn’t even consider it earlier. You could theoretically control the magic!’

Cullen shook himself from whatever had been distracting him. ‘I _can__’t_. I’m not a mage.’

‘You use magic all the time, it’s just not _magic_-magic.’

‘Don’t start this again. Templar abilities are—’

_‘Cullen_!’ Dorian snapped urgently. ‘If there is even a small chance you can break this magic, we need to try it.’

‘Try what? What do you expect me to do? Throw a _Silence_ at it?’

‘Lower your voice!’

‘I’m not a mage. I can’t perform anything beyond the abilities of a Templar and even then, _barely_!’

‘Cullen, I’m serious, they’re going to hear us!’

The Commander pushed Dorian against the wall so suddenly it stole Dorian’s breath, but it wasn't hard, it didn’t hurt. Dorian saw Keenan start forward, but the mage shook his head warning him off. Cullen held Dorian there, one hand flat against his chest, his face hovering close and dozens of wanton sense memories ran wild through Dorian then; instincts from _before_ when Cullen shoving Dorian into a wall meant something very different.

‘There’s nothing I can _do_,’ Cullen ground out, but he didn’t seem angry, not really. There was something else there, something urgent. His seemed to be trying to communicate something to Dorian. He slid a subtle, indicative glance to his left, at the other side of the tower; the side with piles of books and boxes and cages without crows. He hadn’t inclined his head that way, it was just a look, a slide of his eyes as he held Dorian, pressed him still and made him _see_.

Dorian understood immediately. He shoved Cullen away hard, keeping his focus on the man before him, thinking _very_ fast.

‘How do you even know?’ he demanded. ‘You haven’t tried!’

‘I’m not about to fuck around with _magic_!’ Cullen spat as if the word left a bad taste in his mouth. As if Dorian didn’t know how Cullen sounded when he begged for Dorian’s magic in his mouth, _inside_ him. ‘We’re wasting time with this. We need to attack, now!’

‘Typical Ferelden,’ Dorian sneered, getting into the role. ‘Swing first, think later.’

Keenan moved closer to Dorian’s side, his mana unfurling, ready to fight. Dorian wished he could tell him what they were doing, but now that Cullen had drawn attention to the shadowy corner of the tower, the place where Dorian himself had spied on Cullen once, it was all he could think of. He kept the pretence going.

His peripheral senses told him that Cullen was _right_. There was something in that corner, someone. A distortion of light, unnatural stillness.

Hawke was good at hiding; _master_ of shadows and subterfuge, but if they could trap him, if they could just _corner_ him…

‘Dorian, do you need—’

‘Shut up, Keenan,’ the Tevinter mage warned in his most severe tone. ‘So you’re just going to let other people suffer because you were too cowardly to even _try_? Is that it?’

‘What would you know of bravery, mage?’

‘Compared to the big bad Lion of Ferelden?’

‘Compared to any decent man!’

‘You could have broken this lockdown at any time!’

‘I can’t perform magic, are you deaf? And even if I could, I wouldn’t sully my hands with blood magic, unlike _you_!’

Dorian didn’t allow himself the balm of knowing that this argument was for show.

His lip curled into a snarl and his magic pulsed, practically flooded into his hands, heavy and dark and strong. Anger fed it, raised it to body temperature and beyond.

Cullen’s eyes narrowed cruelly. ‘I’m surprised _you_ can’t break it. You’re the blood mage, after all!’

And when Dorian threw his magic, he turned at the_ very last _second and hurled it into the corner instead of at Cullen. The lightning cage lit up the dark area and the glamoured prisoner within began to writhe as bolts of electricity ran over him. The glamour held fast, but Dorian could see the outline now as jagged, purple lines ricocheted around the edges of him.

‘Free the others!’ Dorian yelled, holding the cage with both hands, maintaining the energy. ‘Keenan, go help him!’

Hawke was _Dorian__’s. _If anyone was going to kill that slimy, underhand piece of shit, it was going to be Dorian fucking Pavus. He moved closer, watching Cullen and Keenan run down the stairs. They could handle three demons together and when Dorian killed Hawke, all his magic would fall; cut strings, dead puppets and open doors.

He moved closer, viciously tightening the cage so it surrounded the writhing man on the floor, glamour fraying at the edges.

‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you?’ Dorian growled, thinking of Cullen, _only_ of Cullen. Of his water-heavy lungs and terrible fever, of the pain that letter contained, of the lyrium Hawke had poured down his throat. Everything Hawke had rained down upon the man he loved. ‘Sneaking about where no one can see you. Well,’ he squeezed the cage around him, electrocuting him and causing the glamour to flicker dangerously. Dorian followed the balcony, paying no mind to anything but his own dark desire to flood Hawke with electricity until his fucking heart exploded. ‘I see you, _Garret!__’_

The glamour fizzled and gave.

The cage was practically a box, blinding and jagged. Dorian stepped closer. He wanted to see the look in his eyes when he died, when he—

It wasn’t Hawke.

The lightning vanished and without the glamour, Dorian saw only an unconscious, red-haired dwarf. Varric. It was _Varric._

The word, ‘No,’ escaped his lips. ‘Oh Maker, no.’

He rushed to Varric, fell to his knees and shook him, sharp static shock prickling everywhere he touched. ‘Please, please, please,’ he begged uselessly, shaking him even harder.

Varric pulled in a thick, rattling breath and Dorian let out a whooshing one, relieved beyond measure he hadn’t just _murdered _his friend in cold blood.

‘Varric, can you hear me?’

The Dwarf’s eyes rolled in his head, but he remained unresponsive. There was a glassy, vacant quality to them that made Dorian suspicious. He cast a gentle probing spell and found trace of Hawke’s magic; _thrall, _tainted with blood.

Varric was enthralled and enchanted. Made to move around Skyhold, glamoured and silent.

_Bait_, Dorian realised, turning cold. He was _bait. _

And if Varric wasn’t in the cage…

‘CULLEN!’ he shouted, voice strangled with fear, as he scrambled to his feet. He crashed past the boxes and bird cages, running full tilt towards the spiral staircase, almost falling as he descended. When he ran through Solas’s office, he heard sounds; human and demon. Blackwall was yelling, Keenan…

Keenan was _screaming_.

And Cullen, he saw as he skidded into the hall, was _caged_.

The demons were dead on the flood, blood and shattered bone everywhere. Vivienne was crouched low, clutching her stomach, Blackwall hovered protectively nearby with blood streaked up his arms and a serious slash across his thigh. Cullen stood inside the cage, similarly spattered in red and green gore.

Hawke had Keenan by the throat, a sly blade jammed against soft, exposed skin. The Champion was still shimmering slightly as his disguise wore off. He turned to look at Dorian, something dark and twisted playing about his face as he smiled bitterly.

‘Better late than never, Splendid.’

*

The Great Hall positively crackled with magic. Sharp, stinging ozone sat in the back of Dorian’s throat alongside the metallic tang of blood. The magic born of plasma was heavy and oppressive, like steam to breathe. Cullen’s cage was no ordinary thing and Dorian could tell just by looking at it, that the magic had _not_ originated from Hawke. The bars glittered and gleamed like opaline, the surface of each one moving as though slowly melting. Cullen stood in the centre of the cage, silent and so very still.

Keenan’s neck was bleeding slightly where the blade pressed.

‘Let him go.’

Hawke sneered. ‘Or _what_?’

Dorian didn’t move, kept himself rooted to the spot. ‘You have Cullen, you have what you came for. Let Keenan go.’

‘Offering to take his place, are you?’ Hawke chuckled entirely devoid of anything resembling humanity, let alone humour. ‘Can’t deny you’d feel better pressed against me than him, but I’m not quite as senseless as all that.’

‘Why linger, Hawke?’ Dorian asked carefully. ‘Can’t that shiny magical cage simply transport Cullen where he needs to be?’

‘We’ll leave when I know you won't follow.’

‘There is _nowhere_ you can take Cullen that I will not follow.’

Hawke shifted his stance. ‘You can't follow us if you’re dead.’

‘Hawke,’ Dorian said, risking a half step nearer to the Kirkwall mage. ‘Why didn’t you _come_ to us? You know we would have helped you with Fenris. Cullen was friends with him, we could have—’

‘Shut up! Just _shut_ your mouth!’ Hawke’s grip on Keenan tightened and the young mage winced, body rigid and stiff. ‘He’s listening to all of this, to _everything_ you say! Don’t you get it? He will give me Fenris for Cullen and that’s literally all I care about!’

‘You’re never going to get what you want.’

Hawke’s attention shifted to Cullen. Dorian tensed, immediately regretting even mentioning the Commander’s name. Carefully, never weakening his grip on Keenan, Hawke lifted one hand and twisted his fingers at the cage. The molten opaline bars began to trickle and melt entirely, pooling around Cullen, who watched warily, somewhat oddly submissive. The strange liquid then formed _vines; _long and thin as they reached up, latching onto Cullen’s wrists. They yanked him sharply down, dragging him to his knees and then held him there, chained and brought low by the borrowed magics of the Champion.

Dorian’s magic _did not_ like that.

_He kneels only for us_, it whispered to Dorian, rousing within the mage, ready to inflict damage. Cullen stared at the floor, throat bobbing as his lips pressed in line.

‘He doesn’t need to be chained.’

Hawke laughed at Dorian. ‘You think it reminds him of the good old days? Y’know, I couldn’t believe that letter,’ he said, almost conversationally. ‘I honestly didn’t know what to expect when you bled for it. A secret, I suspected. Maybe he’d gotten _naughty_ with a few mages in the Circle, most Templars do. I knew it was going to be something bad when he burned it, but I have to say, when someone makes _me_ look good, that’s when you know it’s really, truly fucked up.’

Keenan was trying to say something, but Hawke’s blade was pressed right over the ridge of his apple.

‘Let _him_ go, at least,’ Dorian said, eyeing the blood on Keenan’s throat.

‘I’ll release him when we’re clear of the storm.’

‘_If_ you get clear of the storm. He’s a child; let him go, _now_!’

Hawke gave another cruel, cold sneer. ‘He didn’t seem like a child when he let me fuck him for information about Cullen.’ Dorian’s breath caught hard. Keenan made a sound of displeasure, struggling furiously but there was nowhere for him to go; Hawke’s grip was lethal. ‘Or didn’t you know that? Your little prodigy here was fishing for stories about the Commander from the Kinloch days. That was before you went and used blood magic to gift me Cullen’s letter, though. I didn’t have much to tell little Keenan back then. But _now_,’ he whispered against Keenan’s ear, malevolent and suggestive. ‘Oh, the things I could tell you, boy. How hard would you let me fuck you to hear what I know about Cullen Rutherford _now_, hmm?’

Vivienne let out a furious scream and threw her hand towards Hawke. The very air hummed with power and a thick, heavy swirl appeared around Hawke and Keenan. Time slowed for them; Dorian could see Hawke blinking in the slowest of motion.

The Tevinter mage did not hesitate. He threw force, curled it like hooks around Keenan and drew him close just before the swirl flickered and died. Dorian shoved the stammering young mage towards the tower. The whole thing had barely lasted three seconds. Keenan’s feet vanished behind the door as Hawke staggered forward, roaring furiously.

But without the threat of leverage, Dorian was more than ready for Hawke.

He unfurled sharp, spiteful magic; the kind that cut through the air with a whistle and tore skin like paper when it landed. The kind of thing Hawke had scarred his face with. This magic was not as instinctive as its predecessor, but it knew how to cause pain. Hawke rocked back, clutching his face and the side of his neck as blood blossomed over his fingers. It _shocked_ him and Dorian took pleasure in it; in being underestimated. Dorian didn’t give him a single moment to come to terms with the pain.

They hurled magic; shaped it how they needed, used cunning and intent to cut and break and burn. It was a flurry of elements and Hawke had his staff when Dorian did not, but he didn’t let that stop him. He felt powerful, he felt _alive_ and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was going to win. As they fought, Dorian moved closer and closer to the cage, shattering and wrecking the room between them. He made it to Cullen where the man was bound near Lavellan’s throne, desperate to dissolve those chains the moment he’d dealt with Hawke.

And then as he moved to the side, his boot caught on a slab of stone just an inch higher than the surrounding ones.

Dorian fell sideways. He landed hard and graceless, just shy of the sprawling opaline chains. All the air was crushed from his ribs, bones screaming in protest as his solar plexus spasmed painfully.

Hawke took the moment and seized upon it. The chains split into two, reaching for Dorian like sentient tentacles. Before he could scramble to his feet, they encircled his wrists, gripping tight and then he too was dragged down to his knees beside Cullen. He tasted blood in the back of his mouth, his _own_ blood instead of the overall scent of metallic magic in the air. His ribs throbbed; burning, sharp splinters of raw agony burrowed into the soft, bruised flesh of his lungs.

‘Not a bad show, Splendid,’ Hawke panted, kneeling before him. Dorian tried to use his magic, use force to throw him backwards, but the chains prevented it. ‘Now, now,’ Hawke purred. ‘No using your magic on _me_. I’m the puppeteer, after all. My master said it would only be a matter of days before blood was spilt en masse and he was right. He’s always fucking _right_. Blood in the belly of the castle. I cut my hand, disguised myself beyond recognition and had that traitorous dwarf slink around under my thrall. I waited for Cullen to _walk_ into the cage like the stupid, pig-headed _Templar_ he really is.’

‘And when you hand him over,’ Dorian gasped shallowly. ‘You think you and Fenris will just walk away?’

Hawke’s face turned hard, blood still trickling from the whiplash wound ranging from his ear down across his chin and the base of his neck. ‘Fenris will.’

‘Careful,’ Dorian hissed, pulling at the chains. His magic was _furious_, desperate to rip and ruin Hawke, but it could not hurt him, could not form with intent to hurt him. ‘That almost sounded _Championy_.’

‘I have my moments.’

‘Do you, Garrett?’

‘Don’t call me that!’

Behind Hawke, Blackwall was beside Vivienne; he’d protected her from the crossfire of Dorian and Hawke’s fight. She seemed to be unconscious on the ground. Dorian tried not to look directly at them.

‘If you’re going to kill me anyway, then I may as well point out everything I despise about you. Like how pathetic it was, taking your dead brother’s name.’

Hawke voice trembled. ‘Shut up.’

‘How _sad_ and lonely you are, pretending to be _Carver_.’

‘Shut your fucking mouth or I’ll finish the job I started on your face!’

Blackwall was moving towards them; he had a plank of wood in his right hand.

‘How you were pretty much the worst fuck I ever had and boy, is _that_ saying something.’

Hawke’s hand shot out to his throat, grabbing and gripping so hard that Dorian couldn’t help but choke. ‘You think I’m going to kill you quick, huh? You’re not going to die until _he_ says so!’

Blackwall ran the last few steps, swinging the plank through the air with a roar. It collided with Hawke’s face in a sick, loud crack. Hawke went down, silent and dazed and when Blackwall raised his arm again, Hawke used his magic to throw him backwards, green light hurling the Warden down towards to doors. He would be up in seconds. There was no time.

Dorian grabbed Cullen. ‘Listen to me.’ Wide, _resigned_ amber eyes met frantic storm grey. ‘You can break this lockdown but I have to help you. Do you understand what I need to do?’

Cullen took a shaky breath, seemingly fighting through the resignation and that horrible, sickly stillness that had overcome him ever since his proximity to those opaline restraints. ‘Do it.’

Dorian brought their mouths together in a violent clash, the blood on his tongue sliding past Cullen’s lips as Dorian took hold of Cullen’s left hand, intertwining their fingers. He _pushed_ his magic as hard as he could into Cullen. It didn’t know how to fit, not at first. There was resistance and Dorian panicked, suddenly unsure that it would work because this magic, though curious and possessive about Cullen, had never been inside him before.

But then he felt Cullen _accept _it and it was like a dam breaking. Cullen’s other chained hand curled around his neck and pulled Dorian closer, _deeper_. He surged up against him, the space between them evaporating like it was nothing, kissing the mage like he would die without him. He groaned into him, almost sobbed. Dorian gave Cullen all his magic, every last drop. Blackberries and lyrium, blood mage and Templar. It collided hard within Cullen’s battle worn body, crashed together like river and sea, combining and colouring and _swirling_.

Then Dorian wrenched their lips apart and brought their conjoined hands down as hard as he possibly could, Cullen’s palm first, onto the stones of Skyhold.

The magic burst from Cullen like an explosion, erupting in angular lines of violet blue that sped off into every part of the castle. Into the walls, the ceilings, floor and doors. Impacted with Hawke’s greeny red and absolutely eviscerated it. A thunderous _bang_ rent the air and the taste of metal and mana was gone. The chains around their interlinked wrists dissolved like demon gore. Dripped away and turned to water, insidiously innocent, like it had never even been there. Cullen shook himself _hard_ like he was waking from a dream. Dorian hauled him up as Hawke lay there, staring around with astonishment.

‘No,’ he whispered to himself. ‘_No, _you can’t do this.’

Cullen went and helped Blackwall to his feet while Dorian surveyed the fallen Champion. There was fear, _real fucking fear _in his dark brown eyes and Dorian cherished it. All he’d made them suffer, all he’d put them through… he deserved to _suffer _in turn.

But something gave a sharp, insistent _tug_ inside him and he thought of Fenris, remembered him at that party, the dead look in his eyes, the same one in Cullen’s when those chains had pulled him down. Hawke deserved to die but… _fuck_.

‘Stay down,’ Dorian warned him. ‘I mean it.’

Hawke grimaced. ‘It wasn’t personal,’ he ground out, glancing around in a way that Dorian didn’t like at all. ‘All of this was at _his_ command, he told me everything to do, step by step.’

‘Do yourself a favour, Hawke,’ Cullen snarled from behind Dorian. ‘Close your mouth, for once.’

Dorian was about to do something so grown up it might have actually made his stomach turn; right on the verge of offering Hawke a deal, but before any of that incredible magnanimity had a chance to be born, green fire shot from Hawke’s fingertips, right at Dorian’s face.

The Tevinter mage had no time or mana left to shield himself, only his arms thrown up in a cross as he waited to be burned… but nothing came. The air remained cold; the heat oddly _absent_. He opened his eyes to find Cullen directly in front of him, hand raised, making a shield for them both. The shield was a towering thing, not quite domed, but far larger than the kind most mages used to protect from incoming attacks. It was Dorian’s magic inside of him and the mage could feel it rejoice, heard it sing to be used and shaped in such a way.

When the flash of green faded, Cullen moved away. Hawke was somehow on his feet, pale and covered in blood, dark eyes grimly determined. The Champion let loose a low roar and summoned a demon.

The pride demon laughed monstrously as it landed in the hall with a deep, gong-like thud. Dorian stepped back just as it swung that long, lethal electro-whip. Blackwall pulled Vivienne away to the side, dragged her by the arms.

Cullen faced the demon without even a flicker of fear. He rolled his shoulders and picked up the twin blades from where he’d dropped them nearby. Dorian’s mana was returning now. He would fight by Cullen’s side, there was no doubt about it but Hawke…

Where the fuck was Hawke?

The man had vanished with the kind of efficiency even Cole might envy.

‘Hawke!’ Dorian yelled, accidentally drawing the attention of the demon. It chuckled and stomped towards him just as Dorian made out a blurring shimmer sneaking towards the doors of the Great Hall.

The demon swung a set of cruel, rocky claws towards Cullen and the Commander sprang to life. He blocked the blow and used the beast’s natural slowness and size to his advantage. Dorian badly wanted to pursue Hawke but couldn’t leave Cullen and the other two alone with such a thing.

He summoned lightning, he summoned fire. Cullen poked holes in it with clever blades and sometimes, he protected Dorian and himself with a magic born of them both. Provided by Dorian, channelled and birthed by Cullen. Dorian’s magic purred to see Cullen wielding it, writhed with approval and _adoration_.

Hawke was at the doors when they burst open from the outside and his shimmering outline was stopped in its tracks.

Leliana closed the doors behind her, flattening herself against them. In one hand, she carried a very familiar greatsword. ‘Cullen!’ she called out.

‘Secure Hawke! He’s glamoured!’

Dorian barely had time to grin when Leliana and Cullen swapped their weapons by throwing them to each other.

Now Dorian’s efforts towards the pride demon were more concentrated and his magic, dark and fluid, was almost at full strength. He and Cullen worked the weak spots, covering each other as they took it down. With his true weapon in hand, it didn’t take long for Cullen to land the killing blow. The demon groaned and crashed to its knees, dissolving into sludge just as Leliana leapt, swift and deadly, to where Hawke was trying to make a run for it into Solas’s office. She caught him around the neck and plunged one blade deep into his shoulder.

Hawke’s scream resonated throughout the hall, but Dorian didn’t let it even touch him. Fuck Hawke, fuck his _pain._

Leliana was abundantly smug when she said, ‘Got you that time.’

Cullen was hurt - the demon had gotten a few good blows in, the worst of which was a nasty gash across his collarbone - but the Commander strode over to Leliana, withdrew his belt and lashed it around Hawke’s ankles, apparently taking no more chances.

Others were emerging now; soldiers were filtering into the hall from the snow laden barracks across the way. Cullen used a ruined Inquisition flag to bind Hawke’s hands before he passed him over to three soldiers.

‘Get him into a dampening collar immediately,’ he instructed. ‘Then see to the worst of his wounds and lock him down as securely as possible.’

Leliana’s lips were blue and her skin was like fine china, save for the flush in her cheeks from fighting. She and Cullen hugged briefly, but tightly. She frowned at his injuries but he shook his head at her like she was being silly.

‘Dorian,’ she said, clapping eyes on the approaching mage. ‘Are you all right? What of your mages?’

‘All fine,’ Dorian said, managing to smile. He was readying himself to _not_ be hugged and to instead offer some kind of awkward shoulder pat when she fiercely dragged him into her freezing arms, squeezing him hard.

‘I knew you’d find a way,’ she said as she withdrew, looking at Cullen, who was seeing to Blackwall and Vivienne. He called over a few soldiers and guards to get them into the infirmary, instructing Vivienne to be carried with care.

‘Eventually,’ Dorian said, resisting the urge to rub his neck, uncomfortable with the praise. ‘Varric is up in the tower near your workspace. He needs help too.’

Cullen glanced at the remaining soldiers. ‘You heard him,’ he said, nodding to the tower. ‘Leliana, you’re practically _blue,__’_ Cullen added softly under his breath.

‘Yes, well,’ the Spymaster laughed weakly. ‘I can safely say that your quarters did not offer much in the way of shelter, but at least I didn’t freeze to death. A bath and some tea and I’ll be fine. How you’ve managed to sleep there the last few nights is beyond me.’

‘Come use my bath,’ Dorian offered. ‘So long as you don’t mind the two mages, the baby and the spirit.’

Leliana’s eyes widened. ‘_Baby_?’

*

‘Oh, but she is a _beautiful_ little thing,’ Leliana said for about the hundredth time, peering over Dorian’s shoulder as he walked around holding the tiny bundle of silky baby Dawn. It was his first time holding her and no matter how much Leliana begged with her eyes, he wasn’t giving it up unless instructed to by Nalari.

And seeing as how the girl was fast asleep on his bed, safe in Saffy’s arms, he didn't think that was happening any time soon.

Leliana had taken Dorian’s offer at face value and had completely submerged herself in a very hot, very _clean_ bath while Dorian fussed over the baby and then offered to walk her around the room for a little while, letting Nalari rest. Cole stood guard over Leliana’s modesty which Dorian found highly amusing.

The only thing missing was Cullen, who might have scowled in the corner and pretended not to watch the baby. Though when he searched himself, Dorian didn’t think that was entirely accurate. Cullen would probably have followed Dorian around in case he dropped her, gifting instructions about how the mage should have been holding her. Dorian would never forget the look on the Commander’s face when he plucked that baby from the water.

The rest of his mages in the tower were helping with the clean-up in the hall; riddled with cabin fever and mild annoyance at missing what they called _all the action_. Keenan had studiously avoided Dorian’s eyes and the mage knew there was a painful conversation coming later, but it would be _later_. Everything could be later. For now, it was nice just to hold Nalari’s daughter and _breathe_.

Leliana had been the only one to be locked outside, looking for Hawke’s approach. It was a good thing, Dorian told himself. As far as they knew, there were no casualties from the incursion. Some people were dehydrated but that was as far as it went.

It could have been so much worse.

Leliana was dressed, having borrowed some of Dorian’s clothes, and speaking in a low voice with Cole. The boy then vanished, as was his wont, and she focused her attention on Dorian.

‘We need to do a full-scale sweep of the castle, ensure protection from any additional threats.’

‘You want my help.’

‘I want you to lead it.’

‘Cullen is—’

‘Cullen has much else to do and I trust your instincts about matters like these. This was a mage assault on our fortress. Hawke slipped past us yet again and this time, he rained blood magic down upon us.’ She sighed, her expression hardening. ‘We must do better.’

‘We’ve got him, at least,’ Dorian offered. ‘_You_ got him.’

‘Barely,’ she said, but then she shook herself and became bright and untouchable once more. ‘Joy is coming up in a minute, bringing what will pass for a crib until we have a suitable replacement.’

‘I was thinking,’ Dorian said, moving his arms back and forth gently, creating a kind of rocking motion as he bounced lightly on one foot. ‘My old room might be good for Nalari and Dawn. They’ll need their own space.’

‘Wonderful idea,’ the Spymaster said approvingly. ‘I’ll see to it immediately.’

‘When do you need me to do the sweep?’

‘’Not right this second,’ she said, smiling down at the baby again. ‘We all need to catch our breath. There will be so much to attend to in the wake of this attack, I scarce know where to begin.’

‘As if you aren’t going right for Hawke’s cell to interrogate him,’ Dorian said dryly.

‘Well,’ she said with a shrug. ‘_After that_, at least.’

‘I’d like to speak with him too at some point.’

‘Of course,’ she said easily. ‘I’ll make sure he still has a tongue, don’t worry. It will be my potions I use to draw truth, not blades. I’ll return in an hour with an update about Varric and the others. From what I saw, they all seemed well enough. Poor Josie missed out on all the fun,’ she chuckled. ‘I’ll bet from now on she carries an extra candle, just to be safe.’

Leliana stroked her finger down the baby’s face and then headed off to begin torturing and questioning Garret Hawke.

Dorian walked around his room with Dawn. She was very quiet, so quiet that sometimes Dorian panicked and stopped to check she was still breathing, but she always was. He walked the length of the room a few times, humming softly. It was nice, _more_ than nice. He felt even and serene, exactly where he was meant to be. His happiness for Nalari was a living thing inside him. It shone, it warmed him. He bent and pressed a light, soft kiss to Dawn’s forehead.

Babies, Dorian decided, were absolutely wonderful.

*

Dorian had been back from his _sweep_ for less than ten minutes before he decided that, impending daylight or not, he was having a fucking nap. The Great Hall was still in various states of disrepair. Blackwall was taking it easy after a multitude of healing potions and therefore unable to run drills with Dorian. It had been a night of absolute chaos and Dorian was so tired his eyelids were waging war with him on their insistent downward journey. The sweep had been less than perfect; Dorian knew he would have to perform it again when he was of sounder mind and less likely to collapse, but he _had_ found the way Hawke, with Varric in tow, had infiltrated Skyhold.

The waterfall behind Skyhold, the curtain of the Undercroft, was frozen solid, creating a strangely jagged hill that Hawke had scaled to slip inside. Due to the open exposure of the Undercroft, Harrit and Dagna weren’t anywhere near it at the time, preferring _not_ to freeze to death. Dorian had thrown up a netted shield across the wide-open gap and even that had left him feeling drained, his wrists aching like he’d lost too much blood, but it would do for the time being.

He hadn’t once run into Cullen and really, that was for the best. Dorian needed to sleep. It was becoming urgent.

The sun was due to rise soon. Dorian stripped out of his filthy, battle-ruined clothes, tossing the black shirt aside with intent to throw it away entirely. Sometimes he missed his buckles, but that way led to madness. The Dorian who wore buckles and cultivated impressive facial hair was a _bad_ person. Unkind and dishonest and overall unscrupulous.

Stripped down to a pair of fresh, silky pyjama trousers, Dorian crashed onto his bed, newly made with clean sheets and quilts. He was only going to sleep for three hours, maybe four. He waved his hand and with his fingers, carved his hourglass, setting the time. The rushing sigh of crystals was like a caress. Velvety darkness was coming for him, pulling him into the deepest, most relaxing sleep of his entire—

Someone knocked at the door.

‘Mother_fucker,_’ Dorian half snored, half growled. He wanted to yell at them to fuck off, wanted to _cry_ because his body had already begun to turn loose and lax, breathing deep and calm and it had felt so, so wonderful.

He didn’t dare ignore it, though. There were too many reasons not to, Nalari and Dawn highest on the list. So, with a rumbling groan he dragged himself off the bed and padded over to the door. He grumbled silently the whole way, promising himself that he _was_ going back to bed no matter what, even if it was many hours later.

He opened the door and his sleepy spell was broken.

‘I’m—’ Cullen said, catching sight of Dorian and immediately blushing, fucking _blushing_, as he then determinedly looked away like Dorian was a fair young maiden who he’d stumbled upon washing herself in a fountain and yes, all right, maybe Dorian was a little bit delirious, but he hadn’t slept in _a very long time_. ‘Um, apologies.’

Dorian was in no mood for whatever this was going to be which was why he intended to snap something at Cullen, make it plain that Dorian had almost been asleep and that Cullen’s presence here was an annoyance at best.

‘No, please, not at all! Ah, would you like to come in?’ Stupid, treacherous heart, collaborating and scheming with his mouth.

Cullen stepped inside and he positively shivered when met with the warmth of Dorian’s magic. The mage viciously bit down the instinct to offer him something to help; a blanket, warm drink, a fucking _hug_. Things _Dorian of Old_ would have sneered to be offered, let alone _want _to provide those things for someone else

‘I know you must be tired,’ Cullen said, glancing at the bed and then away again very quickly. He was nervous, skittish even. There was something distinctly uneasy about the Commander. He didn’t walk around, just stood in the very centre of the room and faced Dorian warily.

The mage vaguely knew what was coming, but that didn’t make it any less painful.

‘I don’t want to give you the wrong idea,’ Cullen said, his features arranged like he was addressing someone who didn’t know what it felt like to fuck him into oblivion, or kiss him breathless, or share a meal with him in quiet, comfortable silence while he read through mountains of paperwork and Dorian pretended to do anything besides sneak stolen glances at the beautiful man across from him. It was like… like they were _acquaintances_. Like they barely knew each other. ‘You did what you had to in the hall and I understand that completely. I killed those men, the blood magic responded to me.’ Cullen sighed and swallowed. ‘I should have thought of it earlier, truth be told.’

‘Perhaps you were a _little_ distracted helping Nalari give birth.’

Despite himself and despite the state of things hanging in the air between them, Cullen actually smiled. It was a brief thing, not long for this world but it was _real_.

‘Hmm,’ he said, sobering quickly. ‘We worked well together. I was… surprised that we could function that way.’

Dorian crossed his arms and tried very hard not to say something cutting. Cullen’s _surprise_ seemed rooted in his belief that Dorian would go out of his way to make his life difficult and though all evidence pointed directly at such a conclusion, at least to an outsider, Dorian was still helplessly stung that Cullen didn’t _know_ him a little better than that.

‘Yes, well,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘Desperate times and all that, I suppose.’

‘Your mages love you very much. Nalari looks at you like you hung the moons.’

It was an odd non-sequitur, something almost - _but not quite, because that would be crazy_ \- like an apology or an offering.

‘They’re sweet things,’ Dorian said and then waited for Cullen to get to the meat of his speech, of whatever awful thing he had come to politely inform Dorian of. ‘So?’ he prompted, a little impatiently when Cullen remained wordless and still.

‘Yes, so,’ Cullen said, shifting on the spot. He was wearing his sword once more and his hand came to rest on that familiar place, his posture so maddeningly _neutral_ that Dorian felt personally offended by it. ‘As I said, I don’t want to give you—’

‘The wrong idea.’

‘—false hope.’ Cullen studiously avoided Dorian’s gaze. ‘Not that you would hope for anything, I’m not presuming—what I mean is, I’m glad we worked well in a professional capacity and I don’t want there to be undue animosity between us.’ He rubbed his neck with his free hand, that fucking nervous habit that Dorian had slowly begun to break while they were together because _together,_ Cullen was rarely nervous or unsure of himself. He’d been strong and centred, _healthy_ and in love.

Before Dorian had destroyed it all.

‘False hope,’ the mage echoed softly, toeing the ground. ‘Yes, that’s very kind of you to clarify. I didn't actually expect a reunion on the back of… what happened in the hall. It was to break the lockdown, nothing more.’

That had definitely _not_ come out right. Dorian frowned and replayed the words in his head. He’d meant to that say that he would make no demands of Cullen, harboured no expectations because he would never push and that the kiss was not Dorian trying to _take_ anything that Cullen would not willingly give.

That was what he _meant_.

‘Of course,’ Cullen said, tensing up in an instant. ‘Of course, I thought as much, I just wanted to be clear.’

_Clear. Civil. Polite. Professional._ Words that Dorian despised.

‘It’s very clear. We’re members of the Inquisition; the blood mage and the Commander, nothing more.’

Cullen frowned slightly. ‘I shouldn’t have called you that.’

Dorian glanced away, hating how much he wanted to respond to any measure of kindness Cullen showed him. ‘It’s not a slur anymore. Just the truth.’

‘Your magic,’ Cullen said hesitantly, carefully. ‘It didn’t feel…’ he sighed and inclined his head, searching for the word. ‘_Bad_ to me, only different. It still felt like you, just not the version of you that I knew from before. In many ways it was better,’ he added. ‘I don’t know how I would have coped, feeling your true magic.’

The mage shook his head, a little lost. ‘What am I supposed to say to that?’

‘You don’t have to say anything. I’m just trying to be honest.’

‘Honesty is fine, but I would prefer you be blunt.’

Cullen bristled at that. ‘Fine,’ he said, squaring his shoulders. ‘I cannot, no matter what you say, make myself believe that you ever loved me. I can’t move past that. I just… can’t.’

Dorian put his hand over his mouth and nodded, eyes closing tight. His throat felt packed tight with wool. It was the only thing he wanted Cullen to know, to _believe_. That he loved him, he loved him so much, he fucking _loved him. _

But he didn’t know it. Cullen was standing there telling him in no uncertain terms that he would _never_ know it, never believe it and it tore the mage apart, that cold statement of fact.

He kept himself together, but only just, only for Cullen’s sake.

‘However,’ Cullen added. ‘I _do_ think that you cared for me, at least sometimes. That you felt something close to affection for me.’

It felt almost like a trap. Dorian wanted to insistently agree that _of course_ he felt affection for him, of course he fucking cared, but… that would mean at least passively accepting that Cullen was right and he had never really loved him.

‘You never made promises,’ Cullen went on, sounding so unsure of himself and so very hesitant that it made Dorian want to cry. ‘And I had no right to expect something of you that didn’t come naturally.’ He took a deep, shaky breath. ‘I am very grateful to you for the time we shared. It was—it still means lot to me.’ Cullen’s jaw was working as he looked down, cheeks flooding with colour when he swiped at his eyes. ‘I don’t think we will ever be friends, you and I, but in what capacity I can manage, I do not consider you an enemy. Things can be as they once were, before I— before all of this.’

Dorian had his arms wrapped about himself. It was just about the worst feeling in the world, but he had to be strong, had to stay upright. He gave Cullen a bitter smile, determined not to fall apart. ‘Back to dull banter and hating each other from afar?’

‘I never hated you.’

It was like the ground falling away from his feet.

‘Nor I you,’ the mage said, voice breaking at the end.

‘I don’t hate you now. I feel…’ Cullen said, staring across the room as though he could see for miles. ‘Empty. I know how you abhor politeness and professional distance, but I don’t have anything more to offer. This is all I can offer you, Dorian. I hope you understand.’

‘Well,’ Dorian worked hard to put breath behind words, to keep himself in the room. ‘That’s _extremely_ clear. I appreciate it.’

‘Good.’

Dorian looked down. ‘Was that all?’

‘No. I need to—I need to ask for your help.’ The suddenly distraught tone in Cullen’s voice had Dorian glancing up sharply. ‘You’ve already saved my life and I don’t wish to inconvenience you, but…’

The mage studied him. The pallor, the waxy quality of his skin, the dark, hollowed rings around his eyes, the slight pink tint to the whites of them. ‘The lyrium,’ he said, speaking without really thinking, partially intuiting what he thought the Commander required. ‘You need me to get you some?’

Cullen laughed humourlessly. ‘No, that’s not what I need. I should never have started taking it again. It was—I confess to doing it out of spite.’

‘Spite?’

‘Towards you. I know how petty that is, how _beneath_ me it was to make that choice based on some awful need to hurt you but I deeply regret it now. I struggled to free myself of this for so long, to simply earn one day a week where my skull was not rent apart with migraines and my stomach churning with bile. Hawke forced it down my throat but when I returned, I took even more. Double the dose of what I would have taken years ago.’

Dorian’s heart pounded hard. ‘Why?’

Cullen did not meet his gaze. ‘You know why.’

Dorian couldn’t help himself. ‘You _idiot_!’

‘I was in a bad frame of mind.’

‘You are the most essential person in this castle right now!’

‘I wasn’t thinking _clearly_!’

‘No, apparently fucking not!’ Dorian was trembling with anger. The very idea of Cullen throwing caution to the winds, of doubling the dose to quicken the _end_ it would bring. ‘You matter so much to people, Cullen. So fucking much. You are not disposable, not even remotely and _not_ only because you command the Inquisition’s armies!’

‘I didn’t intend to die right away,’ Cullen defended, frowning deeply at the space to Dorian’s left. ‘Just… there seemed to be no point in striving for a future. A future beyond all this.’

In the silence that followed, Dorian’s slightly ragged breathing was the only sound between them until Cullen sighed and his face fully crumpled.

‘I fucked up,’ he admitted, hand covering his eyes as the low tenor of his voice broke. ‘I _can’t_ be shackled to this, not again. I can’t live like this. Your magic was the only thing that helped before. It burned through the remaining lyrium, got me clean completely.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m _asking_,’ Cullen ground out, turning away as he wiped his eyes. ‘For your help.’

‘You’re asking me to use you a conduit again.’

‘Yes.’

‘To burn through the lyrium in your body.’

‘That’s what I’m asking.’

Dorian’s voice trembled, partly with disbelief. ‘I’m a blood mage now,’ he said. ‘My magic is _tainted_. Bad enough what we had to do in the hall, but to repeat it, _voluntarily_?’

‘It didn’t feel tainted, just… different.’

Somehow, that made Dorian want to slap Cullen. His quiet, introverted naivety was an itch beneath Dorian’s skin that wormed and wriggled. ‘It’s blood magic, no matter how it _feels_ to you and I can’t believe you’re even asking me for this. Go to Vivienne, go to fucking Solas when he returns!’

‘I can’t ask them.’

‘Why not?’

‘It won’t work.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘It won’t work with them and you know it as well as I do. This is deeply shameful for me to even ask of _you_, let alone another and to have it fail anyway, as if I _invented_ the concept… no. If you won’t do it, that’s fine, but I will not ask another.’

It was inherently wrong to see Cullen this way and not help him somehow, not comfort him. Dorian restrained himself, locked down all of his urges and confined himself to the most basic of functions.

‘What if I infect you with blood magic?’

‘I don’t think you can.’

‘Oh, and you would _know_?’

‘Blood magic destroyed our connection already. You’ll only be burning the lyrium out of me. Nothing more.’

‘Cullen,’ Dorian said haltingly, taking a step forward but then stopping himself from proceeding any further. ‘We never talked about the connection.’

‘And now we don’t have to.’

‘I—I still don’t even understand what it really _was_.’

That was the wrong thing to say. Cullen’s previously vulnerable expression closed off abruptly, hurt and apparently so very wronged.

‘And now you needn’t worry about it. It’s _gone_. You took it away and that’s the end of it. If you are averse to helping me remove the lyrium, you have only to say so.’ Cullen turned to look at Dorian, cold and shuttered. ‘You’ve only to be _honest._’

It was a challenge, a reminder. Cool and cutting, but not cruel. Of all the things Dorian wanted to say in return, he chose the only answer that was remotely safe.

‘I’m not averse to helping you.’ _Not at all,_ he almost added, but the distance in Cullen’s beautiful amber eyes kept the addition firmly sealed behind his lips.

‘Thank you,’ Cullen said, his jaw working. ‘Well, I’ll let you get some sleep. Don’t panic if you wake and the skies are still dark. The Deep White has reached the halfway point at last. All of today will be almost pitch black. Tomorrow’s dawn will herald the slow decline of the storm.’ He gripped his pommel hard, staring at Dorian’s hourglass, dark and glittering. ‘Tomorrow, things will be better.’

Dorian would have given a great deal to believe that.

*


	20. Necessary Evils

Dorian did not sleep and really, what else was new?

The conversation with Cullen left a heavy, cold lump of lead in his stomach and he couldn’t even consider the idea of sleep after that, let alone go back to bed and try. Instead, he washed and dressed for the day as if he’d just woken up from a good long rest and put it out of his mind.

He had responsibilities. He had things to focus on. People who needed him.

He ignored the tight, itchy feeling around the base of his airway, the worrying scratch of something not _quite right_ at the back of his mind and he left the room minutes after Cullen.

*

The infirmary was far more bustling than when he’d last been there, a memory he tried to erase from his mind, and he wasn’t remotely surprised to see Nalari there, baby swaddled and bundled in a kind of sling across her chest.

That didn’t mean that Dorian didn’t fly off into a rather shrill fit of pique that the young girl who had _given birth_ less than a day ago was up and about administering healing magics to those who required them. 

‘Dawn likes all the noise,’ she explained brightly and Dorian greatly envied her _energy_. Where it came from, he knew not. ‘And she likes the movement.’

‘You should be _resting_!’ he insisted, following her at a jog as she paced around the infirmary, handing out freshly mixed elfroot potions to those with minor injuries, hydrating potions to those who were still dehydrated and little touches of magic to those with colds. ‘You should at the very least be sitting on a bed of silk while people bring you all manner of snacks and teas and—’

‘They needed help,’ she said, gifting a young soldier a kind smile and a potion. He blinked up at her, somewhat starstruck and Dorian didn’t especially blame him. Nalari had to be just about the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Cheeks flushed, hair in silky curls piled atop her head with a few tendrils escaping at the back of her neck. She was naturally stunning anyway but this aura about her, this radiance certainly added something to it.

Dorian gave the soldier a hard, warning kind of stare anyway, slanting an eyebrow even as Nalari swept away to the next bed.

Blackwall was sat up in his bed looking disgruntled and bored, but he gave Nalari a brave smile as she took stock of him, examining his leg without the slightest hesitation.

‘Good,’ she proclaimed. ‘Very good, it’s almost entirely healed. I was worried about the tendon, but it shouldn’t give you any problems as long as you allow it another few hours to fully knit back together.’

‘I feel fine,’ Blackwall protested weakly. ‘Honestly, I don’t want to be any trouble to you, lass.’

Nalari laughed, rubbing Dawn’s back gently through the material of her hammock-style carrier. ‘You couldn’t be any less trouble if you tried, Ser Blackwall. Now, unless you want to walk with a limp for the rest of your days, I suggest you carry right on being no trouble and stay there, understood?’

Blackwall smiled wryly and nodded. ‘Dorian,’ Blackwall said before the mage could leave and follow Nalari. ‘What you did in the hall, that was incredible,’ he said and then lowered his voice. ‘Blood magic or not, you’re one hell of a fucking fighter. Glad to have your back, son, whenever you need it.’

Dorian blinked, unprepared for such sentiments. After a beat he smiled and gently clapped Blackwall’s shoulder.

‘Don’t get all soppy on me,’ he warned with a grin. ‘You’ll shatter my good image of you.’

Nalari was tending to the person Dorian had been dreading seeing. Varric, thank the ever-loving Maker, was sitting up in his bed, sipping water from a small wooden cup. He and Nalari were speaking intently and Dorian hesitated but the dwarf caught his dilly-dallying and waved him over.

‘Sparkler,’ Varric greeted cheerily. ‘You sure went ahead and lived up to your name, huh?’

Dorian winced. ‘Varric, I am _so_—’

‘Is the Tevinter mage really about to burst into a glorious apology?’ Varric wondered aloud, playfully ribbing Dorian which… made things worse, as far as the mage was concerned. ‘Where’s my notebook when I need it? The first recorded instance of a Tevinter mage declaring themselves _imperfect_!’

‘I didn’t know it was you,’ Dorian managed.

Varric waved his concerns away as easily as he’d waved him over to visit. ‘Nor could you have. He glamoured me good, enthralled me from the day Vivienne took off with Curly.’ There, Varric’s good mood faltered somewhat. ‘It was worth the shocks just to be free of _that_, truth be told. No free will, no way of controlling myself… I’d rather be dead.’

‘But you’re not,’ Nalari pointed out cheerfully. ‘And so long as you rest, the strain to your heart will heal completely within a few days.’

‘There, see?’ Varric said, bright smile returning alarmingly fast. ‘Good as new!’

‘In a few days,’ Nalari reminded him.

‘Well, I guess that means time to write,’ Varric said, smile turning gleeful. ‘And _boy_ do I have some great new material.’

*

‘Thus far,’ Leliana sighed. ‘He has shown impressive resistance to my potions.’

‘Oh,’ Dorian said, unable to hide his disappointment. ‘So, we know nothing then?’

Leliana sniffed. ‘I beg your pardon. I said he was resistant, not that he _succeeded_ in resisting. It took a double dose and an extra few hours, but he’s speaking his truth now. I will continue to supply him with top ups. Extended usage of the potion poses a high risk to his health, but I hardly care for his wellbeing beyond what intelligence we can bleed from him.’

Sometimes, just _sometimes, _Leliana made Dorian shiver.

All the blood Cullen had spilt last night in the Skyhold cells had dried and congealed into a dark brown, widespread stain. Dorian thought that in the low, dull glow of torchlight, it seemed almost black. There was s_o much _of it, like an upended bucket of paint per cell, leaking out into the middle of the chamber. Dorian tried to imagine Cullen going from cell to cell with a weapon, killing these men one at a time. The first likely had it best. Quick and unexpected. As he moved from cell to cell, they would have realised what he was doing, begun to fight back, begun to _panic_. All in vain, all for nothing. Cullen had executed them himself, Erimond among them. The hand of fate, the blade of punishment.

Food stores were low and the Deep White was only that day at the halfway point. It was unpleasant, the knowledge of what Cullen had done, but Dorian knew how necessary it was. If being honest, he found it impressive.

Sometimes, more often than he liked to admit, Cullen made Dorian shiver too.

Hawke’s cell was the furthest from the doors. He sat on a stool, but his arms and legs were double chained, his neck adorned with a dampening collar. True to her word, Leliana had not cut or beat him and the vast majority of his wounds were no longer bleeding, but they weren’t completely healed. Dorian couldn’t take his eyes from the long, angry red line he’d drawn over Hawke’s face, curling down his neck. It would scar deeply, almost as deep as the one Fenris had given him when he’d tried to tear Hawke’s heart right out of his chest.

Living proof carved into his skin for all time of what Dorian had done, or what Hawke had tried to do and failed. Dorian was glad to see it, that wound. He wanted it to scar. For Hawke to feel it every day and know that he _failed_ to take Cullen and that he failed because of Dorian fucking Pavus.

‘I’d like to speak with him.’

Leliana weighed Dorian up, gave him a look from top to bottom. ‘Very well,’ she said and Dorian was pleased that he hadn’t been found wanting in _that_ arena at least. ‘I will be here throughout. Would you like to know what he’s told us so far?’

‘Is any of it about Cullen and this master?’

‘No.’

‘Then I’m sure it can wait.’

Leliana didn’t _smile_ exactly, but something in her expression flickered with amusement. ‘Of course.’

Dorian walked down the bloodied chamber, the sting of old, burnt blood magic hanging in the air, acrid and unpleasant. The bodies had been removed but the taint would linger on for a while, the mage suspected. As he approached, the four guards moved aside from their positions and one of them slid a chair from the side to the front of Hawke’s cell.

‘Thank you, Fairstow,’ Dorian said and the guard nodded in return. He took a seat and surveyed Garrett Hawke. His outstretched arms were all that kept him upright; his head hung low, breathing slightly laboured. The potion on his breath smelled sharply of cut rose stems and rotting chalk. His magic was caged, Dorian could feel it beneath the collar, screaming and thrashing uselessly, _weakly_.

‘Hello, Carver,’ Dorian said.

Hawke took a deep breath with some difficulty, not raising his head. ‘So,’ he wheezed. ‘You’re gonna be the _nice_ one, are ya?’

‘I promise I’m not going to be nice.’

Dorian could _hear_ Hawke smiling. ‘Good. Don’t want nice.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Fenris. I want to free him. He’s… in chains. Fenris is not meant to be in chains.’

‘But Cullen is?’

‘I don’t care about Cullen.’

Dorian watched the Champion levelly. ‘Have you ever cared about Cullen?’

Hawke snickered. ‘Not like you do. Tried to fuck him once, but he wasn’t having it. Nearly broke my jaw.’ The snicker turned to a cough, rolling and wracking. When it faded, Hawke said, ‘Told him I was drunk the next day, was gonna threaten him not to say anything but he understood _really_ quick. Would’ve been good to fuck him though; good fight, good conquest, I reckon.’

‘Who _was_ a good conquest for you?’ Dorian asked neutrally.

‘Take your pick,’ Hawke slurred. He sounded almost drunk, saliva running from his mouth as his head tipped downwards. ‘Fucked just about anyone who ever looked at me wrong. Great thing about bein’ famous; all that power, all that _influence. _Best one was Fenris, though.’

Hawke struggled suddenly, but Dorian didn’t flinch. The chains rattled loudly as his arms tensed and he lifted his head, face contorted with rage. He didn't want to tell Dorian this.

‘Go on,’ Dorian pushed.

Hawke’s eyes met the Tevinter mage’s; sluggish and drugged, but _furious_ beneath the effects of the potions. ‘Fenris…’ he gurgled, like he was trying to physically choke on the words. ‘Resisted me for months, he was… so difficult to… fuck, _no_!’

‘Did you try to rape Fenris, too?’ Dorian asked smoothly, leaning forward, hands clasped, arms resting on his knees.

‘No!’ Hawke barked. ‘It’s not… like that… not that way!’

‘But you pushed him.’

‘I push _everyone!__’_

‘You didn’t push me.’

Hawke sneered cruelly. ‘You were _work_. A fucking mission!’

Dorian didn’t pursue it, not just yet. He let his instincts guide him.

‘Tell me about your relationship with Fenris.’

It was _murderous_, the look Hawke gave Dorian. ‘At first,’ he ground out. ‘I wanted to fuck him, nothing more. He was… I’d never seen anyone fight like him, still haven’t in all the years since. He was strong and so angry it almost… fuck… almost mirrored my own anger. He was the kind of angry… that lives in your bones. Breathes for you, speaks for you. When I lost my… brother… I wanted to burn the world down. He and Bethany were… _no I don__’t want to_!’

‘Tell me.’

Hawke let out a vicious snarl that spoke of all the things he would surely inflict upon Dorian were his hands or his magic unshackled. He closed his eyes as his body betrayed him and spilt secrets for Dorian. ‘He always took care of me,’ he uttered in a harsh whisper. ‘He was younger than me but he felt like… he acted like the big brother and I let him. I always let him. I loved him so fucking much, more than I loved anything. He was…’ Hawke swallowed thickly. ‘He was kind and he wanted the best for our family. He wanted to hide me away, protect me from the Order. He tried to take care of us, Bethany and I but… I made it difficult. I make everything difficult.’

‘How did your sister die?’

‘In Lothering,’ Hawke said, teeth bared as he shook from head to toe. ‘An ogre crushed her right in front of us. Carver screamed so loud I thought it had got _him_. I… he said he felt like he died that day. He was never the same, but he… never stopped caring about me, just because a part of him was dead from then on.’

‘And how did he die?’

‘I took him into the Deep Roads some years later. Everyone told me to leave him at home, to go without him but I… could never be without him for long.’

Something in the way he’d said it gave Dorian pause, his instincts flaring. ‘Were you in love with your brother?’

Hawke’s chains trembled. ‘I am going to split you in half.’

‘Were you involved with him sexually?’

‘I’m going to put my hands in your mouth,’ Hawke said with so much barely contained rage that it seemed to physically hurt him to even shape the words. ‘And _split you in half_ like opening a pair of fucking curtains!’

‘Answer me.’

Hawke was panting like he’d been running. Very quietly, he said, ‘Yes.’

‘Yes, you were in love with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you were involved sexually?’

_‘Yes.’_

‘Did anyone else know?’

‘Bethany knew. She… she never said anything, but I know she knew. Our parents never knew. _Cullen_…’ Hawke growled, low and rumbling. ‘Cullen suspected, I think. Carver liked him, trusted him. It was one of the reasons I couldn’t leave him behind. I worried he would join the Templars. That he would… leave me.’

‘How did he die?’

‘I killed him.’

Dorian blinked. ‘Why?’

‘He contracted the Taint in the Deep Roads. The others said he could join the Wardens; that they could slow it, but… I couldn’t lose him like that.’

‘So, you killed him rather than have him leave you.’

‘He asked me to kill him.’

‘And how did you oblige?’

‘I broke his neck.’

‘And then you took his name.’

‘I left Garrett in the Deep Roads,’ Hawke said, voice so low it was barely audible. ‘He deserved to die for what he’d done.’

‘Was that the only reason?’

There was silence for so long that Dorian was about to ask again, but then Hawke whispered, ‘He always wanted to make a name for himself.’

‘Did the others think it was strange that you took his name?’

‘They accepted it.’

‘Did Fenris ever call you Garrett?’

‘Not once. Even when he hated me, even when he tried to kill me. He would… never sink that low.’ Hawke sounded proud.

‘Not low like you.’

‘He was always so much better than me. I tried to fuck him, tried to get with him so many times and each time he resisted, just pushed me away like I was _easy_ to push away.’ Hawke sniffed, throat thickening as he spoke. ‘When I gave up, we started just being around each other. He was more relaxed around me when I didn’t try to… push. We spoke sometimes, sometimes just sat together in silence in Danarius’s old mansion. It happened slowly. It happened the way I think things are supposed to happen.’

‘You fell in love with him.’

‘Yes.’

‘And then you betrayed him.’

Hawke’s hands balled tightly. ‘I took his trust for granted.’

‘You _betrayed_ him.’

‘I didn’t think of it that way at the time… but _yes_… I betrayed him. I would have rescued him later, of course I would have… saved him but… it was a betrayal. I betrayed him.’

‘What did he do after you betrayed him?’

Slowly, Hawke began to laugh. It was a cold, dead thing, that laugh. ‘He tried to kill me. Damn near succeeded too, but… no that’s not right,’ he said, still laughing slightly. ‘Because if he wanted to kill me, he would have. Could have ghosted his hand through my heart and pulled it out. He _hurt _me, instead. He carved me up with those gauntleted hands.’ Hawke rolled his head, smiling, eyes closed. ‘Maker, but he was so _beautiful_ even then. I thought to myself, what a glorious fucking way to die! All bright lines and pale hair, eyes burning with hatred for me. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. He clawed through my chest and then he left. The others, they saved me but I wish they hadn’t.’ Hawke’s laughter had tapered off, left him dry and hollow. ‘I went to see him in the mansion after, but he was leaving. I tried to apologise, but it didn’t come out. I can’t apologise, no matter how much I try. I wasn’t… _sorry_,’ Hawke said, staring down. ‘I wanted to be sorry, but I didn’t regret it. I never regret anything even though I know I should, not after the Deep Roads. I tried to touch him instead. Tried to kiss him. He ghosted his hand inside my chest, right into my heart and he held it there while I froze, waiting. _Do not think to touch me, Carver_, he said and then he slid his hand out and left me there.’

‘You love him still.’

‘Always.’

Dorian waited a beat before he asked, ‘When were you contacted by this man you now consider your master?’

‘Two years past.’

Dorian thought of what they’d been doing two years ago. ‘Around the time I joined.’

‘Yes,’ Hawke said, flexing his fingers. ‘Lavellan chose to side with the mages.’

‘Was that important, then?’

‘Everyone heard of it, all of Thedas was alight with the _gossip_. I was contacted by a man via magic; a kind of mirror that was left for me in the inn I was staying at. Never saw his face, but in the mirror we used, he showed me Fenris. Showed me him bound and chained and trying to… to get free. He broke his arm right in front of me,’ Hawke gasped, shaking his head.

‘Did you agree to work for him right away?’

‘No. I tried to find him first. I spent months tracing Fenris’s last steps, his whereabouts when he’d been taken, but I failed. Fenris was too good at staying hidden and I became desperate. I contacted the man using the mirror and asked what he wanted me to do.’

‘And what did he tell you he wanted?’

‘He said,’ Hawke drew a slurring, shuddering breath. ‘He wanted Cullen Rutherford, alone and friendless, bound and delivered. I remember because I laughed then. Said no problem, I’ll bring him to you within a week. But he just said no. If he wanted a mercenary to bring him Cullen Rutherford, he would already have him.’

‘Go on.’

‘He said that it would take time and that for the duration of that time, Fenris would be kept safe. He had…’ Hawke shook his head and looked up. ‘So many fucking instructions. Thousands of them. Tiny little things I couldn’t understand, still don’t. Speaking with people, asking questions, taking little things and sometimes… sometimes just fucking _helping_ people. I hated every second of it. Finally, after _months_ of inane bullshit, he said I was to start preparing to infiltrate a place called Skyhold. To approach the Herald of Andraste with an offer of assistance and secure myself within her holding.’

‘And then what?’

‘At first, I just reported back to him. For weeks, I was hidden from everyone, watching from atop the castle. I saw you and Cullen fucking and I couldn’t believe it. Cullen-_I-Hate-Mages_-Rutherford, letting a mage run magic through him.’ Hawke chuckled dryly. ‘I told my master and that’s when all the real instructions started coming in. He was angry, I think.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m not certain, but… he asked about you sometimes. About how you were with Cullen. I told him everything, every single detail I could manage. He wasn't happy, especially not when I told him that people knew about the two of you.’

Dorian frowned. ‘What were his instructions?’

‘To get you to perform… blood magic, to end your relationship with Cullen and to… to have Cullen expelled from the Inquisition.’ Hawke coughed, pitching forward slightly, but the chains kept him in place. ‘Tall fucking order, right?’ he barked, laughing again. Dorian wondered if he was delirious. ‘But it all came together because of that letter. My little gift from Andraste. Your boy Keenan already made me think that it would be something about Kinloch; ended up telling me more than I told him, stupid kid,’ Hawke said with a rumbling, vile chuckle. ‘I never thought it would be something like that, though.’ Hawke’s head rolled back. ‘Never thought Cullen was just as ugly inside as I am.’

Dorian wanted to deny it, wanted to tell Hawke all the myriad ways in which Cullen was _nothing_ like him, but there were guards nearby and he would not have them know any details of Cullen’s most private torment.

‘When you had the letter, what did your master tell you to do next?’

‘I was instructed,’ Hawke slurred. ‘To make demands and to capture Cullen.’

‘When you _did_ capture him, where were you supposed to send him?’

‘Don’t know.’

Something twitched in Dorian’s jaw. ‘How can you not know?’

‘I was never told. He would have given instructions to me through the mirror as we rode. He never… _ever_… tells me anything ahead of time,’ Hawke said, fully leaning back on his chains now, head heavy and hanging low. ‘I fucked it all up. Failed Fenris, killed… let everyone down time and again.’

‘Shut up feeling sorry for yourself! Tell me about your master.’

‘Never saw him.’

‘Not once?’

‘Just his voice.’

‘How old did he sound?’

‘Fuck should I know? Not a child, not a hundred - somewhere…’ Hawke coughed again, trying to sit upright and failing. ‘In between.’

‘Was there an accent?’

‘Sometimes… could have been Tevinter, I’m not certain though. Only know from Fenris anyway. He’d slip into Tevene sometimes when… angry.’

‘Were there phrases, any specific words used?’

‘No.’

‘Think about it for a second.’

Hawke thought about it for a second. ‘No.’

‘When he showed you Fenris, what was the scenery like?’

‘Dark. Could have been a cave. Could have been outside. Could have been a fucking pantry for all I know. I tried to find him, did everything I could. It’s not possible.’

‘What about the mirror, did you try and trace it?’

‘Of course I did!’ Hawke barked, pulling himself up by the chains to face Dorian, a wild sneer playing about his bloodied features. ‘I did _everything_ to find him! This was it, my only chance to save him and you fucked it all up for me!’

Dorian glared dully, heart racing with frustration. ‘Did you really expect us to lay down and die for you?’

‘No,’ Hawke said hatefully. ‘But tell me, _Splendid_. Is there anything you wouldn’t do for Cullen? If it was him being held prisoner in chains, tortured and threatened, are you really telling me you wouldn’t move Fade and Thedas to get him back?’

Dorian sat up, maintained Hawke’s awful, piercing stare. ‘I’d do everything I could to get Cullen back,’ he said while Hawke’s mouth twisted with satisfaction. ‘But I wouldn’t kill people, I wouldn’t _hurt_ people because that would be betraying Cullen in a far worse way.’

For a long, drawn out moment, the two stared at each other and Hawke seemed jarringly lucid when he spoke, slow and controlled. ‘That’s why Cullen’s going to die. That’s why no matter what you do to me, Cullen is going to die bloody. Men like him always end up _dead_.’

Something sharp and awful struck Dorian deeply. ‘You’re wrong.’

‘Why? Because you l_ove him? _I love Fenris and I still couldn’t save him.’

‘You love nothing and no one, Hawke.’

The Champion of Kirkwall wriggled his shoulder, barely healed from Leliana’s stab wound. A little fresh blood blossomed beneath his filthy shirt. ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ he said. ‘Nothing does. I only hope that when you lose him, I’m still alive to see you realise it.’

Dorian got up from the seat, feeling as though Hawke had somehow infected him with something gritty and grimy. ‘I guarantee you won’t be, Garrett.’

*

The mages of the tower dorm watched Dorian expectantly when he came inside. He faltered, not knowing what they were expecting until he suddenly remembered, mind more than a little disorganised.

‘Oh,’ he said to himself. ‘Right. No, there are no drills and no visiting the Nook until the storm has entirely cleared.’

A chorus of disappointed groans met his announcement, all but Keenan, who stood towards the back of the room, arms crossed, posture wary.

‘Don’t be like that,’ Dorian chided affectionately. ‘The path down to the Nook is _far_ too dangerous.’

‘Why can’t we practise in the Great Hall with you and Commander Cullen?’ Marcus asked, already braced for the displeasure of an answer he wouldn’t like.

‘Because Commander Cullen has much bigger things to worry about.’

Dorian caught Keenan’s eye quite by mistake; the younger mage’s jaw flexed; arms crossed a little tighter.

Dorian raised his hands over the cacophony. ‘I only came to say it’s lunchtime. You probably can’t tell because of the perpetual gloom outside. The hall is still fairly trashed, but there’s plenty of room for you all in the kitchens.’

More noise, more protests.

Dorian sighed. ‘Nalari and Dawn are down there.’

It would have been almost funny, the way they fell silent, hurrying out of the dorm to go see their friend, their family member in all respects that mattered.

Except Dorian’s sense of humour had been bashed and beaten and now it was rather severely cracked, facing the prospect of a monstrously uncomfortable conversation with Keenan, who at least had the self-awareness to hang back, nodding at the others to go on without him.

‘Where to, then?’ he asked Dorian a little defiantly. ‘Is this a _Your Room_ type conversation or a _Stroll Somewhere Nice_ kind of chat?’

Dorian held his ground, despite the ball of writhing nerves in his stomach. ‘Actually, it’s more of a _Here Is Just Fine_ thing.’

Keenan slid a markedly moody glare off to the side and leaned even harder against the wall.

‘I shouldn’t have done it.’

‘I agree.’

‘I should have come to you.’

‘Yes.’

Keenan’s glare turned speculative. ‘You would have been honest, told me if you knew anything about Commander Cullen.’

‘If I thought it pertained to you, yes I would.’

The air between them was awkward and stilted.

‘So, you’d potentially hide things from me then?’

‘Cullen is entitled to privacy.’

‘I deserve to know.’

‘Deserve to know what?’

‘My Father died in the Circle Tower uprising, you know?’ Keenan said very tightly. ‘The official report said he was killed by a rogue demon left behind but… I heard talk among the Templars in Kirkwall when Cullen was transferred to us. They talked about him. Said things.’

‘What things, Keenan?’

There was so much distance between them; a whole room of beds and furniture, tables and chairs, all paid for by Dorian’s father. Keenan had chosen the distance, he wanted it that way and Dorian respected it, but it made it harder for the mage to get a proper take on what Keenan was feeling, which direction to proceed in.

‘I don’t want to spread gossip,’ the young man said, a little warily. ‘Some things… there’s no way _they_ were true, but in the report about my father, it said Cullen was the one who found the bodies and one time I asked him about it, about what had happened.’ Keenan’s face hardened. ‘He went shock white, like I’d turned into an abomination on the spot. After that, I was transferred. Hasmal for a bit, Markham for a year before back again to Kirkwall. I kept my head down when I got back, never looked him in the eye, never mentioned the report. He was starting to rise through the ranks by then, not so much slumming with the kids anymore.’

‘What do you think happened?’ Dorian asked very carefully.

Keenan’s brow was pinched. ‘I think… he killed my Father.’

Dorian thought of what Vivienne had wanted to discuss with him that day in the War Room, about the man from the Circle Tower who had laughed. The man Cullen had torn to pieces with his bare hands. The same man who had begged Cullen, _the soft one_, for permission to grow flowers in boxes on the windowsills of an otherwise lightless prison.

Keenan was watching him for any signs of confirmation, but Dorian had once been the master of hiding his emotions and, for Keenan, he was able to employ a few old tricks. He didn’t want to lie to Keenan, not about something so important, but he also couldn’t outright confirm such a thing. To do so could ruin Cullen, destroy him in the way Hawke had threatened when he took the letter.

Dorian needed to be sure. Absolutely sure about the facts and even more certain that Keenan wasn’t going to do something to destroy Cullen.

Dorian nodded to himself. ‘Cullen’s past in Kinloch Hold is very complicated.’

‘What was in the letter Hawke mentioned?’

Dorian had been expecting that. ‘Cullen’s letter was extremely private and pertained to the torture he underwent during the uprising, hence why Hawke was so very eager to splash it around all of Thedas.’

‘Dorian,’ Keenan said, watching the mage with his face lowered, eyes riveted on him. ‘Do you understand how much it means to me that I trust you? Please don’t toy with that to protect him.’

‘Your trust is paramount to me and I would not betray it. If I concretely confirm what you suspect, I will not hide it from you. Currently, I do not know for certain whether or not this is true.’

Sharp, blue eyes narrowed. ‘You sound like a liar.’

And that… really hurt, because it was _true_. Language, balance and neutrality were all tools Dorian used to lie, countless times before.

He sighed and knuckled his forehead, hoping to stave off a rather serious oncoming headache. There was something distinctly tight about his chest. Something _not good_, that refused to leave ever since Cullen had come to him early that morning.

‘All right, listen to me. I don’t know for sure if he killed your Father but I think there’s a possibility that he did. What you’ve told me of your Father writing to you from Kinloch, teaching you about the witchgrass… I think you may be right.’

Keenan let out a sharp kind of hiss, hands digging into his upper arms. ‘Did you know this the whole time you were fucking him?’

‘I didn’t even suspect until you said it just now, actually, but I can see how elements of what I already knew _might_ point to such a conclusion. I still don’t _know_, Keenan, and neither do you.’

The younger mage shoved away from the wall and went to a nearby window. He faced out of it, back turned to Dorian.

‘Everyone heard about the Circle Tower falling. Kirkwall Templars were terrified of the same thing happening there and when Templars are terrified, the kind of _monster_ they are turns about a hundred shades darker. That was the key to surviving there, you know. Making the Templars feel safe and in control. If they felt out of control, even for a second, their fear would run rampant. Better to be raped than killed, better to be starved than cut into pieces and fed to their dogs. After the Circle Tower, they instituted a ton of new _protocols_. A lot of mages vanished. Ones who caused trouble, even if it was minor. Just… there one day, next morning gone. Bed empty, clothes gone, no trace. They talked about Cullen, about his _strength_ in surviving the uprising.’

‘What did they say that makes you suspicious?’

‘They said when the Hero came, Cullen argued strongly to kill the three mages locked up in the Tower, barricaded inside. That’s where they found him, my Father. Cullen wanted them killed. The Kirkwall Templars spoke of it like he was inspiring. Had the _right ideas_ and all that. The Hero of Ferelden denied his request and instead gave the tower autonomy but then _mysteriously_ afterwards, my Father and the other two were found dead by Cullen, allegedly torn apart by a demon that had been missed.’

‘Commander Cullen would never hurt you or anyone else in Skyhold. You are all under my protection and he—whatever he did in the past, he’s not like that now.’

‘If he killed my Father, I need to know. I _need_ to know.’

Dorian swallowed. ‘What would you do if it was true?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Keenan said and he sounded so tired, so adult that it hurt Dorian to hear. ‘But I can’t go my whole life not knowing the truth.'

Dorian thought of the prisoner he’d visited before coming to the dorm and his stomach gave a nasty, sharp twist. ‘We still need to talk about what you did with Hawke.’

Keenan scoffed. ‘Why? So you can make me feel like a whore? Surviving in Circles isn’t something you’ll ever understand. Cullen likely understands it better than you. When the only asset you have to trade is yourself, you get good at trading. Before Hawke, I was uncertain and I wasn’t willing to risk drawing Commander Cullen’s attention towards me and the others. You seemed to trust him and I wasn’t sure he even remembered me. Templars forget things, you know. Lyrium makes them forget. Hawke told me he was harbouring a secret, though. Something huge, something that could undo him if made public. Now I can’t stop thinking about it. It feels like this is it. I can’t let it go.’

Dorian took a deep breath. ‘No more trading yourself, Keenan. If you need something, I’ll help you get it. The Circles are gone now.’

Keenan took a few steps towards Dorian. ‘I could agree to that,’ he said. ‘If you’ll agree to be honest with me, no matter what.’

‘All right,’ Dorian said, moving closer, emboldened by Keenan’s own steps. ‘I’m going to speak with Commander Cullen and I promise, I _will_ be honest with you.’ Dorian meant it. Thus far, he had a good track record of being honest with the younger mage. He knew it was a large part of the reason why he was lucky enough to have gained Keenan’s trust.

Keenan studied him. ‘I’ll hold you to that, Dorian.’

‘I know you will,’ Dorian said, pulse thudding painfully in his wrists. ‘And I expect nothing less.’

*

Dorian made his way outside, walking across the courtyard in the blistering storm, pitch black all around him. It was after midday, but the sun was nowhere to be seen. Obscured by the storm, by the sheer volume of clouds and snow and myriad other elements that Dorian simply didn’t understand. He wrapped his thick fur cloak around him more securely. He didn’t usually wear such a thing; found it gaudy and a little too similar to certain _other_ garments that had been lost. It was incredibly warm, though, and if Dorian wanted to make it to Cullen’s quarters alive, the cloak was his best bet.

The wind wasn’t as severe as the previous day, but the snowfall was far thicker. Dorian used various aspects of his magic to get there safely. He didn’t knock when he made it to that door he knew so well. He hurried inside, apologising as he went.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, shutting the storm out behind him. He shook himself off, sending miniature cascades of snow to the floor. ‘I would have knocked, but I thought I might lose my hand if I took it out of my pocket.’

He turned to look at Cullen’s desk. The Commander was sat there staring at an open box. He didn’t look up at Dorian, didn’t seem to acknowledge his presence at all. Dorian recognised the box at once, the undeniable blue glow it emitted in the dim gloom telling tales of Cullen’s struggle.

He sighed and did not remove the cloak. ‘Leave it be, Cullen.’

‘I’m _trying_.’

‘Maybe sitting and staring at it isn’t exactly helping.’

Cullen closed the box with a snap and then threw it against the wall. Dorian watched it fly and shatter; a satisfyingly loud noise and a decent amount of mess.

‘Feel better?’

The Commander ignored the question. ‘What do you want?’

‘Can I sit down?’

‘Not really, what do you _want_?’

Cullen was palpably irritable. It had been over twenty-four hours since his last philter and such a fact was fairly obvious.

‘I need to speak to you about Keenan.’

With a gloved hand, Cullen rubbed over his face. ‘Can it wait?’

‘Not really.’

Dorian waited as Cullen stared down at the scrolls and paperwork. He was wearing thick layers, but that couldn’t possibly have made him _warm_. The room was incredibly, almost unbelievably cold. Dorian’s breath unfurled before him as he waited.

‘I killed his father in the Circle Tower, yes.’

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘Fuck.’

‘Does he know?’

‘He suspects.’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ the mage said, trying to keep a painful kind of exhaustion at bay as it threatened to encroach. ‘I can’t lie to him, not about something so serious.’ Dorian hesitated, not _wanting_ to further provoke Cullen when the man was already cantankerous as fuck. ‘How could you not tell me?’

The look Cullen gave Dorian then, slowly lifting his gaze from the desk to the mage, positively dripped with disgust.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, voice colder than the room in which Dorian was currently contracting hypothermia. ‘Did I slip into an alternate reality? Is this the fucking Fade?’ He sneered. ‘How could_ I_ not tell _you?_’

‘You must have known who he was, Cullen.’

The Commander blew air through his teeth in an impatient hiss. ‘Of course I knew who he was, but what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t reveal what I did in spite of the Hero’s orders!’

‘You thought I knew about it, though,’ Dorian pressed quietly. ‘You thought I knew and you pushed me to take charge of those younger mages and still you said nothing.’

Cullen’s movements were sharp and skittish. His upper lip curled as he rolled his shoulders as though trying to induce an ache into clicking away. ‘You never mentioned any part of the letter _you__’__d never even read_, so I didn’t exactly want to—’

‘Cullen, you had an obligation to tell me!’ Dorian’s raised voice echoed slightly around the barren, freezing quarters. ‘I am responsible for them; at your _behest_ I am responsible for them and you murdered his bloody Father.’

Cullen refused to look at Dorian, fingers tapping a frantic rhythmless percussion against the side of his desk. ‘His _Father_ fucking deserved it.’

Dorian let the silence sit and fester after that until Cullen eventually sighed and brought his gaze resentfully to the mage for the first time since he’d entered.

‘That was low,’ Cullen admitted reluctantly. ‘Keenan is a good lad. His Father’s crimes are not his own.’

Dorian took a shallow breath and waded into the territory he dreaded.

‘Keenan’s Father was barricaded with two others in the Tower.’

Cullen’s eyes narrowed. ‘And?’

‘They were unarmed.’

The Commander’s face broke into a vicious scowl quite unlike anything Dorian had ever seen before. ‘Are you serious?’

‘At least see it how Keenan will see it.’

‘How the world will see it, you mean?’

‘Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes. You know I don’t care what you’ve done,’ Dorian said gently, _honestly_. ‘I really don’t, but from an outsider perspective you murdered three unarmed mages who were seeking refuge.’

‘Refuge from an uprising they helped cause!’

‘Yes,’ Dorian allowed patiently. ‘But they were liberated by the Hero.’

‘The Hero who refused to _believe_ me when I told him of their involvement, of their crimes!’

‘Yes, exactly, Cullen. He heard your side of things and while he was a dismissive prick, he _chose_. You undercut that choice. Undermined his authority entirely. That is all people will see. Keenan will see that his Father was trying to stay alive and you murdered him in cold blood with your bare hands.’

Cullen didn’t wince or flinch, not at all. He ground his jaw back and forth, so livid he was practically trembling.

‘You’re going to tell him.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian admitted. ‘I have to.’

‘I—’ Cullen paused for a moment before shaking his head. ‘So be it, then. You’ll tell him and word will spread. Maybe it is no less than I deserve.’ Cullen’s knuckles were white as he gripped the side of his desk. ‘It’s inevitable, I suppose. At least this way I am spared the shame of everyone knowing about… about Jassen, too.’

Dorian’s brow creased. ‘Cullen, Keenan won’t _tell_ anyone.’

‘Of course he will.’

‘He won’t.’

‘Oh, because you’ll swear him to silence?’

‘Because he cares about the world not ending,’ Dorian insisted heatedly. ‘Whatever he may choose to do once the war is over is frankly beyond me, but I know in my heart—’ Cullen’s scowl managed to deepen a fraction there. ‘that he would not leave us fighting this war without you.’

‘Well then,’ Cullen said, standing so abruptly that a few scrolls rattled and rolled off the side. ‘I look forward to receiving a dagger in the back the day after we kill Corypheus.’

It was difficult to remind himself that there was a _reason_ Cullen was acting this way. Dorian kept all his equally spiteful comments to himself because whatever else could be said, Dorian was _not_ the one suffering lyrium withdrawal.

‘I meant to ask,’ he said, hoping to at least _begin_ to change the subject. ‘How did you destroy the letter in the end? If you want me to…’ Dorian waved his hand vaguely. ‘Use magic to ensure that it can never be recreated again, I’m happy to do so.’

Cullen leaned one arm against the wall of his office, staring out of the narrow window, the glass almost completely obscured by snow drifts and unnatural darkness.

‘I didn’t destroy it.’

Dorian’s heart lurched like he’d missed a step. ‘What?’

‘You heard me just fine.’

‘Why the fuck not?’

Cullen shrugged. ‘Why bother?’

‘Maker’s fucking _breath_, what is wrong with you?’

Cullen laughed darkly at that. ‘A lot, I think,’ he told Dorian. ‘Enough that when your mage comes at me for revenge, I’ll likely not even raise a hand to stop him.’

Dorian sought composure from within and found only the barest scrape of such succour. His chest was a little too tight, too hot. Hearing Cullen talk in such a way, even if it was induced by withdrawal spite, reminded Dorian too much of Hawke’s cruel assertation.

‘Right, that’s enough.’ He got to his feet, shoving the chair backwards. Cullen turned, glaring cagily. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Go where?’

‘I was going to wait until tomorrow, but you’re a big boy and you grew up in the snow so if you go skidding off the side of the mountain, that’s entirely your fault. Let’s go, right fucking now!’

He could tell Cullen wanted to argue on general principal but perhaps the lure of _outside_ and _danger_ were too much to ignore. Cullen strapped his sword to his belt, making sure to hold Dorian’s gaze the entire time, and then he followed the mage out into the storm.

*

‘They call it the _Nook_,’ Dorian explained after he’d named Cullen a _friend_ and the strange, sentient magic of the cavern granted him entry. ‘It’s completely spy-proof and as you can imagine, ideal for training up dangerous, vengeful mages in anticipation of the day they murder Ferelden Commanders.’

Cullen kept right on looking around the cavern as he said, ‘Go fuck yourself, Pavus.’

Dorian took that as a small win.

‘You’re probably wondering why we’re here.’

‘You’re going to push your magic into me,’ Cullen said, trailing his hand over the rough, seemingly _alive_ walls. ‘Help me with the withdrawals.’

‘To rid Skyhold of Commander _Sullen.__’_

Oh, how Cullen turned and glared at the mage then. Dorian knew he hated the nickname, whispered months ago by his own soldiers. He wondered if he hated it more than _Chantry boy._

The Commander shrugged out of his outer cloak, revealing full armour and another layer beneath it, visible when he lifted his arms and the breastplate caught on his undershirt, rucking the materials high. Dorian caught a flash of that scar, gifted by the three talons that had almost gutted him.

Demons sent by Hawke’s _master_.

‘Well?’ Cullen prompted sharply, throwing aside the cloak. He seemed… agitated, obviously but there was something else there too. Nervousness, perhaps. It was hard to tell with Cullen these days.

Dorian was not going to rush this, certainly not if it put Cullen in any kind of danger. He made a few heating orbs to bring the room to a bearable temperature and Cullen scowled again.

‘Don’t bother,’ he hissed.

Dorian remained calm, despite the fluttering in his chest and the sour threat of bile low down in his throat. ‘Well, I’d prefer _not_ to die actually, so if it’s all the same to you, I’ll keep them.’ He removed his own cloak, drying the wet, frozen fur as he set it on one of the tables towards the back. He created light and heat as he pleased and generally ignored Cullen’s foul mood. This was _for _Cullen, no matter how the man was apparently set on self-sabotaging himself. Dorian wanted, no, _needed_ to help him.

When the cavern was warm, Dorian relaxed a little. He went into the safety arena and bid Cullen follow him.

‘So,’ he said, looking around to make sure everything was set. Training boundaries in place, safety parameters established. ‘What magic do you want?’

Cullen’s glare turned almost feral.

‘I beg your pardon?’

Dorian very patiently rolled his eyes, accepting Cullen’s spite as was his due. ‘Let’s go with lightning, shall we?’

‘Fine,’ Cullen said, though it sounded very far from fine.

Dorian gave him a hesitant once over. ‘It will need to be prolonged,’ he explained. ‘There is still a huge amount of lyrium inside you, I can smell it.’

‘I said _fine_.’

‘Take your armour off then.’

Dorian had never seen someone remove their armour with such impressive irritability. Cullen almost tore a strap, he yanked it so hard. Dorian remained impassive; partially in his _teacher_ frame of mind as Cullen hurled his armour down the other end of the cavern where it skidded and clattered loudly.

‘Did that feel good?’

‘Get on with it!’

‘Come here, then.’

Cullen seemed to be biting the inside of his cheek, but he did as he was told and stepped closer to Dorian. The mage called on his magic, readied it and infused it into his bloodstream.

‘You need to…’ Dorian cleared his throat.

‘To _what?_’ Cullen spat, toe to toe with the mage. ‘What now?’

‘You need my blood first.’

Cullen blinked, like maybe he’d actually forgotten that. Blood was always the lubricant, the way _in_ for Cullen to conduct Dorian’s magic. Yesterday in the hall, it had been simple. Dorian already had blood in his mouth then, Cullen probably didn’t even realise at the time.

‘Oh.’ Some of Cullen’s anger drained away, replaced by a shadow of doubt. ‘No, maybe we should… _fuck_. I can’t do it.’

Dorian hid how much that hurt. ‘You were the one who said how certain you were that I couldn’t infect you with—'

‘It’s not _that_!’ Cullen snapped. ‘I…’ he took a deep breath and went on. ‘I’d forgotten what your blood… _does_ to me, that’s all.’

Impossibly curious, Dorian echoed, ‘What it does to you?’

Cullen’s cheeks flooded with angry colour, spreading to his neck and then down across his partially exposed chest. His expression was tightly drawn, mouth in a furious line. ‘Don’t tease me.’

‘I’m _not_!’ Dorian said quickly. ‘I wouldn’t.’

The whole thing seemed to be getting a bit too much for the Commander. Cullen spoke in a strangled way, jaw locked in place. ‘The connection is no longer there anyway, so I doubt very much if the effects will be the same.’

‘Well, good then,’ Dorian said, aiming for level ground, aiming to _soothe_. ‘Kneel down.’

Cullen levied the full weight of his glare onto Dorian. ‘_You_ kneel down.’

Dorian knelt first, determined not to be baited. Cullen needed help, fucking _Maker_ he must have needed so much help to be driven to act like this. Dorian had seen Cullen’s _guts_ practically on the outside of his body and he’d still addressed Lavellan by her proper title.

After a highly tense few seconds, Cullen bent at the knees and knelt also, settling back on his haunches. He looked at Dorian; defiant but still edged with an unavoidable kind of fear. Dorian hated to see him afraid.

‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

Cullen sneered. ‘I’d _love_ to see you try.’

And Dorian realised suddenly that Cullen was more than nervous, more than afraid… he was terrified, and _not_ because Dorian was a blood mage. Not because he was afraid of magic or concerned about lyrium. Dorian didn’t dare voice his realisation, would never embarrass Cullen that way, no matter how the Commander tried to hurt him.

Cullen was terrified because he was going to enjoy this, at least on some level, likely a very _physical_ level.

Dorian knew what the quickest and easiest way to bleed was. He bit into his bottom lip, wincing helplessly as Cullen forced himself to look away. When Dorian tasted blood, his magic responded quickly, _hopefully, _but he quashed the suggestions it made, would speak no incantations that would activate and make use of his own fluids.

It was all for Cullen. It always had been.

The Commander was breathing rapidly through his nose; shallow, punched out breaths like he was physically struggling to keep himself still.

Dorian faltered then because yes, it was easy to bite his lip but now what the fuck was he supposed to do? Go get a cup or something and bleed into it? That was ridiculous. Maybe he could just bleed into his hand. Pool the blood between two hands and then… offer it to Cullen like he was feeding a kitten.

Fucking void, he wished he’d thought this through.

Dorian was bleeding a fair amount now, all that blood going to waste, or so his magic hissed moodily, oddly reminiscent of Cullen’s tantrum.

He opened his mouth to point out his predicament when Cullen closed his eyes and said, ‘Can I… kiss you?’

Dorian felt like the bottom had dropped out of his world.

‘Um.’

‘Just for the—’ Cullen’s throat stuck for a second before he swallowed. ‘To be expedient.’

‘Right,’ Dorian said numbly. ‘Expedient. Yes. Expediency is… wonderful. Please, be as expedient as you want.’

And then he just sort of _sat there_ waiting for Cullen to kiss him.

Which Cullen, despite the request, did not seem inclined to actually follow through with. When he opened his eyes, there was something unbearably fragile in them. He seemed to be fighting with himself and Dorian was heartsick for him.

Better to make it his fault, the mage decided, shuffling forwards, closing the gap between them. He didn’t touch Cullen’s face, didn’t dare. It was too intimate by far and there was no thundering urgency to grab him as there had been in the hall yesterday.

So Dorian pressed his slick, rose red lips to Cullen’s in a kiss so chaste, it was barely even there.

Except it _was_ there because the world blurred.

Dorian had never kissed anyone this way. His first kiss at the tender age of twelve had been a mess of inexperienced tongues and forced enthusiasm and every kiss since had been about improving on the first. His first kiss with Cullen had been verging on something almost suicidal.

This was an offering, nothing more. A gift with absolutely no expectation of recompense.

His lips touched Cullen’s and he held them there just long enough to paint Cullen with his offering. Cullen was statuesque; so still he wasn’t even breathing. Dorian drew away. He was deciding where to place his hand, where was an innocuous and formal area of the Commander’s body to touch that they might share his magic, when Cullen leaned forward of his own volition to recapture the mage’s lips once more.

The contact remained soft and absolutely restrained. It was nothing like any of their previous kisses. Cullen could kiss Dorian goodbye in front of Rylen and three runners and it had never been a _peck_ of anything. He’d _always_ held Dorian’s face, _always _kissed him deeply. It never seemed to bother Cullen, public intimacy – Dorian knew he liked it more than he’d ever let on - and so they had never kissed this way, not once. Like they were innocents, like they were _children_.

But when Cullen drew back and licked his lips, Dorian caught the breathy, broken gasp that followed that flash of pink tongue and all that chastity and _formality_ came under siege.

Not from Dorian, mind.

It was Cullen who broke first, whose resolve shattered beneath the weight of whatever it was that had him surging forward to recapture the mage’s mouth and, this time, part those scarred lips to genuinely _kiss him_.

It was still their only point of contact, that kiss. Cullen pressed his mouth harder against Dorian’s and the mage kept his spine strong, allowing the pressure. Meanwhile terrible, irreversible things were happening beneath his ribcage. Dorian told himself that it was just his blood, nothing more. Cullen had mentioned earlier he was worried about his reaction to it. That was all it was. He felt how nervous Cullen still was, how fucking _scared_ this made him. Cullen was meant to be fearless; he faced down pride demons without flinching, he ordered soldiers into battle, he won wars.

But on his knees before the Tevinter mage, he trembled.

Dorian’s self-control may have been in fucking tatters, may have been almost non-existent in the wake of the slight touch that felt simply incredible but he _loved_ Cullen. He was not going to hurt him. He would die before he hurt him again... and this _could_ hurt him.

Because everything between them was broken and kissing this way, even out of _necessity_, felt like walking barefoot on shattered glass.

When Cullen’s tongue swiped over Dorian’s lips, the mage restrained himself. No matter how dizzy the taste of Cullen made him, no matter how much he longed to hold Cullen’s face, cradle it and devour his mouth, fucking _plunder_ it because only that way could he find that taste he needed, the one he sorely missed, the one that drove him wild.

No matter the way his heart smashed out an aching, thunderous rhythm for its counterpart.

Dorian sat and let Cullen kiss him without making it any more difficult than it had to be. If beauty and pain could twine together to make a feeling, this was it.

Cullen moved closer to Dorian like he couldn’t help it and they still weren’t doing anything _magicky_, just kissing like nervous teenagers. It was Cullen who touched Dorian first, because the mage was a good person now _Maker damn it,_ but Dorian’s control was sorely tested then because the Commander didn’t place a steadying hand on his shoulder. His hand went right for Dorian’s cheek where it had caressed a hundred times before and it felt dangerously intimate, that touch. Took things from clinical swapping of magically infused blood to something that could genuinely wreck them both.

Dorian’s breath stuttered, his pulse was hot and insistent, flooding to places it shouldn’t but Cullen had always driven him insane and though he would not act upon it, that didn’t mean he couldn’t _feel _it.

Cullen brought his other hand up and he was cupping Dorian’s cheeks now as they kissed. He angled Dorian’s face and when the mage’s lips parted to breathe, Cullen’s tongue slid inside, instantly deepening the connection and changing everything. Now Dorian tasted himself on Cullen’s tongue; the sweet, metallic tang of his very self and it was heady and impossibly hot and Cullen was towering over him, no longer sat back. One hand glided down Dorian’s neck, down his back to bring them closer, erase the space in between. It was everything Dorian had dreamed of for the last five months except it _wasn__’__t_ because _this_ Cullen didn’t believe, didn’t _know_ how much Dorian loved him. This Cullen wasn’t _his_.

It was lyrium. It was blood.

It was his fucking _magic. _

Dorian took control the only way he knew how anymore which was to _help_ Cullen, to be the strong one. Cullen had been the strong one for so long, all his life as far as the mage could see. Dorian could swallow down what he _wanted_ and instead offer Cullen what he _needed_.

He lifted his hand and pushed it gently between his own face and Cullen’s palm, intertwining their fingers and then drawing it away. Cullen held it tightly and moaned softly against his lips, tongue curling against the mage’s and even though he was _trying_ not to kiss him back that way, some things weren’t possible. His strength had fucking _limits_.

His magic swirled between them, warm and dark and sweet, just _waiting_ to be inside Cullen again. It longed for him, newly infatuated with the Commander and obsessively curious.

_Let us take him_, it whispered, building within Dorian. _Only we can take him. Reach him, show him, make him ours. _

Dorian attempted to scold his magic, if such a thing was even possible, but it was entirely focused on Cullen; on the kiss, the taste of him, each point of contact between them and it was hard to differentiate between the desires of his magic and his own.

Cullen let out a groan that reverberated deep in Dorian’s throat and he muttered the word, ‘_Please_,’ against the mage’s lips.

Everything was painfully muddled but Dorian was _strong_, he really was. He took the “_please_” for the only thing it could possibly have meant. He drew his magic down into his hands and intended to push it into Cullen, the way he’d done before.

His magic had other ideas.

It crashed into Cullen by way of their kiss, impatient with Dorian and his _restraint_. It wanted into Cullen, was wholly enraptured by this Commander who was capable, _no_ – worthy, of channelling it. Dorian was third party to his own actions, struggling to maintain the divide because this kind of magic was _persuasive_ and it wanted Cullen as much if not more than Dorian himself.

_We belong here_, it sighed as it flooded through Cullen, heedless of form or shape or instruction. _We were made to fit inside here, see? See, Dorian?_

The air crackled with raw, ticklish static and Dorian was getting dizzy, leaning more and more against Cullen. It had never felt like this before, like… like _Dorian_ was inside Cullen. His magic pulsed and writhed within the Commander but it took Dorian right along with it. He could feel every nuance of Cullen, of his beautiful _interior_, the very bones of him.

_We are the light, we shatter his dark._

Dorian was drowning in Cullen. In the deep blue of everything that made up the man he loved. Cullen’s free hand slid up into Dorian’s hair, fingers tangling in the locks near the top where it was longer. Cullen pulled on it, a delicious sting of pleasure-pain sending shivers of _want_ through the mage. It was hard to remember why they were even doing this, hard to keep track of anything beyond the noises Cullen was making, the heat of his body moulded against Dorian’s.

The magic between the two of them was firing like crazy; thick, strong peals of lightning striking all around the room, biproduct of their connection, amplified by things Dorian couldn’t contemplate.

Cullen broke away to breathe, his head falling back and Dorian instinctively wrapped an arm around his back to keep him close, keep him upright. His throat was exposed, so fucking tempting that Dorian bit down on his bottom lip just so he didn’t lunge forward and trail his tongue all the way up that pale column of skin, didn’t sink his teeth into that pulse point, beating wildly at the base. Cullen’s hand was tight in Dorian’s hair like it wasn’t going anywhere any time soon and…oh fuck.

When had Cullen crawled into Dorian’s _lap?_

The Commander sat astride the mage, catching his breath as Dorian’s magic rushed through him like a river, bursting from the hand still wrapped up with Dorian’s. It was pure energy, pure magic, dazzling and brilliant. Electric violet streams danced around the cavern and as Cullen slowly, languidly lifted himself to face the mage once more.

His honey brown eyes were almost entirely eclipsed by black, mouth red with Dorian’s blood and the movement to sit upright drew attention to how fucking hard he was, almost grinding his cock against Dorian’s. The _almost_ was important, Dorian clung to it, to anything that gave him a moment’s hesitation.

‘I can feel you inside me,’ Cullen uttered and he sounded _wrecked_, but wholly without regret. He sounded drunk, Dorian realised.

The mage tried to focus, but his magic was singing over and over; a siren song of synaesthesia, Cullen’s colour in every elongated note. It delighted in pulsing through this _worthy one_. Dorian could feel himself being pulled deeper into Cullen, as if leaving his own body to venture into the Commander’s.

He wanted it so bad he could actually taste it; honey and blood and lavender oceans in the back of his throat. Cullen rolled his hips just a little, hooded eyes set on Dorian like he was about to eat him alive and fuck all the consequences. There was a darkness playing about Cullen that Dorian couldn’t help but respond to. He wanted to nurture it, give it room to play and breathe and unfurl however it needed to.

But… fuck, Cullen was going to hate him even more. Would consider it a betrayal, most likely.

Dorian screwed his eyes tight shut, shaking his head.

‘Stop,’ he forced himself to say, barely able to even hear it over the siren song of his magic, over the rushing of his blood, the rhythm of his heart.

His magic held onto Cullen even harder, clung to him like a lover, lest they be parted. It burrowed and undulated inside of him, causing Cullen to let slip a deep, broken moan, the kind that might rival a whore’s very best. He seemed so lost to it that Dorian’s determination faltered then. The desire to give Cullen what he wanted, give Cullen fucking _everything_, threatened to overwhelm what little remained of his common sense. Dorian ground his teeth together and with supreme effort, yanked his hand from Cullen’s and broke the connection. He felt the loss keenly, but his magic kept its claws dug deep into Cullen regardless. Dorian was no longer supplying it, but it lingered within the Commander anyway, determined not to leave, resplendent within him, _happy_ there_. _

_Not yet_, it begged. _We can help, let us help, let us stay. _

Cullen ran his fingertips over Dorian’s bottom lip, gentle and testing. Asking permission more than taking. Dorian could see the amount of effort it required for Cullen not to crush the mage to his mouth the way he so clearly wanted to. Oh, but Cullen was a thing of absolute beauty. Violet coloured magic rolled off of him in luxuriating waves. In the hall, it had been jagged, square lines, putting paid to the lockdown. This was so different. Emanating from Cullen with no order to form, it was like water; shimmering tendrils of ultraviolet water.

But in those drunken eyes, amid all the breath-taking magic, there was a glint of something steely; iron will struggling against the flood of Fade-born persuasion. The Commander was a veritable core of magic; he radiated it, he exuded it and yet, Dorian knew that this reaction, this _bliss_ was not wholly real. Cullen’s restraint was all the pause Dorian needed.

Dorian would not betray Cullen that way.

He fucking would _not_.

‘I’m sorry,’ the mage said, trying very hard to get his breathing under control, get _anything_ under control at this point. He carefully removed Cullen from his lap, turning his face away so he didn’t have to see any part of the hurt he caused there. ‘I’m—I’m sorry.’

Cullen vaguely protested, staying close, his knees brushing against Dorian’s. When Cullen tried to kiss him with an edge of panic as Dorian withdrew, the mage shut himself down, closed off his heart. He held Cullen’s wrists and kept him at bay, looking anywhere but at the man who housed his magic, who brought it to life in a way Dorian had not yet dared to.

‘Please let me stay,’ Cullen was whispering, fucking _begging_. ‘Let me stay with _you_.’

Dorian’s magic was absolutely furious with him. It longed to abandon Dorian then and reside forever within Cullen, it spoke of the work they still needed to do but Dorian couldn’t bring himself to care about the lyrium just then. He kept himself closed off and he refused his magic any further stay in Cullen’s body. Without the connection to the Fade, it had no way of living within him, could not sustain.

The light began to fade and the shimmering dulled. Cullen’s magic, because that was truly how it felt then, ebbed and vanished entirely. He held Cullen’s wrists and he maintained the distance, hating himself so much he could barely stand it.

Cullen was breathing like— like they’d been fucking, no longer trying to kiss the mage, but staring at him like it was all he wanted in life. Dorian too, when he took stock of himself. His vision was partially night-blinded from all the light and in the soft gloom of the warm cave, splashes of colour, of _their_ colour, danced before his eyes mockingly, imprinted there as if to tease him.

Slowly, Cullen came down. Dorian waited it out, rooted to the spot, holding Cullen harder than necessary, desperate to keep him away. The pressure around the edge of his chest began to tighten horribly. Compressed by cold, by too many feelings and no way to process them. What was he _doing_ to Cullen? Maker take him, what had he done?

Safely contained within its original host once more, Dorian’s magic scathed and snarled. _We belong there too,_ it hissed at him. _He is worthy, he is ours_!

Dorian swallowed and distantly hoped that Solas would return soon. His magic had taken on a life entirely of its own and he wasn’t sure if that was standard for blood magic or if it was… to do with Cullen somehow.

In all honesty, the latter rang truer. His new blood magic had been obedient and quiet up until that day in the hall, until it had properly met Cullen Rutherford. Now it was a living thing inside him, desperate to be _elsewhere_.

But Dorian put it out of his mind for the time being. His heart refused to calm itself, but the evidence of his arousal had the good sense to gracefully abate, at least. There was a riptide beneath his ribcage, a sucking sensation like a Fade rift in his heart. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t _move_. Cullen was speaking, but the sound was muffled. Dorian realised he couldn’t hear most of what Cullen was saying and what little he could, he didn’t understand. It wasn’t Tevene, he couldn’t… oh _no_.

Oh no, please not now.

Now there wasn’t _room_ to breathe – nowhere for the air to go. His bones were creaking, groaning in protest and his head swam, bile burning in his throat, promising an upward trajectory at any given moment.

Dorian wrapped his arms tighter around his midsection, kept his eyes closed. Darkness was good, but Cullen’s colour still danced before his eyes, bright and beautiful and vibrant with mockery. He wanted to shut himself down, wished he could turn invisible with such ease the way Hawke could.

_That’s why Cullen’s going to die_, the Champion had said with unshakeable confidence, under the influence of potions that refused him the luxury of lying. The mage’s heart was trying to implode.

‘Dorian.’

The mage shook his head and tried to ignore him. If he couldn’t see Cullen, maybe Cullen couldn’t see him in turn. He was starting to feel dizzy; the cold spreading to every part of his body, fingertips and toes, as his body _refused_ to breathe, all that panic firmly in control now and so viciously determined to kill him.

‘Dorian, what—?’

Cullen’s voice was fading and the warmth of the cavern was long since gone. Dorian began to lose feeling everywhere, never to surface again, never to take a deep, calm breath ever again. He was going under, submerged in darkness and despair and he would remain there forever, he was sure of that. This was how he was going to die. He cursed his weakness, his inability to fucking _cope _like any normal person.

Calloused hands lifted his face and Dorian shied away, too embarrassed, too _humiliated_ to die like this, to die with Cullen watching, blood around their mouths, the aftertaste of magic in the air. Cullen was going to be angry, he would be cruel and derisive, impatient and irritated with Dorian for choosing now of all times to die and oh, but Dorian needed to let Cullen out of the Nook _before he fucking died_ or Cullen would be trapped there…

‘Dorian, look at me.’

Dorian could not.

A hand pressed firmly over his heart. ‘You need to breathe, all right? Breathe with me.’ If he was capable of speaking, Dorian knew he would have said _no_. Would have told Cullen to leave him, not to follow him down this rabbit hole of darkness and compression. Cullen tried to get Dorian to move his head back to free up his airway but the mage was shrinking in on himself, bones crushing and breaking as his skin tightened and squeezed him to death like a snake, like a net, like what he did to Varric. ‘We’re going to breathe together, just how you did with Nalari. Dorian, look at me, please._’_

The mage was crying. He’d never hated himself more.

Cullen swore fluently and Dorian cringed inwardly, ashamed that he made him angry. He was weak and infected, blood tainted forever. He thought of Kinloch, of how Cullen had been enthralled and used to… to hurt Jassen. Dorian was no different, not really. His blood did things to Cullen and now… now he’d fed him _blood magic_, no different than any other captor from that time.

Dorian knew he was going to pass out. He was familiar with the feeling enough by now, recognising the way it came for him, from the feet up, disconnecting his body one piece at a time. He would die this way. A pathetic death for a pathetic man. No glory, no bravery. A tragic end and nothing more.

But then something else took him, enveloped him instead. A warm body wrapped itself around him, fingers wriggling between the gaps in his tightly wound arms to then slide around his back. Cullen was _hugging _him.

Dorian’s eyes opened on instinct and he was met with the sight of Cullen’s shoulders. He’d manhandled Dorian carefully into _his_ lap now. The Commander snaked his arms around every part of the mage he could reach, making him feel safe and warm and… and loved.

‘Breathe with me,’ Cullen was saying and his voice was everything strong in the world. ‘That’s it, you’re doing so good. Feel my chest on yours, feel my heart. Match the rhythm, you’re so good, that’s perfect. Breathe with me. In and out, good. Perfect. In and out, with me.’

His hands moved over Dorian’s back, up and down and together they breathed in and out, though Dorian couldn’t manage it like Cullen did. Couldn’t inhale deeply enough to match. Cullen’s hand was making soothing circles, the other drawing Dorian closer as it wrapped around his side.

‘Everything is fine,’ he promised Dorian and this time a tiny tremor was easily recognisable. It was an awkward embrace and it so closely resembled what had taken place between them only minutes ago that Dorian wanted to laugh. This time, though, the reasons were all different. That had been for Cullen and this… this was apparently for Dorian. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Cullen breathed. ‘I’m so sorry you had to do this. I should never have asked you. I’m so sorry. Everything will be all right, I promise. Just keep breathing with me. You’re doing so good. We’re breathing together, see how easy it is?’

After a while, Dorian’s chest began to unlock. His muscled reverted from stone to flesh, his mind began to resurface. He felt so intensely stupid that he wanted to cry all over again but that would have made it much worse. He was drained and tired and _fragile_. Cullen held him regardless of it all because Cullen was the best kind of man. Dorian was lightheaded and dizzy when he finally wrapped his own arms around Cullen in return. They sat together on the floor of the cave, fading orbs of light and warmth in the background and Dorian let himself believe that he wasn’t dying anymore.

‘Sorry,’ he croaked in a harshly broken breath. It sounded so pathetic that Dorian winced to hear it, but Cullen just shook his head slightly.

‘It’s my fault,’ he insisted. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you to do this for me.’

Dorian shook his head because the _words_ he needed to tell Cullen to shut the fuck up were just impossible then; he was still weak and he was still _useless_, but in Cullen’s arms at least he was safe.

‘I’m sorry for how I was with you before,’ Cullen went on and Dorian _definitely_ hallucinated the part where Cullen pressed a brief, firm kiss into his shoulder. ‘I was cruel and spiteful and that was unworthy of me. You were being kind and I… I…’

Dorian pulled back enough to look at Cullen. He had to tell him to stop saying all these stupidly kind things, that he had _nothing_ to apologise for. Didn’t he know Dorian would walk to the ends of Thedas and back again for him? The mage was shaking all over, skin tingling with the after-effects of the panic attack. Cullen’s cheek brushed against his own, smooth against Dorian’s stubble, and they moved to look at each other and suddenly everything felt very still, very… slow.

Dorian rested both hands on Cullen’s sides as Cullen leaned back enough to look at Dorian. He smoothed Dorian’s hair away from his forehead, pushing his fingers into the sweaty curls, honey brown eyes travelling over Dorian’s face.

Cullen looked… better than before, there was no way of denying it. He seemed healthier, less pale. Dorian couldn’t help but feel a tiny glow of _pride_ that whatever else, his magic had helped Cullen in that way at least.

‘You’re breathing so well now,’ Cullen said in a low, intimate voice, carding his fingers through the mage’s loose raven curls. ‘So good.’

Dorian shivered, couldn’t help it, but Cullen didn’t seem to notice. His other hand, the one with the deep scar on the palm, moved lightly over Dorian’s face as he studied the mage raptly, heedless of proximity.

‘Why did you get rid of it?’ he asked softly, trailing his thumb over Dorian’s upper lip, over the band of stubble Dorian allowed to grow there instead of his moustache, allowed to grow all over really because he never looked in the mirror anymore, didn’t dare.

‘I…’ Dorian tried to say, but all the reasons he could have given turned to ash in his throat under the heat of Cullen’s intensity, of the way he was being _beheld_.

The fact that Dorian hadn’t managed to get the words out didn’t prevent Cullen from apparently _understanding_, at least to some extent. Cullen’s brow furrowed and his features took on an edge of sadness.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, a little huskier than before. Dorian heard him swallow in a way that he almost _felt_ it, it was that close. ‘For making you… for bringing you into this again.’

‘Stop,’ Dorian forced out, throat thick and unwilling. ‘Don’t. Just… don’t.’

Cullen’s hand ghosted down the side of his face, slightly cupping his jaw, thumb running over the remainder of the scar Hawke had given him. The world had fallen away entirely, reduced to the place where they knelt before each other, tangled up in obligations and kindness calling late, in _intimacy_ that Dorian didn’t want to believe was magically induced, in the very breaths they shared, Dorian’s trembling and shaken, Cullen’s strong and deep.

Dorian had _tried_ to be strong for Cullen but it had failed, just like everything else. Here he was once more, only kept in the world by the efforts of a far better man. Incapable of doing even the smallest thing to help Cullen without collapsing in on himself like a dying star.

‘Don’t what?’ Cullen asked in a painfully gentle whisper, eyes moving between Dorian’s. ‘Don’t _care_?’

‘Don’t apologise.’

‘But I hurt you,’ Cullen said, something darkening behind his eyes as he frowned. ‘I was cruel.’

Dorian’s head was spinning. ‘I-I deserve it.’

‘That’s not true and even if it was,’ Cullen said, thumb tracing the lip Dorian had bitten. A feather touch just the wrong side of ticklish, rough, calloused skin studying the piece that had torn and given way to all that blood. ‘I shouldn’t be the one to hurt you.’

Dorian barely had breath to ask, ‘Why not?’

Cullen met his gaze. ‘Because no one knows how to hurt you like I do.’

Dorian had never wanted anything more in his entire life than to kiss Cullen then, to move an inch forward and fall headlong into the man who had brought him back from the verge of a panic attack, who had shown him kindness no matter what terrible things the mage had done.

But the potential _reason_ for that kindness circled worryingly at the back of Dorian’s mind. Unbidden, his magic trickled into his veins, coming without being called.

_See_, it whispered lovingly. _See how we helped him. _

Dorian shuddered, trying to silence it but there was no hope of that.

_He__’__ll be ours_, the magic promised, watching Cullen with utmost adoration and unflinching intensity. _We__’__ll make him ours, body and soul, breach and breathe, ours. _

Cullen was watching Dorian like he was reading him, like he was a page in that fucking book they’d read as young boys, never knowing one was out there waiting for the other. He read him and he seemed to understand, if such a thing was possible, because then Cullen began to look around, wondering at the state of the world he found himself in as if Dorian had pointed it out to him verbally.

‘Your blood,’ Cullen said quietly, dented line between beautiful eyes. ‘It’s affecting me again.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Dorian said, quiet and _useless_.

‘No,’ Cullen said, the frown deepening. ‘It’s hardly your fault. I _asked_ for this. I didn’t think it would feel like this again. I knew it would affect me in terms of…’ Cullen sighed and rubbed his eyes, apparently lost for words.

Dorian didn’t want to say it but he made himself. He moved out of Cullen’s lap. ‘My blood _is_ controlling you, isn’t it?’

‘It’s not _control_, no.’ Cullen sat back enough that they were no longer touching but he didn’t work to put any significant distance between them. ‘It’s… a removal of inhibition to an extent, but more than that.’

‘More how?’ Dorian asked when Cullen fell silent, staring down at his own hands, thumb rubbing over the scar on his palm.

‘It is difficult to explain,’ he hedged and Dorian knew he shouldn’t push, he fucking _knew_ there was an answer he didn’t want to hear buried inside that man, but he’d never been very good at holding himself back.

‘Please try.’

Cullen’s eyes closed and he dug his thumb into the crease of his palm. ‘I feel things that I don’t normally feel,’ he explained hesitantly. ‘More than your magic, which is… already a lot to feel. I can feel _you_,’ he added, more confident, though still carefully avoiding Dorian’s gaze. ‘I can feel you inside me and when you’re inside me, I can’t feel my own skin anymore. I forget my name. You become the still point of the turning world.’

It hurt so much worse than any cruel thing Cullen had said to Dorian on that dark day. It cut deeper, it cut _long_. Dorian refused himself any luxury of collapsing, but there was no way to prevent the two tears that spilled at hearing Cullen verbalise what he had always, fucking _always_ dreaded.

‘It’s blood magic,’ Dorian said, throat very thick. ‘No matter how _good_ it feels, that’s me controlling you, Cullen.’

The Commander shook his head slightly. ‘No.’

_‘__No_? How many men have you debriefed who were enthralled in your time? How many Templars? You know what it entails. Loss of self, loss of identity. Skewed focus, single-minded obsession.’

‘I don’t believe—'

‘_Cullen_,’ Dorian said forcefully, ignoring the agony in his chest. ‘You are literally caught in the _after-effects_ of this! You’re hardly objective.’

Cullen seemed to take it as an affront. ‘You’re not controlling me.’

Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘Oh really?’

‘You would never do that. Your blood affects me, I’ve never denied that but… it’s not what you think.’

‘How would you know?’

Cullen frowned and considered. ‘I just do. I feel…’ he sat up a little straighter. ‘When your blood and your magic are inside me, I feel free.’ His eyes shone with determination and with belief. ‘Yes. That’s it. I feel _free_. I’m sure that means very little to you, but it’s _real_ to me and it’s not what you’re thinking. It’s just _not_, Dorian. Feeling free is no small thing, not to me.’

‘Free of what?’ Dorian asked wearily, resigned beyond any measure of sway.

‘Free from the weight of the world,’ Cullen said, somewhat defensively. ‘Free of everything bad in my life, of every terrible thing that followed me out of Kinloch.’

Dorian pushed shakily to his feet, unable to sit with Cullen and face him any longer. ‘Free of your responsibilities? Your duties? Obligations?’

‘No,’ Cullen said slowly, following him. ‘Those are not bad things, not shackles I wish to throw off. Your magic, your _blood_, makes me feel free, that’s all.’

‘Listen to yourself, Cullen,’ Dorian snapped, voice cracking and betraying him completely. He was ragged; ashamed of himself and every moment of his existence. He retrieved his cloak from the end of the cavern, shoving it about himself. ‘Half an hour ago, you couldn’t stand the sight of me.’

Cullen stooped to take him by the hand. ‘I was needlessly harsh,’ he said, turning the mage to face him. ‘Lyrium withdrawal is agonising and even worse when you know what to expect. I’ve apologised for my conduct, it was—’

‘Hit me.’

The Commander’s mouth fell open and Dorian withdrew his hand, wary of any contact between them. Deep within, his magic _scowled_ at him, resented this behaviour towards Cullen, _their_ Cullen, but Dorian was too far gone, too lost to the paralysing fear that…

That Cullen had _never_ really loved him. That all he’d ever felt for Dorian, beyond a grudging attraction upon first meeting, had been magically induced. Brought about by Dorian’s blood, by his magic.

By his _curse_.

‘Dorian, stop it.’

‘Hit me across the face.’

‘This isn’t—’

‘_HIT ME_!’

Dorian waited and he watched the conflict within Cullen. He saw it there, in the working of his jaw, in the darkness that flashed briefly through his eyes. He hadn’t obeyed, but he _wanted_ to.

‘You’re wrong,’ Cullen said in a quiet, resentful way.

‘You wanted to hit me.’

Cullen huffed a sigh. ‘You’re being an absolute arse, most people would—’

‘You _wanted_ to do what I told you.’

It was a cold stare the mage got in exchange for that. ‘How dare you reduce me to this? Negate my Maker given free will and declare all that passed between us was nothing but _enthrallment_? I am many things, but I am _not_ beholden to you by blood magic. I’ve been chained to lyrium, to _guilt_, to horrors and a dozen other foul things that have dug their claws into me and never let go since their inception. My feelings for you are—_were_ nothing like that and the fact that you are so determined to believe it hurts worse than you can actually imagine.’

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘I don’t _want_ to believe that.’

‘What a pair we make,’ Cullen said, shaking his head. ‘Neither willing to trust the other beyond what we can see and touch.’

They were silent for an indeterminable amount of time after that, staring off in different directions, believing different things.

Dorian took a shaky breath. ‘There’s still lyrium in your system.’

‘Yes, I know. Vastly less, though, thanks to you.’

It was difficult to bring his gaze to Cullen then, but Dorian managed it. ‘Do you still want me to help get rid of the rest of it?’

Cullen hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t see you in such distress again.’

‘No,’ Dorian said heavily. ‘It wasn’t this, I can assure you. Earlier I spoke with Hawke and he was an absolute bundle of _joy. _Before that, I saw Varric and he was doing better, but it’s been playing on my mind how close I came to killing him. Then Keenan after that. I’m terrified of making the wrong decision with him about this, about what happened with his Father.’

The mage paused suddenly, realising he’d been blathering on about his worries to a man who wasn’t his friend, wasn’t his lover. His cheeks flooded with heat and he shifted his weight from foot to foot, clearing his throat. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

‘You’re tired, Dorian,’ Cullen said, swiftly cutting over him. ‘You didn’t sleep, I can tell. You _need_ to sleep.’

‘Easier said than done,’ Dorian chuckled, aiming for lightly self-deprecating and landing on darkly self-loathing.

‘I know, I remember,’ Cullen said, gentler than Dorian deserved. ‘You need to take better care of yourself.’

_Because I’m not there to do it anymore_, went unsaid.

Cullen wasn’t there to bring Dorian dinner anymore. To hold him while he slept, to cage him in safe, strong arms and kiss him when he woke from nightmares of blood slaves and chains, of falling rocks and screaming soldiers. Dorian’s mages were amazing and he loved them with all his heart, they were probably the only reason he’d made it this far, but…

Cullen had taken care of Dorian so well, so effortlessly.

‘It won’t cause me any distress,’ Dorian said, trying to bring the conversation back to an area in which he had any control. ‘I’ll make sure to be in a better state of mind, but I’m just worried about—about _affecting_ you.’

‘The effects are what they always have been,’ Cullen stated without inflection. ‘They will wear off and I would dearly like to be free of the lyrium once more. It is worth it, I believe.’

‘All right then,’ Dorian said, trying to ignore the burst of happiness that radiated from within as his magic practically celebrated. ‘Another one or two sessions should do it.’

‘I’m very grateful,’ Cullen told him. ‘I would not ask this of anyone but you.’

_Do you understand how much it means to me that I trust you?_

It was a heavy burden and it could not hold, but Dorian hoped it could hold out just long _enough_.

*

Evening came and Dorian felt reasonably more at peace in terms of the darkness. At least it was dark for a _reason_ now. Dark elsewhere in the world, not only in Skyhold, in the Frostbacks. He felt Cullen’s touch all about him, no matter what he did to shake it but he made his peace with it and had managed to get through the day.

Before he retired to his room, he visited with Nalari and Dawn in his old room. It was warm and pretty; Leliana had done an excellent job of making the room as baby friendly as possible. Nalari had been on the bed, holding Dawn in her arms, speaking quietly with Keenan when Dorian knocked and was granted entry.

‘Oh, sorry,’ he said, sensing immediately that they’d been having the kind of conversation that required privacy. ‘Shall I—?’

‘No,’ Nalari said, giving him a warm smile. ‘Please come in.’

Keenan seemed less pleased but greeted the mage with his customary nod anyway. He stood at the foot of Nalari’s bed, arms crossed.

‘How is she?’ Dorian asked, hovering over baby Dawn and taking in the sight of her. Her skin was now a creamy pink colour and she had a tiny tuft of golden hair at the top of her head. Dorian tried and failed to think of when he’d last even clapped eyes on a baby, but he was sure no baby had ever been this beautiful.

‘She’s wonderful,’ Nalari said. ‘We were just discussing a few things.’

Dorian nodded, not wanting to pry. ‘I just wanted to see if you needed anything and also, see how you’re doing after taking over as senior healer for the Inquisition?’

Keenan scowled, but Nalari laughed and laid Dawn on the bed, wrapping her up in fresh blankets. ‘I’m doing fine, thank you. I’m only administering magical healing and helping with potions. There are other healers, obviously.’

‘None like you,’ Dorian assured her with a wink. ‘Do you need anything?’

‘I’m fine for now, but would you stay a moment?’

Dorian agreed and when Nalari patted the bed beside her, Dorian sat, watching raptly as she changed Dawn.

‘That looks complicated,’ Dorian admitted.

‘Keenan,’ Nalari said. ‘Why don’t you tell Dorian what we were discussing?’

Dorian looked up, surprised. Keenan seemed to be mutinously considering silence but after a few seconds he caved.

‘We were talking about… Commander Cullen,’ he said. ‘Among other things.’

Dorian’s heart sank. ‘You were?’

‘Yes,’ Nalari said, wrapping Dawn in some kind of cotton. Dorian frowned slightly, not liking the idea of _cotton_ against that beautiful baby’s skin. Just fucking _wait_ until he could place an order in Val Royeaux once the storm was clear. ‘Talking about the future.’

Dorian didn’t let the silence stretch on very long. ‘Keenan,’ he said heavily. ‘Maybe we should discuss this somewhere else.’

‘There’s no need,’ Nalari assured him, smiling down at Dawn like nothing whatsoever was wrong or ever would be. ‘We have no secrets from each other.’

‘Right,’ Dorian said. He took a steadying breath and looked Keenan right in the eyes. ‘Cullen killed your father in Kinloch hold.’

The young mage, whose age Dorian was never quite sure of, stood stock still, only his throat bobbing slightly to indicate he was real and not a very life like portrait.

‘Was it… was it an accident?’ he asked, very barely above a whisper. Baby Dawn was making small, soft noises as Nalari shuffled back onto the bed, leaning against the pillows to feed her.

‘It wasn’t an accident,’ Dorian told him. ‘For whatever it’s worth, I am sorry.’

Keenan and Nalari shared a look then, a kind of long stare that seemed to communicate more than Dorian could ever hope to understand.

‘I appreciate your honesty,’ Keenan said, after a beat. He moved to sit on the chair by the washstand. ‘It means a lot.’

‘Cullen was honest,’ Dorian said, wanting to make that clear. ‘He accepts that you have every right to be angry.’

In a hollow way, Keenan said, ‘That’s generous.’

Nalari tilted her head at him slightly. ‘Kee,’ she said softly.

‘I know,’ he said tiredly. ‘I know.’

Dorian looked between the two. Nalari said, ‘We thought as much, to be honest. Of all the things we heard in Kirkwall about Cullen, that one rang the truest. We were talking about it for a while before you arrived. Keenan’s anger is justified, obviously, but…’ Nalari sighed, shifting Dawn’s weight slightly to get a better hold on her as she fed. ‘There’s more to consider.’

‘Like what?’

Nalari stared at her baby. ‘Like the fact that Cullen never hurt any of us and he had opportunity to do so. Cullen tried to stop the mandatory Rites. He killed those who hurt us here in Skyhold, even though some of them were his own men. You deem him a good man.’

‘He _is_ a good man,’ Dorian said. ‘I know it.’

‘I think so too,’ Nalari said very quietly, stroking Dawn’s silken gold tufts. ‘And as such, Keenan and I have agreed that what happened in the past can stay there.’

‘For now,’ Keenan said, staring at the floor.

‘We agreed on everything right up until _that_ part, anyway,’ Nalari pointed out.

_For now_ was good, Dorian would take it.

‘That’s entirely understandable,’ he told him. ‘Once the war is over, I know we can work things out.’

There was something slightly _off_ about the way Keenan nodded then, the way he seemed to gather himself all too easily. When he looked back up it was like he’d never even been told such a thing. Back to normal, back to being _Keenan_ again; the ever-watchful guardian of little lost mages.

‘Yeah,’ he said with a smile Dorian recognised all too well from his own youth. ‘You’re right.’

‘Good,’ Nalari said but her attention was mostly on her baby as it should have been. ‘Keenan, could you get me something from the kitchens please? Some cheese maybe, if there’s any going spare?’

Dorian got to his feet quickly. ‘I can—’

‘No, no, please stay,’ Nalari said and Keenan was already pressing a kiss to the top of her head, trailing his fingers over Dawn’s hair with an unusually tender little smile. ‘Come sit with me.’

Dorian thought of the many other times he’d sat with a younger woman in this room, times long past when Lavellan had patiently listened to all his _mediocre _crap. Fate had a strange sense of humour, it seemed.

‘Of course,’ he agreed easily. Keenan left without looking back and the tight feeling at the base of Dorian’s spine didn’t diminish even after he closed the door after him.

‘You look tired,’ Nalari said as he sat at the end of the single bed. ‘I hope you sleep tonight. Sorry I won’t be there for book night, though.’

Dorian blinked and realised she was right. ‘I can bring the books to you, my love,’ he said without missing a beat. ‘You’ve only to ask.’

‘Maybe tomorrow,’ she said. ‘If you get some decent rest. I think I managed to calm him down, about Cullen. He was in a bit of a rage. I think he already knew it was true after what you said.’

‘I appreciate your efforts.’

‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Despite the past, I… don’t especially mind Cullen and you’re not a bad judge of character. I trust you to know the difference between inner and outer beauty.’

‘I think I do.’

‘He helped my daughter come into this world. I’ll not have Keenan attempt to cut him down.’

Dorian leaned against the wall. ‘I feel terribly for Keenan. You’ve all endured so much, but he still seems to be right in the thick of it.’

‘Hmm,’ she commented. ‘Keenan has been looking after everyone smaller than him pretty much his entire life. It’s all he knows how to do.’

‘Nalari,’ Dorian said hesitantly. ‘When you were giving birth, you said—’

‘I know what I said, but please don’t mention it to him,’ she uttered very quietly, eyeing the door. ‘Saffy would never say a word and I know you wouldn’t intentionally, but just… don’t say anything. Not yet.’

‘The guards and soldiers who hurt you are gone now. The necessity of your marriage to him is no longer pressing.’

‘I think he loves me,’ she whispered, focused on Dawn. ‘He’s never had anything for himself. I don’t know. I love him too, I love him so much, just not that way. He’s protected me for as long as I can remember.’

‘That doesn’t mean you should marry him.’

She gifted him a sweet smile, if a little sad. ‘I love that my daughter will grow up surrounded by people like you.’

*

Dorian slept that night. Exhaustion came for him like an assassin. Slipped in where he was weak and took him, no holds barred. Dropped him hard before he’d even kicked his boots off.

When he awoke, light from outside had filled the room. It was cold, he’d been too tired to make the room warm with magic. His breath curled before him and outside, the bright, white light informed him of the continued snowfall, but at least there was sun once more. The dawn _had_ come, Dorian thought to himself wryly.

When he and Cullen ran drills in the Great Hall, there was no trace of awkwardness between them. Cullen was polite and neutral, even cracking something that might have passed for a joke in the boroughs of Ferelden. His soldiers had laughed anyway. Keenan kept his countenance, didn’t give Cullen so much as a dark glare as the morning passed without a hitch.

And if Dorian’s magic was actively _seeking Cullen out_, well, Dorian had controlled it just fine, thanks.

Dorian was moving the tables back into their designated locations when he saw Cullen and Keenan speaking quietly near the throne, near where Cullen had been bound by opaline chains that had sapped all the fight from him. Dorian’s heart faltered painfully, wondering if he should go and intervene but the conversation seemed… civil at the very least. There was a lot of nodding and neck rubbing; toe scuffing was at an all time high. Then it seemed to be done. Keenan nodded again, a final time and he left with Saffy and Landon. Dorian watched Cullen as he helped move the furniture back in place, answering questions from soldiers as he went. They wanted to know when Lavellan would be back, when the Deep White would pass. What was to be done with Hawke?

Dorian didn’t listen to the answers, but it was hard to look away from Cullen. It always had been.

The room was reassembled before lunch and as a few people began to filter in, the smell of food wafting up from the kitchens, Cullen approached Dorian and the mage knew exactly what for.

*

This time, they were ready for it. They knew what the effects were going to be, how difficult it would be to share magic and resist the natural pull between them.

They _knew_. They were prepared. Cullen had a fucking _cup_ and everything. Dorian cut his thumb and bled precisely into said cup. Measured, contained, precise.

Dorian’s magic watched the whole thing like a predator in the bushes; obsessive gaze fixed upon Cullen as he drank Dorian’s blood like it was a fine whiskey. It felt inherently _wrong_ to see it happen this way. Dorian couldn’t escape the feeling, deny how much he wanted to smack that cup out of the Commander’s hands and give him what he needed right from the source, but that way… that way led to fucking undiluted madness and mess beyond the telling of it.

So Dorian bled and he handed it to Cullen and Cullen drank it.

And then Dorian touched Cullen. Skin to skin, a simple connection between their hands as they knelt in front of each other, more distance than last time. Dorian’s magic had been waiting, was crouched low and patient.

They were prepared and yet they really fucking weren’t.

That sentient magic _fled_ from Dorian, absolutely sought to abandon him and it poured into Cullen too fast, too much. The effect was instant and despite knowing it might have been a possibility - they _had_ discussed it beforehand in all their attempts at preparation - neither was _truly_ ready.

It hit Cullen like a tidal wave, impact wrenching a noise from his throat like he was _dying._ Dorian could feel his magic’s desire for Cullen physically manifest inside the other man, writhing in agonised pleasure to be where it wanted, to dance where it loved and flood his lyrium worn veins with true magic, true beauty and light.

_We shatter his dark_, the magic sang, crafting the tuneless music once more as Cullen tried very hard to contain himself, despite how much Dorian could feel it was affecting him. Their point of connection felt painfully lacking, it needed to be _more_, they needed to be touching everywhere. Pressed flush and leave no space in between, it was all Dorian wanted. Cullen’s pleasure was his and vice versa. A beautiful, violet coloured cycle of perfect, throbbing _feeling_ crafted by the sharpest, most vibrant form of magic Dorian had ever felt.

_Ours, he is ours, we must keep him for all time. Bring him air with kisses, show him Dorian, make him see. _

But Dorian did not and neither did Cullen.

They maintained the singular point of contact and Dorian let his magic run riot inside Cullen. Lightning and water and so many other unusual, highly ethereal aspects that emanated from Cullen when magic of this calibre was pushed through him. Light refracting through a pyramid, magic through a Templar. Cullen was a rainbow of every shade of the bluest purple and through it all, he kept himself restrained, save for the occasional gasp or deep, throaty groan that escaped his tightly pressed lips.

Dorian watched and he _burned_ for Cullen to break, for the stronger man to give in… but he didn’t and deep down, the mage was glad. The high road, the _good_ thing.

It ended without them having kissed even once and no matter how deeply _wrong_ that was, Dorian let himself feel just a little proud.

Cullen detached his hand from Dorian’s, neither man looking at the other. It was dangerous to see him like that, expression wiped clean of everything but _bliss_ and the kind of beauty that hit Dorian low in the gut.

‘That was harder than I thought,’ Cullen muttered. Dorian was already moving away, fiddling with things at the back of the room, trying to adjust his painful erection so that it wasn’t _so_ obvious at least. The energy of sharing his magic with Cullen, the side-effects of such an exchange, were still thrumming through him, but they were fading. It all faded, sooner or later.

‘At least we were prepared that time,’ Dorian said, surprised at how much it sounded like he was on the verge of crying when he was not, _really_.

Cullen gave him space. Dorian took it.

*

Dorian was there when Cullen and Leliana questioned Hawke. He didn’t _regret_ it, per se, but his offer had been made entirely without the foresight of what it was like watching Cullen interrogate someone.

Hawke was evidently still doused with Leliana’s potions and they were indeed taking a toll when Dorian and Cullen met her there. Hawke’s skin was a sickly grey colour, eyes wide and rolling in his head. Dorian didn’t allow himself to feel _sympathy_ for him, but it wasn’t good seeing anyone that way.

‘We are easing off a little today,’ Leliana said after they greeted her, Dorian noticing that she and Cullen had grasped at one another’s hands in a very subtle fashion. When Dorian looked closer, he saw that Leliana herself wasn’t exactly a picture of well-rested health and happiness. There was a pinched quality about her; dark circles beneath those sharp, watchful eyes. ‘I don’t want him to die before the Inquisitor returns.’

Hawke’s wrists around the restraints were red and marked with dried blood. His breathing was dangerously erratic and though there were no visible marks from any other injury, Dorian could instantly tell he was in a bad way. He threw up a casual shield so that Hawke couldn’t hear them while they spoke at the end of the otherwise barren cells.

‘What progress?’ Cullen asked her, all efficient and professional, as if Dorian hadn’t just _seen_ them holding hands like the dark little twins they were.

‘Middling. He’s told me much of things I already knew. He’s clever, even when like this, but his state of mind _is_ slipping at last. He recognises me still, but I think he would respond favourably to seeing you, Cullen.’

Dorian wrinkled his nose. ‘Favourably? He hates Cullen.’

‘Yes,’ Leliana said. ‘But he remembers him from before. The last few times it’s taken him a while to recognise me. His mind is regressing, slipping back. This is good.’

Hawke let out a low, animalistic moan as his head rolled.

‘It doesn’t _look_ good.’

‘Interrogation is never pretty,’ Cullen commented.

Leliana seemed almost sulky. ‘Were he not so valuable, I would have him in pieces by now.’

‘I know you would,’ Cullen said reassuringly, hand on her shoulder. Dorian would likely never understand those two and he dreaded the day that he might. ‘Lavellan would not approve of traditional torture. It’s best to remain within her parameters.’

The Spymaster rolled her eyes. ‘Be _that_ as it may, I would like to have extracted all he knows before she returns. We can bring him back to health before then and she will bear no guilt.’

‘What is he holding back?’

‘There is something he knows about his master’s motive for pursuing you,’ Leliana said, turning to watch the Champion for a moment, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, dirty and stained with drying vomit. ‘It’s buried within him, locked away behind a wall of what I can only determine is will-driven madness.’

Cullen removed his gloves. ‘Cold approach?’

Leliana inclined her head, considering. ‘No. Go warm, I think. We have little time before he loses his mind irretrievably. The sweet spot never lasts.’

Dorian looked between the two of them as they stared at Hawke like he was a soon-to-be-dead creature, ignorant of the two predators watching him and the mage cleared his throat.

‘And I’m here… why?’

Cullen didn’t look at him, but Leliana did. ‘To bear witness, of course,’ she said. ‘To observe with me and listen to what Hawke says. What may make no sense to me may yet resonate with you.’

‘I am listening too,’ came a voice directly behind Dorian which sent the mage’s skeleton fucking _reeling_.

‘Hello Cole,’ Dorian said, barely refraining from putting his hand on his heart. ‘Where have you been lately?’

‘Compassion is sorely needed everywhere. I have been hiding and taking stock of the important things. Pillows and thread are bare and the mice grow bold in the absence of crumbs.’

‘I asked Cole to be here also,’ Leliana said, giving the boy a rather wan smile as he stood beside Dorian.

‘I only agreed to come if you did,’ Cole whispered loudly. ‘Compassion has no room to breathe down here.’

‘No,’ Leliana said, looking slowly at the cells as Cullen approached Hawke. ‘It does not.’

‘Dorian is warm,’ Cole said. ‘Can I stay with him?’

The mage patted Cole’s back and the boy shifted closer. ‘I’m hardly warm but feel free.’

‘Compassion is warm,’ he said, wide eyes fixed on Cullen. ‘It’s a candle in the cold and the cold is everywhere these days.’

‘The storm will pass soon,’ Leliana said, quite blandly as the three of them moved in Cullen’s stead to watch. The Commander shrugged out of his cloak, setting it aside and he nodded at the guards to open Hawke’s small cell. When he went inside, Dorian bit down on the urge to object.

‘I don’t think he meant the storm,’ the mage said under his breath and he lifted the silencing shield.

Hawke’s arms were chained in such a way that it was impossible for him to do anything, but it was nerve-wracking to see Cullen in there with him. The dampening collar was firmly in place, but _still_. Hawke was dangerous.

Then again, so was Cullen.

The blond sat right in front of Hawke, whose breathing was an erratic, worrying thing.

‘Garrett,’ Cullen said in a soft, pleasant way.

Hawke jerked like he’d been almost asleep, eyes searching for who had spoken. It took him a good few seconds to land on Cullen who was sitting not two feet in front of him. He squinted, gaze somewhat fogged, and blinked hard.

‘C-Cullen?’

The Commander sighed. ‘You look like shit.’

Hawke actually laughed, but it aggravated his chest, causing a burst of wracking coughs, each one deeper and more painful sounding than the last. Dorian thought of Cullen, of how the healer had given him fucking _hours_ to live, and he forced himself not to care about it.

‘Arrogant prick,’ Hawke gasped. ‘What did I… do now, huh? Fucked the wrong recruit?’

Leliana was so still, Dorian was sure she wasn’t actually breathing. In a threadbare whisper, Cole said, ‘He is younger now.’

‘What do you think?’ Cullen asked.

‘I think…’ Hawke panted, each breath cutting slightly shorter than it should have, ending in a wheeze. ‘You should’a let me fuck some humour into you!’

He laughed again, head falling back slightly.

‘I have standards.’

‘Not wh-what I heard,’ Hawke muttered. ‘Where’s Carver?’

Dorian bit down a gasp.

‘Depends on where you left him,’ Cullen said, calmly, like he was bored.

Hawke hummed to himself. ‘Can’t leave him alone for long,’ he said in a dreamy way. ‘How much you want?’

‘I can’t let you bribe me this time,’ Cullen answered. ‘Meredith is watching us all too closely.’

‘Fine,’ Hawke slurred, a touch irritable. ‘_What_ do you want then? Y’know I c-can’t leave him on his own.’

Cullen’s voice was a little disapproving when he said, ‘I know, Garrett.’

Hawke scoffed, turning his head to spit what he’d coughed up. ‘You want _information_.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I don’t run… with blood mages,’ Hawke said, trying and failing to keep his wobbly gaze on Cullen. ‘Told you b-before.’

‘That’s not our area of interest at this time.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘Someone has been trying to contact you.’

Hawke’s eyes widened. ‘Carver.’

‘No, not Carver,’ Cullen said. ‘Someone we don’t know.’

‘Where _is_ Carver? Is he all right?’

Cullen didn’t even flinch when he said, ‘Carver is fine. He’s been trying to procure your freedom but you’ve made quite a mess this time, Garrett. We’re going to need you to co-operate.’

‘Fucking pricks, the lot of you,’ Hawke growled under his breath. ‘Not gonna take ‘im, won’t let you take him. Too good to be one of _you.’_

‘Who has been trying to contact you?’

Hawke frowned, shaking his head. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘There’s not… I don’t know.’

‘We can leave you here another few days, if you prefer. Carver will be fine without you.’

‘No! No, you fucking… all right, I’m… I’m fucking _trying_!’

‘Good,’ Cullen said. ‘It’s a man, a blood mage we think. He’s been trying to contact you.’

‘I don’t… why would he contact me?’

‘We don’t know, Garrett. You tell us.’

Hawke blinked slowly, shaking his head. ‘To… recruit me?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘There’s a mirror,’ Hawke said and Dorian was holding his breath, terrified of something jogging Hawke’s realisation. ‘Contacts me through a mirror.’

‘Good, yes.’

‘Whass’he want with me?’ Hawke frowned deeply. ‘He wants _you_.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Don’t know why _anyone_ wants you, you’re a prick.’

‘Watch your mouth, _apostate_.’

‘Let me see Carver.’

‘How did he contact you?’

‘I don’t… remember… lemme see my brother.’

‘Carver is fine without you.’

Hawke’s teeth ground together. ‘He is _not_. He needs me.’

‘Maybe you should let him stretch his wings,’ Cullen said, quite impassively. ‘He’d make a good Templar.’

‘All _right_!’ Hawke snapped. ‘I’m trying, just let me—let me think! He… he left me a mirror. Two-way kinda deal, I was… oh fuck, he’s got Fenris!’

‘Focus, Hawke. Once we find him, Fenris will be safe.’

‘How did he get… no, this isn’t right, what _is this_?’ Hawke began pulling at the chains, frantic and desperate, freshly tearing the skin around his wrists. ‘Where’s Carver? Where is he, Cullen? _WHERE IS HE?’_

Cullen looked over at the three of them and he nodded at Leliana.

‘Dorian,’ the Spymaster said. ‘Go in there. Follow Cullen’s lead completely.’

‘_What_? What does—?’

‘Cole,’ Leliana said, cutting the Tevinter mage off. ‘Go with him, stay invisible and let Hawke see what he wants to see, understand?’

‘It is cruel.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘I don’t want to be cruel.’

‘The greater good must be observed,’ she told him sternly. ‘Dorian will be with you.’

Cole sighed and vanished.

‘Leliana, what the fuck?’ Dorian whispered urgently.

‘Follow Cullen’s lead,’ she repeated, practically shoving him forward. Hawke was raging still, thrashing and calling for his dead brother. Dorian began to slowly understand what was about to happen but that didn’t make it any better. He entered the cell and behind Hawke, he could feel Cole’s strange _warmth_ emanating.

‘All right,’ Cullen said. ‘Garrett, look. He’s here, see?’

Hawke opened his eyes and looked around, bleary, tear stained gaze landing on Dorian. For one heart-stopping moment, Dorian was certain that the look of recognition was for his true self, but then Hawke let out a shaky, terrible kind of sob and he relaxed instantly, sagging in the chains, kneeling now that he’d kicked his stool away.

‘Carver,’ he sighed. ‘’M sorry.’

Cullen looked up at Dorian with a tight nod. ‘What have you gotten yourself into this time?’ Dorian asked slowly, painfully uncertain of himself.

Hawke laughed humourlessly, the wheeze catching in a sharp cough.

‘Fuck knows,’ he said. ‘You OK though? Didn’t get you hurt?’

‘No,’ Dorian said, reigning in his fear and kneeling in front of Hawke. He reached out carefully and placed his hand on his upper arm, caked in dried blood and cooling sweat. ‘But you are.’

‘I’m fine,’ Hawke said fiercely. ‘Wh’about the others? Varric OK?’

‘He’s sleeping it off in another cell,’ Dorian said, caught in a bout of inspiration. ‘Garrett, they said they’re not letting you go.’

At that, Hawke growled and fixed a hateful stare at Cullen.

‘We _can’t_ let him go until he co-operates,’ Cullen told Dorian.

‘I _am_ co-operating!’

‘You’re withholding valuable intelligence,’ Cullen countered. ‘Carver, maybe you and I should discuss this alone.’

Hawke threw himself fully against the chains, almost dislocating his shoulder. Dorian swallowed his fear and touched Hawke’s face.

‘Calm _down,’ _he implored, trying to become the patient, caring brother Hawke had spoken of yesterday. ‘Don’t make it worse.’

‘Get away from my brother!’ Hawke snarled at Cullen. ‘You can’t _h-have_ him, get _away_!’

Cullen stood and shot Hawke a disdainful look. ‘I suggest you talk to him, Carver. Get some sense through that thick head.’ And then he left Dorian alone in the cell. The mage raised a subtle shield, obscuring those outside who were peering in, creating the illusion of privacy.

‘You fucking idiot,’ he whispered to Carver. ‘Don’t aggravate him like that!’

‘I told you to stay away from him!’ Hawke shot right back, bloodshot eyes locked on Dorian with a terrifying mixture of love and fear. ‘He’s fucked up, everyone knows that!’

Despite the role, despite the importance of things, Dorian couldn’t let that stand. ‘He’s not so bad.’

Hawke made a noise of abject disgust. ‘You’re too nice.’

‘How am I meant to get you out of this one?’ Dorian sighed.

‘I’ll get _myself_ out,’ Hawke said, a clear element of warning in his tone. ‘Just steer clear of him, you hear me? Someone is after him and they’re… they’re gonna get him, I think.’

‘Who’s after him?’

‘I don’t know, but I think he has Fenris.’ Hawke frowned, confused. ‘But that… that can’t be right… that’s not—’

Panicked, Dorian threw caution to the fucking _wind_ and pressed a kiss to Hawke’s dried, cracked lips. A brief, chaste thing much like what he’d given Cullen yesterday save for the absolute absence of anything resembling _love. _

‘Carver,’ Hawke whispered against his lips. ‘Don’t, they might see.’

‘I can’t leave you in here,’ Dorian said in a hushed voice, stroking a hand down Hawke’s face. ‘Please, tell me what to do.’

‘I told you, I’ll get myself out,’ Hawke breathed. ‘Just stay away from Cullen.’

‘I will,’ Dorian promised earnestly. ‘Is he in danger, then?’

Hawke smiled viciously. ‘He’s gonna _die_.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Men like him always do.’

Dorian fought to stay in control. ‘You shouldn’t be meddling with this kind of thing,’ he whispered. ‘Let me tell this man to get lost, to leave you alone.’

‘No!’ Hawke blurted out, eyes wide. ‘No, he’ll… he’ll take you too. You’re important, y—you’re everything. No, you can’t leave me.’

Dorian swallowed and stroked his face again. ‘Never.’

Finally, Hawke seemed to settle just slightly. ‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’

And when the Champion smiled, it was the first time Dorian had ever seen it occur _naturally. _It reminded Dorian that Hawke was handsome, beautiful in many respects. His dark brown eyes, usually cold and calculating, were warm and adoring, surveying Dorian like he was the world entire.

‘Good,’ he said, nuzzling into Dorian’s hand for a brief moment. ‘I’ll keep you safe, you and me.’

‘You and me,’ Dorian said, voice trembling slightly. ‘But Garrett, what does this man _want_ with Cullen? Should we leave Kirkwall? I don’t want us caught up in anything dangerous.’

Hawke chuckled dryly, blinking tears down his face that he didn’t seem to realise were even there. ‘Dangerous is breakfast for us, little brother.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I’ll keep you safe. He only wants Cullen.’

Dorian leaned close, their faces almost touching. ‘Why does he want Cullen?’

Hawke swallowed as he surveyed what he thought was his brother. ‘He… he wants him for what he did in Kinloch Hold.’

*

Dorian did not sleep, and really, it was nothing new.

He paced and he fretted and he refrained from drinking. The castle was quiet, it was always quiet lately. Without the bulk of the army, without Bull and his chargers, without Lavellan. Vivienne was still resting, Blackwall was taking it easy and Varric wouldn’t be doing anything besides writing for a few more days.

Dorian couldn’t shake the ghost of Carver Hawke. It had followed him out of the cell, long after Hawke had slowly, painfully realised what Dorian was doing.

_‘Carver you—you don’t smell right.’_

Dorian didn’t think he could ever feel guilty for _anything_ he did to Hawke, but the look of betrayal in the Champion’s eyes would stay with him forever.

In this frame of mind, Dorian braved the thick, snowy drifts and followed his feet.

‘Were you busy?’ he asked Cullen when the Commander granted him entry. ‘Fasta _vass_, it’s colder in here than out there.’

Cullen was staring down at something on his desk. ‘I like the cold.’

‘This is beyond _cold_,’ Dorian grumbled, refusing to feel awkward. ‘What do you make of… earlier?’

Cullen was still looking down at the paper and Dorian realised with a painful jolt that it was his _letter_. He would recognise the paper anywhere, the pattern of the writing, the unusual flow of little paragraphs crammed wherever Cullen had been able to fit them.

‘You did well,’ Cullen said tonelessly. ‘I’m sorry if it was… distasteful to you.’

‘It’s fine,’ Dorian lied. ‘Was it worth it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Cullen said. ‘Things rarely are.’ He looked up and Dorian wasn’t entirely surprised to see his eyes were red rimmed. There was wine on his desk; a near empty bottle and a tankard.

Dorian winced at the container and Cullen laughed softly.

‘I couldn’t find a wineglass,’ he explained wryly, pouring the bottle into the tankard and then offering it to Dorian.

The mage took a seat in front of him at the desk. He wanted to make the room warmer but didn’t have the right to perform magic for Cullen, not in his own space. Dorian accepted the tankard and took a slug.

‘Fucking disgusting.’

Cullen wiped his eyes and sighed. ‘It was all I could find in the pantry.’

Dorian took another sip, mostly for something to do. ‘There’s a lot you never told me.’

Cullen was tracing his finger over something in the letter, some part on the back.

‘There’s a lot you never asked about.’

‘You knew about Hawke and his brother.’

‘Like I said, you never asked and I was hardly going to bring it up. I’ve seen a great deal worse in my time and Hawke’s fame lent him much protection from his past… misdemeanours. Even Varric remained protective over him, until recently anyway.’ Cullen pulled the tankard back from Dorian, drinking from it. ‘There’s a lot _you _never told me, Dorian.’

The mage fiddled with his fingers. ‘Yes, I know. Talking wasn’t really our… thing, was it?’

Cullen was more than a little drunk. ‘Sometimes it was.’

‘Sometimes,’ Dorian agreed. ‘But not often.’

‘I liked reading to you,’ Cullen said, apropos of nothing. ‘Reading our book.’

Dorian swallowed down the painful memories and looked away. ‘Cullen, don’t.’

‘Sorry. Maker, what a fucking mess.’

‘There’s far less lyrium in your system now,’ Dorian said, desperate to change the subject.

Cullen nodded and sat back. ‘I crave it far less now.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Now I just crave you instead. Your magic, your essence inside me. You, always _you_. Dorian fucking Pavus. One addiction for another.’

‘You’re drunk.’

‘What does it matter?’

‘It’ll pass,’ Dorian told him. ‘Your… cravings, or whatever they are. It will all pass.’

Cullen’s jaw worked. ‘Will it?’

‘Yes.’

He looked up with those tear stained eyes. ‘Did your feelings for me pass?’

Oh, it _hurt_ to have Cullen be so fucking direct when usually, he was a grandmaster of laconic scowls and things _unsaid_.

‘No,’ Dorian said, pulling the tankard his way. ‘But life goes on.’

Cullen sniffed. ‘Yes, it does.’

‘Are you going to destroy it?’ Dorian asked, indicating to the letter. It sat there, innocent and unobtrusive, but it was a monstrous thing, really.

‘No,’ Cullen said, clearing his throat. ‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

He hesitated before answering, fingers trailing over the ink. ‘I have nothing else.’

Dorian held the tankard very tightly then. ‘That’s not true.’

‘It really is.’

‘You destroyed it before.’

‘Because I… I had something else to focus on. I was _done_ with it.’

‘And now you’re not?’

‘I don’t know. But I can’t be without it. It’s been a part of my life for so long now and… if things are to be as they once were, I won’t part from it.’

Dorian fought the urge to destroy it there and then, the fucking thing. Insidious and born of his blood, it was every bad moment of Cullen’s life made real. Pieces of Cullen trapped there forever, unable to fade into obscurity.

‘It’s not _all_ you have,’ he said for lack of anything better.

Cullen huffed something resembling a laugh. ‘Don’t give me the spiel. It’s hardly convincing coming from _you_.’

‘No, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your pity party while you drown your fucking sorrows.’

Cullen closed his eyes, lips twisted in that _not_-laugh. ‘Drowning,’ he echoed, drawing the word out. ‘I’m entitled to drown if I want to.’

‘Well, at least share the bottle,’ Dorian said, reaching over the desk. ‘We can drown together.’

‘Don’t,’ Cullen said, unexpectedly sharp, giving Dorian pause. ‘Don’t talk like we’re friends. We’ve never been friends. We never will be.’

Dorian knew, fucking _knew_, he shouldn’t ask. ‘Why not?’

Cullen pushed the bottle across, jaw locked tight. ‘I love you too much to be your friend.’

Dorian’s eyes closed briefly, trying to breathe through the veritable agony of that. Everything with Cullen _hurt_, but that… that was a knife to the fucking heart.

And because he was _stupid_, he said, ‘I love you, too.’

He didn’t look at Cullen and it was a good decision, judging from the way Cullen said, ‘I don’t believe you.’

Dorian took a swig from the bottle. ‘Nor I you.’

A strained silence stretched between them for a few seconds. Dorian stared at the darkest corners of Cullen’s office, places the meagre candlelight could not touch. Outside, the wind swept around the edges of the stone walls, weaker now than it had been since the storm’s inception.

‘Good,’ Cullen said curtly, finishing off the bottle and wiping his mouth. ‘Then come upstairs and fuck me.’

*


	21. That's How You Make Glass

_Dorian was on the verge of turning sixteen and he was uncomfortable in his skin, receiving wet, sloppy kisses from a boy his own age. A boy, Dorian suspected, who might be in love with him. _

_It was the second time he__’d ever had sex and it was _bad_, though not in the way he expected. Petyr was sweet and passionate. He spent time with Dorian, wanted to be wherever he was lately. It was odd, but Dorian had allowed it. Had basked in the glow of having an audience for every amazing, miraculous thing he did. Petyr _cared_ about Dorian and he made that very clear. _

_So when Petyr had kissed him, Dorian was interested to see where it went. A boy of his own age, a boy he knew and at least somewhat trusted. _

_But it felt wrong from the start. It was strange and stilted and Petyr kept asking if everything was _all right. _If Dorian was all right, was he hurting him? Did that feel good? Should he stop?_

_Dorian thought of Erisam, of the rough way the older boy had taken him, not giving him a second to doubt himself, to question anything. It had been fast and indecent and painful and Dorian had _loved it_, right up until his fucking father had come waltzing in, of course. _

_Petyr wanted things from Dorian that the mage already knew he couldn__’t give. He stared deeply into Dorian’s eyes, looking for things that just weren’t there. Stared until Dorian looked away, thought of Erisam, thought of every man he’d ever clapped those storm grey eyes on and _wanted_. Thought of things those men might do to him in the shadows cast by glittering parties, their wives nearby. Of the way he wanted to be held down, have his breath taken away. _

_Dorian__’s second lover came fast and for that, the mage was grateful. It was Petyr’s first time. The other boy was shaking all over, tenderly touching Dorian’s face and it was difficult not to flinch away irritably. Dorian’s skin was too hot, far too tight, his skeleton itching to get free. Petyr kissed him slowly and softly like he was a fucking _girl_ and Dorian could stand no more. _

_He pushed the boy away from him and Petyr fell off the bed in comical fashion, eyes wide and mouth in a perfect O of surprise. _

_‘Wh-what is it?’ he asked, gathering the covers of his own bed about him as Dorian barely bothered to dress, yanking on trousers and absolutely nothing else. ‘Did I hurt you?’_

_Dorian tossed a haughty glance over his shoulder, gathered his clothes, boots in hand and said, __‘Most assuredly _not_.__’_

_He left Petyr_ _’s room quietly, not wanting to wake his friends who would most definitely try and go with him. He wasn’t going back to his room, absolutely not. The night air was thick and hot, the day before the week-long celebration of Satinalia and tomorrow, Dorian would be going home for the duration of the celebration. _

_He was irritable, skittering anger and disappointment crawling through him. He didn_ _’t want to think about tomorrow, about going home and seeing his father for the first time since the Summerday party, since Erisam had started to fuck him and never got the chance to finish. _

_Petyr had been too involved with his own orgasm to even remember that Dorian had a fucking cock and now__… now Dorian was on edge in a dangerous way, needing to finish but needing _more_. He wanted something extraordinary, something dangerous, something worthy. _

_He wanted to get the taste of _love_ out of his mouth. _

_It was easy to come and go, always had been. This Circle, the latest and _last_ (so he__’d promised his father) housed a few actual Templars. Antiquated and friendly, they kept to themselves most of the time. Dorian liked the look of their armour, that sun piercing blade, all shiny metal and heavy clanking boots. He watched them sometimes, wished they posed more of a challenge. _

_Most of the children his age laughed at them behind their backs and smiled to their faces. The Templars were polite and malleable in the extreme. They served as well paid doormen for the Circle of Magi and very little else. _

_Dorian had always liked them, though. He liked watching them pray, liked hearing the devout tone of their voices. Dorian didn__’t believe in much beyond himself, though he _acknowledged_ things were real, like the Maker. He couldn__’t ever imagine praying himself, but he enjoyed seeing those big strong men on their knees. _

_‘Dorian,’ Matteo greeted cheerfully as the mage approached the double doors. It was late, much later than when he normally asked to leave. ‘Is everything well?’_

_Dorian drew a trembling hand across his brow, mostly for show but also_ _… not entirely. ‘I’m…’ he said, letting it sound weak. ‘Not feeling so good. Can you open the doors for me? Just to get some air?’_

_It was a weak, flimsy excuse and Dorian was capable of so much more, but he liked to give them his worst and still see it work. _

_Matteo threw the other Templar, Lucian, a slightly worried glance. Dorian wondered if they were going to question him for once, or Maker forbid, actually _refuse_ him. _

_‘Do you need us to get you some water?’ Matteo asked, stepping away from his post, the very picture of concern. _

_Dorian almost laughed. _

_‘No, thank you. I just need some air.’_

_‘Well,’ Matteo said, hesitantly nodding at Lucian to open the doors. ‘Put your shoes on first, eh? Don’t want to cut your feet.’_

_Dorian pulled his boots on and gave Matteo his best, brightest smile. Oh, what a shame the Templar was married and so painfully straight. _

_‘You’re too kind,’ he told Matteo, yanking his shirt over his head for good measure. ‘I’ll only be a moment.’_

_Dorian walked out of the Circle of Magi and headed straight for the central parts of the city. Minrathous was the cradle of all civilisation and on this eve of Satinalia, it was sure to be thrumming with energy and danger and all the things Dorian could never find with boys like Petyr. He walked until his feet hurt, until the backs of his legs _ached_ because Dorian loved running away but it was generally impractical and overall, he preferred running away in carriages. _

_He left the Circle behind, left Petyr and stupidly married Matteo behind and went to seek out something _new_. _

*

See, when Cullen said it, Dorian just wasn’t _ready_. He wasn’t expecting that _in the fucking slightest_. Had been expecting more morose silence and abject denial of feelings, truth be told. He wasn’t _ready_.

And as he sat opposite Cullen in that dark, freezing place, he felt so strangely _alone_. So isolated in a way he hadn’t been for months now. Nalari had Dawn, Keenan was _not_-avoiding him, Saffy and Landon were having _not-_sex in places Dorian wished he didn’t know about. Cole … he didn’t even know where that boy was. Vivienne was still resting, Varric was bed bound and even though Blackwall was up and about, Dorian didn’t want to inflict his company on the man when he was like this.

It felt like Dorian and Cullen were the only two people in all of Thedas, sat in that dark room, the air so cold it burned his lungs.

So when Cullen said, ‘_Then come upstairs and fuck me,__’_ Dorian’s focus derailed in rather spectacular fashion, but he didn’t _object_. He didn’t refuse. He couldn’t imagine any universe in which he _refused_ Cullen anything.

It was awkward when he followed Cullen up that ladder; rickety, splinter-prone thing that the mage frankly despised, mildly dreading the top step, always felt like he might fall.

It was even more awkward once he was standing in Cullen’s room, realising the extent to which Cullen had let things get out of control in regard to the _deluge_ of snow that piled like an ever-climbing _hill_ beneath the hole in his roof, significantly wider than the last time Dorian had seen it.

The last time he’d been here…

Pain. Control. Need.

_Are you going to be my good boy now?_

_I__’m not _your_ anything. _

Snow fell directly from the sky and into Cullen’s bedroom like it was a stable or something. The edges of the hole were clearly giving way, crumbling beneath the wet, heavy weight and breaking down. There was no wind, barely a breath of anything to distort the soft, downward trajectory of the snowflakes, each one the size of a rose petal.

Cullen’s bed was on the other side and so was Cullen.

Dorian didn’t offer to melt and dry the snow. Didn’t offer to fix the roof.

It was awkward and too quiet and neither knew how this was going to work, but it was going to _happen_, Dorian knew that much.

It wasn’t their way, this absence of feeling. Even in the earlier days, days when Dorian didn’t _know_ what he did now, there had always been an overwhelming amount of… well, _emotion_ between them. Hatred, anger, desire, frustration, caring, fear.

And _love_. Love in all of it. Love as clear as day, now that Dorian had the benefit of hindsight and an apparently defunct curse that no longer needed catering to.

This was different. It was going to be different. The absence of feeling carved out a dark, negative space. Dorian was well versed in encounters such as these with men whose names he never deigned to learn.

They were going to fuck and nothing more than that.

They were going to _fuck_ in a room filled with snow, in a room so cold Dorian couldn’t feel his fingertips, could barely breathe because the air was jagged with ice and it cut his throat going down.

And Dorian still hadn’t said a word, not since Cullen’s _suggestion_. He didn’t know what to say.

Cullen read him well, always had.

‘You can leave,’ he said, shrugging out of his cloak like some kind of _madman_ who didn’t care about freezing to death.

Dorian looked around for a moment, briefly wondering what his life would be like if he was strong enough to say _no_ and just leave. Cullen was drunk, he was genuinely _drunk_ and maybe Dorian was too. Not on alcohol, but on the feeling of something, _anything_ to cut through the nights he spent alone. So alone that teenagers sometimes took pity and stayed with him.

It would be quick and it would be painfully meaningless.

But it was _something_.

His magic was watching, waiting. The smallest, tiniest hint of blood and Dorian knew there would be no way of stopping it. If his magic had its way, he and Cullen would be locked together in congress for all fucking time, moaning beautiful, destructive things to each other under the duress of blood magic, making a mess that would not seem half so _blissful_ come daylight.

‘No,’ he told Cullen. ‘I’ll stay.’

And it was uncomfortable in a way it never had been before because everything they did, _everything_ between them since that first night on the ramparts, started with a kiss. That perfect, primary point of contact. Except that couldn’t happen now.

Dorian wasn’t stupid. He’d been around long enough to know how these things worked. Kissing was dangerous; personal, intimate. Kissing, therefore, was out of the question. Dorian could hear every rustle of fabric, was hyper aware of his own breathing, of the way Cullen’s fingertips drummed against his own thigh while Dorian pushed a knee into the surface of the bed, sheets cold enough to draw a gasp from the mage.

He turned and sat there, teeth chattering slightly as he waited. Cullen was close, but it didn’t feel that way. Snowflakes curled through the air, gentle and playful in the space between them. Dorian could just about make out the eastern most moon. The sky was clear in patches as the storm was weakening.

This was a _bad_ fucking idea.

Cullen fell to his knees in front of Dorian and placed his hands on the mage’s thighs, sliding them up. Dorian tasted the wine on his breath, even though they weren’t that close. Cullen’s hands were warm on his thighs and Dorian pretended not to notice how they shook. For a little while, Cullen stayed there, on his knees in front of Dorian, palms gliding up and down while he looked down, looked away, looked anywhere but at the mage.

And Dorian _burned_ for him. Burned to kiss him, to shatter this _stupidity_ between them and say everything that was locked away in his chest. Make him see, make him _believe_ and then take him in his arms and make everything good again because… because it had _been_ good before. It had been so fucking good, even though Dorian had been busy losing his mind at the time, obsessing about the letter, about things that just _did not_ matter. He’d ignored everything that mattered, taken it for granted. He wanted it back, he wanted it so much it was a _taste_ in the back of his throat, a sting in his eyes, a physical pull in his gut.

But it was gone now. He hadn’t appreciated it while it was there and, like most unappreciated things, it was long gone.

Cullen’s nervousness was agonisingly palpable and Dorian just couldn’t stand it. This… this _mockery_ of everything they’d had. Painful, barren reduction of what had once been easy and perfect and flawless.

‘Cullen,’ he said in a voice he barely recognised. ‘We don’t have to.’

The Commander of the Inquisition’s armies screwed his eyes tight. ‘I want to,’ he said, in direct contradiction with the physical hesitance he displayed.

Dorian _forbade_ himself from touching Cullen, though his hands itched to plunge into those curls, bring that beautiful, tormented face to his lips and kiss away everything bad.

‘Why?’

Cullen shook his head and took a few short, shallow breaths. ‘I need this.’

It was shockingly cold when Cullen hooked his thumbs into Dorian’s trousers and pushed them down, Dorian lifting a little to help, but it was _burning hot_ when Cullen’s mouth fully enveloped his cock, half hard despite everything. Dorian couldn’t contain the little gasp he let out; a broken, bitten off thing that bubbled up from deep inside. The pleasure swirled and immediately began to tighten around the base of his spine. Cullen was _good_ at this, he hadn’t always been, but he’d learned. Dorian had taught him and he’d _wanted_ to learn, for Dorian.

It had been a long time since Dorian allowed himself to remember he even _had_ a cock, let alone have someone touching it, including himself. Cullen’s mouth was velvet heat, sucking him so hard it was almost painful. His tongue swirled over the sensitive head and Dorian shuddered, eyes rolling. Cullen took him deep, always took him too deep, swallowed him like he just couldn’t get enough.

‘Cullen, stop,’ he warned, hands clenched in the icy sheets, the Commander working him to the brink of oblivion while kneeling between his thighs.

He pulled off breathlessly, one hand continuing to slowly move up and down the mage’s thick, wet length, keeping Dorian’s pleasure dangerously close by. The biting chill in the air made it hard to focus and if Dorian hadn’t been so incredibly touch-starved, it would have been difficult to even maintain an erection but his heart was positively thundering, blood running like liquid fire through his veins.

This would have been the point where Dorian kissed him, brought him onto his lap and fingered him open, using magic to make him ready in the way that drove Cullen fucking _wild_.

But the Commander didn’t want that. Dorian was good at reading him too. He knew what Cullen wanted.

‘Get on the bed,’ he instructed, shifting aside. Cullen did as he was told, struggling to unbuckle his belt with all that wine swirling around in his system. Dorian stayed the Commander’s hands, keeping his eyes trained on Cullen’s midsection. ‘No, let me do it.’

Cullen hesitated, clearly wary of anything _personal_ or intimate. Dorian understood it so well he wanted to laugh. Instead, he steeled himself and acknowledge that this was what Cullen needed and no matter how wrong it felt, Dorian would give it to him. He owed him that much. He undid the belt, withdrawing it. Cullen watched him, watched the movement and he swallowed slightly when Dorian put the belt on the floor.

Dorian repeated himself. ‘Get on the bed.’

Cullen obeyed and Dorian didn’t miss the slight stumble when he took his boots off, the little _sway_. It would be a mistake to ask Cullen if he was sure about this, would likely result in Cullen throwing him out, but the urge to do so was powerful.

As if sensing his thoughts, Cullen said, ‘Fuck me or leave, Dorian.’

Without the belt, it was easy to expose Cullen’s abdomen, push down and _down_ until his trousers were a puddle of material that he stepped out of easily. Everything was painfully, ridiculously inelegant. Fumbling to avoid the natural instinct to kiss and _praise_ and love.

It had come easily to Dorian, once. Nameless faces, passionless fucking in the dark with no intent to pursue _anything_ afterwards. Living in the moment, burning it to ashes and glorying in the beautiful, short-lived fire.

With Cullen it was almost unthinkable. It felt like scribbling on something beautiful, smashing something that had been carefully, painstakingly crafted. Reckless and ruinous, short-lived thrills dictating direction, heedless of destination.

‘_Don__’t_,’ Cullen warned when Dorian went to open him up, bent on all fours before the mage. ‘I want it to hurt.’

Dorian fought the urge to touch him, to place a steadying hand on his lower back, to help him _relax_. ‘Cullen—’

‘Just do it.’ Dorian could tell he was gritting his teeth. ‘Just fucking do it.’

Dorian cursed his eager cock, the way his blood betrayed him, magic pushing it along, eager and frantic. The desire and need to be inside Cullen were living things, creating a swirling vortex in the cavern of his chest. He missed him so fucking much that even this, this shallow, meaningless thing, was impossible to resist.

‘Fuck me, _blood mage.__’_

That bothered Dorian, prickled beneath his skin and he supposed that was the whole point. He was surprised it hadn’t gone like this before now but… but maybe even provocation and anger were too familiar to them both. They’d carved intimacy out of darkness, love from twisted desires.

_Do you like being powerless, little mage_?

There was too much history, _too much_ even though it had only been a matter of months. Cullen was inked into Dorian’s skin, branded deep and there was hardly any ground to tread that would not bring about a dozen memories. Even cruelty was _familiar_.

Dorian shut himself down and slicked himself thoroughly, refusing to take Cullen dry, even if he would take him unprepared and unopened.

When he began to push inside Cullen, his mind went _blank_. All the pain, all the suffering and anguish, tormented hesitation… it _melted_ away in the tight, choking pleasure of slipping into the man prostrated before him. The guttural, punched-out noises Cullen made were all that gave Dorian pause, lest he push himself inside without giving Cullen time to adjust. It must have been agonisingly painful, but Cullen didn’t tell him to stop.

If anything, Cullen grew impatient and started to push back.

‘Are you going to fuck me or d-do I have to do it myself?’ he panted, shoving his body in a backwards motion that pushed Dorian inside to the very hilt, knocking the air from the mage’s lungs, sensation hitting like a fucking gut wound. Cullen groaned, face pressed into his arms and it sounded more like a scream, but Dorian didn’t have time to think about anything except Cullen’s hot, perfect tightness all around him.

_Inside_, his magic sighed lovingly. _So good for us, tell him he__’s good._

Dorian shook his head minutely, trying to dislodge the whispering instinct, fingers digging bruises into Cullen’s hips.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Cullen ground out. ‘For me to _beg_? I’m not gonna beg you, _blood mage_.’

Despite the slur, Dorian couldn’t help but relish that little slip into the rougher accent, the way Cullen sounded younger, more common. Fuck, it would be a miracle if he didn’t come on the spot. It had been too long and he’d been right on the edge ever since Cullen had swallowed him down.

When Cullen impatiently tried to fuck himself on Dorian, the mage stopped him. He held him firmly in place, fingers digging into his hips in warning. Cullen let slip a stuttered moan and Dorian’s pleasure tightened like a vice, dark instincts whispering to him. It was _dangerous_ to let things get dark when the nature of their… _relationship_, even as acquaintances, was already so strained.

‘Yes,’ Cullen breathed, a shiver wracking down his spine and that shiver passed right through Dorian in turn. ‘_Yes_, fuck, yes!’

It was a _bad idea_, but that had never stopped Dorian in the past.

Buried inside Cullen, Dorian made no move to fuck him just yet but he pressed clever fingers deeper into the flesh and bone of Cullen’s hips, testing the waters, making _sure_.

Cullen reacted the way he knew he would and those instincts, dark and curling, trickled to the forefront. Cullen wanted Dorian to hurt him and _oh_, when he was like this, all pliant and needy and so fucking _bratty_, Dorian’s resolve was eroding before his very eyes.

‘What a brat you are,’ Dorian said, voice thick and rasping. ‘Needy, whorish little bitch, trying to fuck yourself on me.’

Cullen keened and buried his face deeper in the safety of his arms. A shuddering roll of pitch-black pleasure moved through the mage, sinking into territory that was both dangerous and yet so achingly, _maddeningly_ delicious that he couldn’t resist it. Cullen was so rarely submissive, Dorian could count on two hands the amount of times the former Templar had ever wanted it to be this way between them. Cullen was one of the few people Dorian had ever met who, like himself, actually enjoyed switching, whose sexual proclivity ranged far and wide, depended on mood, depended on his stress levels.

It hadn’t happened often, but every time was memorable as fuck and Dorian knew, despite the terrible, broken state of things, this would be no exception.

He dragged the palm of his hand down Cullen’s spine and before the Commander could object, could try to _provoke_ Dorian into anything, the mage brought that same hand down _hard_ on Cullen’s arse cheek, delivering a stinging, painful smack that cut the air like a whip cracking. Cullen made a deep, sharp cry of something that wasn’t quite muffled by his arms. Dorian dragged his fingers over the hand mark imprinted on Cullen’s flesh; hot and slightly raised, indecently red against pale, sun-shy skin.

Slowly, he dragged himself out of Cullen and then pushed deeply inside as he smacked the other cheek, just as hard. Cullen cried out again and after that, Dorian couldn’t restrain himself anymore. Every time he fucked into Cullen, he gifted him a blow. Dorian’s hand was stinging after only a few slaps so he couldn’t imagine how much it hurt Cullen, but the man beneath him was _wild_ for it. Screaming and begging wordlessly, his skin turning red then fucking _purple_ as Dorian let himself get lost in the desire, awkwardness finally gone.

‘Are you going to come from this alone?’ Dorian panted harshly. ‘From your _punishment_?’

Cullen sobbed out a broken, ‘_Yes_!’ and Dorian fucked him a little slower, teasing and drawing it out as much as he could. Cullen’s arse cheeks were painted with pain; purple and scalding hot to touch. Dorian couldn’t help himself, drawing his burning hand gently over the abused skin, fucking into that perfect, all-consuming tightness, shallow and slow.

Dorian wasn’t hurting Cullen anymore though and the absence of it was apparently unacceptable to the Commander. He reared back, pushing himself upright and sinking into Dorian’s lap, driving the mage’s cock impossibly deep.

‘Harder,’ Cullen begged, trying to bounce, but Dorian snaked an arm around his throat and held him still. ‘Fuck me harder, wanna feel you in my throat.’

‘You will,’ Dorian promised, lips dangerously close to Cullen’s ear. ‘I’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk.’

Cullen whimpered, squirming in Dorian’s hold as the mage’s other arm encircled his chest. Dorian thrust his hips lightly, arm tightening around Cullen’s neck just a fraction. His head fell back against Dorian’s shoulder, further exposing his beautiful neck and Dorian couldn’t contain the possessive growl at the sight of it. He tried to temper the feeling, but it was a struggle not to tell Cullen that he was _his_, not to make Cullen admit aloud that he was Dorian’s, that he would always be Dorian’s and nothing would ever change that.

Dorian tightened his grip about his neck and Cullen’s moan came out slightly strangled, breathy and desperate. The mage braced him around the middle, brushing over that terrible scar and then began to fuck him _properly. _He thrust himself deeply into the tight clutch of Cullen’s heat, could feel himself getting _lost_ in wild, barely restrained pleasure. The noises Cullen made, the way he squeezed around him, the way greedy hands came up where Dorian held his throat, pushing and _begging_ Dorian to press harder.

Dorian obliged, _squeezed_ and Cullen undulated around him with a kind of pained bliss Dorian knew all too well. The mage fucked the Commander as hard as he could manage; drove into him deep and vicious, skin slapping loudly, each breath punctuated by a thrust. It was so fucking _good_ and yet… it wasn’t enough. Not enough for Dorian to come yet, _despite_ how long it had been, despite how incredibly tight Cullen was for him. Despite every slutty, wanton sound escaping the blonde’s lips.

He needed more.

_You need us inside him_, his magic sang, caressing Dorian from the inside. _Feed him your blood and let us make everything beautiful, the way it should be. _

But Cullen didn’t want that and Dorian did not _trust_ it.

Dorian slipped his fingers up over the curve of Cullen’s throat, lessening his hold enough to get his index finger into the warm, wet heat of Cullen’s mouth. Cullen sucked him obediently, a little bit _desperate_ and Dorian powerfully wished he could capture that mouth, push his tongue deep and let that be _enough_ to break everything bad between them. Though it was puerile and childish, he couldn’t help but feel that a kiss, a _real _kiss, was all they needed. He wondered if Cullen felt the same but then quickly chided himself for such stupidity.

‘Call me a whore,’ Cullen moaned around his fingers and Dorian’s pace faltered, fucking _faltered_, but it didn’t cease. Cullen sounded so _gone_ it would have been worrying if Dorian didn’t feel the same.

‘You’re a fucking _slut_, is what you are,’ Dorian snarled, cheek pressed against Cullen’s jawbone. ‘Acting so—ugh, _fuck_—so prim and proper, like a sweet innocent little _chantry boy_ when really, you moan for my cock like you were made for it.’

The sob Cullen let loose was enough to almost _unmake_ Dorian. The mage dug his wet, spit slicked fingers into the back of Cullen’s neck, his thumb reaching around to press into that delicate, vulnerable hollow. He felt the pulse there, felt his throat bob and he squeezed until Cullen cried out, but not for Dorian to stop. He cried for more; _tighter_, harder, deeper.

Dorian’s muscles _ached_, whole body burning up despite the freezing air, despite practically being outside. Snowflakes moved around them, occasionally trying to settle on their skin, melted instantly by the heat they generated.

And when Cullen asked, no _begged_, Dorian to call him other things, far worse things, the mage closed his eyes and tried to find the strength to give him what he wanted.

But Cullen was not and would never be _worthless _or _bad, _no matter how much he wanted to hear it. The words wouldn’t come and Dorian couldn’t bear it. He clapped his hand over Cullen’s mouth and tightened the grip around his neck, fucking him hard enough to send his thigh muscles locking and screaming.

_You__’re worth everything_, he wanted to tell Cullen then. _You _are _everything. _

Cullen didn’t want kindness. He didn’t want love nor believed it when Dorian offered it.

Dorian knew _exactly_ what he wanted.

*

_The lower city walkways were far more bustling than they usually were and Dorian managed to move around unnoticed for the most part. Though he__’d walked these streets many times before, sometimes trailing his hand over the ancient, crumbling jet stone structures, held together with magic, he’d never been there at night, _alone_. The city felt like a living thing; each inhale marked by the mages moving through it, by the sounds of men, unrestrained. This close to Satinalia, everyone was excited, that excitement leaking into the air as preparations were made. Dorian and most of the others his age in the Circle of Magi would go home for the celebration the next day. _

_He didn__’t want to go home with the feel of Petyr on him, couldn’t let that be the mark left on him. So he went to a place he knew men like his father frequented when in the city. A proper place, expensive and tasteful. He wasn’t allowed inside, didn’t even try to gain entry, but he leaned against the wall of a closed shop opposite, and he leaned _insolently.

_It didn_ _’t take very long. _

_‘You’re a little young to be walking around so late.’_

_Dorian smiled and pretended to be bored, cocking his hips and examining his nails. _ _‘It’s my baby face,’ he purred, running a hand through his hair, curling loosely past his ears. ‘Gets me in trouble everywhere I go.’_

_The man, mid-thirties and quite attractive, squinted in the dark gloom of the streets, barely lit by weak, orange lamps. Behind him, the faint music and raucous chatter of the establishment faded as the doors closed. _ _‘Do I know you?’_

_‘Hmm, I don’t think so.’_

_‘You’re not related to Halward Pavus, are you?’_

_Dorian pretended to consider. _ _‘Oh, Magister Pavus? Yes, I know his son. We’re in the same Circle.’_

_The man approached. He was well dressed and he held himself in a way that Dorian instantly recognised. Haughty, arrogant and powerful, but he was curious. A little cautious, too. _

_‘My name is Allendas. What’s yours?’_

_‘Matteo,’ Dorian said without missing a beat and he held out his steady hand, offering it to the man, never breaking eye contact. _

_Allendas shook it, slightly amused. _ _‘How old are you, Matteo?’_

_‘Sixteen.’_

_‘Would you like to come to the inn where I’m staying for a drink? It’s really very nice.’_

_Dorian__’s heart was a wild, bucking thing in his chest. He was so excited, so frightened. His interior was a mess of nerves and need and desperate, dark longing to see how things _really_ were, how men really were. To remove the phantom touches Petyr had left behind, to erase his gentle, sickly memory altogether. _

_Dorian_ _’s exterior, however, was flawless. He withdrew his hand and bit his bottom lip, like he was considering it. _

_‘That depends,’ he said, shrugging, looking up at Allendas through lowered lashes. ‘On how nice it is.’_

_*_

It was a violent push and pull of warring sensations. Cullen felt _incredible_ and Dorian frankly marvelled that he’d managed to last this long because Cullen was so fucking _tight_ and hot and wet, sucking Dorian’s soul right out of his cock with every thrust. He writhed against Dorian, struggling and squirming like he couldn’t help himself. Dorian remembered they hadn’t chosen a word, but he put it out of his mind. Cullen was far stronger than him, if the mage was doing anything unwanted, he was likely to know about it.

Beneath Dorian’s palm, Cullen was making all kinds of wrought, fucked-out noises. Dorian peered down over the man’s shoulder, down the expanse of his rapidly rising and falling chest to where his cock was straining against his abdomen, trailing pre come over his belly. Cullen’s hands were preoccupied with clawing at Dorian’s forearm, the one coiled about his neck, all the while desperately trying to force Dorian deeper inside him, but the mage wasn’t having it. He controlled the thrusts, controlled everything including the beautiful man in his arms.

‘If I take my hand off your mouth, are you going to be good?’

For a long moment, Cullen didn’t do anything. Dorian waited, dragging the rhythm down to something so leisurely that even his _own_ body screamed at him for such teasing.

It was barely there, that shake of the Commander’s head, but Dorian understood. _No_, Cullen wasn’t going to be good. Cullen wanted _more_. More than Dorian was giving him, maybe more than Dorian _could_ give.

‘No?’ Dorian echoed, mouth pressed against Cullen’s neck, even though he knew he couldn’t kiss, couldn’t suck bruises into that expanse of gorgeous, pale skin like he wanted. It was taking all of his restraint now to keep himself from turning that beautiful, pained expression towards him and kiss it all away, kiss it better.

Because Dorian _loved him_ and if Cullen wanted pain, then Dorian would give it to him because Cullen was right, they were skilled at hurting each other, more proficient than anyone else. He would give him that pain, but he wanted to kiss him afterwards, make him feel safe and beloved the way Cullen always, fucking _always_, had with Dorian.

Cullen wrenched his face to the side out of Dorian’s grip, taking great, heaving breaths.

‘_No_!’ Cullen panted, practically slurred. ‘I’m not _good_, so fuck me like I deserve, make me sorry!’

Dorian closed his eyes. It was still teasing, that rhythm, the _not quite_ fucking he was giving Cullen. The mage knew it wasn’t enough, knew how it felt to have a _chasm_ inside him that needed to be filled, an ache that could only be soothed with pain, with brutality.

Dorian shoved forward, sent them crashing down into the bed, crushing Cullen and slightly winding him beneath the mage on the freezing cold bed. Dorian wasted no time in grabbing Cullen’s hands and pinning them down into the bed, nudging his cock back inside the warm, perfect heat once more. Cullen let out a torn moan, a broken, distressed thing that Dorian vaguely knew meant _approval_ but still twisted the wrong way inside the mage’s chest, grated slightly.

Flattened atop him, Dorian allowed himself to press his forehead into the back of Cullen’s neck. When Dorian slammed his hips home, Cullen’s whole body jolted like he’d been shocked. Dorian’s grip tightened mercilessly about his wrists, nudging his legs wider apart. A hot, cresting wave was building and _building, _drawing on oceanic energy, the rhythm of water and trueborn waves as Dorian fucked Cullen deeper than anything he’d ever felt, desperate to _be_ inside him, to live there.

Cullen was crying out with every thrust, punctuated by that quickening rhythm and Dorian held him down, drove pleasure into him, pursuing that angle, that blissful _sensation_ he knew came from this position and yet…

It wasn’t _enough_.

*

_‘What do you think?’ Allendas asked, closing the door behind him. ‘Nice enough for you?’_

_Dorian looked around at the room. It was unremarkable in terms of luxury, meaning Dorian had seen better and was therefore mostly uninterested, save for the view from the open windows. A gentle, unusually cool breeze filtered in and outside, the city was blanketed with lights. Dorian leaned on the sill, drinking in the night, the excitement, both palpable in the air and resonating within his own self. It was the central moment of his life so far. It was the _beginning_ of his life. _

_He was going to have sex with Allendas, the kind of sex he _needed_, and the anticipation was practically alive inside him. He gave no thought to Matteo, to the others who had allowed him out so late. They might be punished, maybe even dismissed from their posts but Dorian couldn__’t make himself care. He was excited and he was afraid. It was perfect. _

_He heard Allendas sit down on the large, plush bed. Heard the sound of boots being kicked off. He looked at the city of Minrathous for a few more seconds before he turned, gathering himself. _

_‘Come sit with me?’ the older man suggested, patting the bed beside him. _

_Dorian smiled coyly, undoing the buttons of his shirt. _ _‘What if I don’t want to sit?’_

_Allendas matched Dorian__’s smile, except his was slow brewing and hotter than a summer night mid Solis. He radiated _experience_ and Dorian wanted all of it, wanted the full spectrum of that experience branded all over him. Longed to be marked by it, claimed by it. _

_‘Well,’ the older man said quite calmly, belying the hunger in his eyes as he took in the sight of the younger mage. ‘There are other ways to pass the time.’_

_Dorian had never felt quite so high in his whole life. _

_*_

Dorian had never felt quite so _low_ in his whole life.

It was a mockery of everything they’d had before, this violent, barren pleasure, this thing building inside him. Dark, desperate need to have Cullen even if he would never actually _have_ him. Dorian hated it, wished he’d had the sense to walk away, but he knew he could never deny Cullen.

And even though Cullen was drunk, he needed this. Some part of him needed this and Dorian was fucking _weak_.

When Cullen begged Dorian to choke him again, he gave in. He moved Cullen’s hands together over his head and held them there by the wrists, sliding his arm around Cullen’s throat and tightening just enough.

Dorian had to bite down the words just behind his lips, bite down how much he loved Cullen. It was right there inside him, desperate to get free. Cullen wouldn’t believe it, but that didn’t lessen the burning need to _tell him_.

Cullen sounded wrecked, utterly and completely destroyed and though it felt good, building and twisting in Dorian’s lower gut, everything so _low_ and tight and getting ready to snap, he knew that when this stopped, he was going to regret it. Falling, falling and for once, worried about _landing_.

‘Tell me I’m nothing,’ Cullen pleaded in a voice that threatened to break Dorian, twined pleasure and pain together in that dangerous combination, dragging every piece of him into the base of the cyclone spiralling and gathering strength. ‘_Please_.’

Dorian _meant_ to say it, he truly did. Wanted to give Cullen everything, even if what he wanted was pain and degradation because Dorian _understood_, he really fucking did. But every time he fucked into Cullen it was deeper, harder, tighter and now even without the promise of his magic inside him, Dorian was going to come, it was inevitable and… and in light of this feeling, something inside him collapsed. His determination to give Cullen the things he asked for simply _broke_ and he did the only thing he could manage which was to give Cullen what he _deserved_ instead.

‘You’re everything,’ he gasped, losing himself to the rhythm, arm leaving Cullen’s neck and curling under his stomach instead, palming and wrapping around the hot, swollen cock he found there. Immediately, Cullen objected, pushed his face into the bed and struggled weakly but Dorian had the advantage and he held those wrists tighter. ‘You’re fucking _everything_. You’ll always be everything and no—no matter what you try to do, how far you stray from yourself, how much you fuck yourself up, you will _never_ be nothing.’

Cullen sobbed, the noise ending in a scream, dampened by the mattress and Dorian’s hand flew over his cock, bringing him to the edge, his own thunderous avalanche of rapture cresting so hard he thought he was having a heart attack. Built like a physical thing, expanding against his ribs, intensifying beyond what Dorian could contain and when it burst, it took with it the very last of Dorian’s well-intentioned restraint.

‘You’re everything, _everything_. Beautiful, strong, fucking perfect, fucking _centre of the world _and you always—_always_ will be!’

Cullen had managed to pull his hands free, but he just buried his face into them, muffling the noises that tore from his throat as his entire body went rigid, spilling over Dorian’s hand as the mage expertly worked his pleasure from him, slamming his hips so hard against Cullen that he was sure to leave bruises _everywhere_. Lightning was born inside of Dorian, magic and bliss and every single thing he felt for Cullen combining explosively as he came harder than he could ever remember, so hard it hurt, so hard he almost passed out. Thedas ceased and all Dorian could feel, taste, see, smell and trust was _Cullen_.

The mage forgot his name, forgot everything and for just a few seconds, moments of time that stretched out like the basis of forever, he felt _good_ again. Felt like he was right where he was supposed to be.

When he came to, dizzy and lightheaded and entirely ruined, his face was pressed into Cullen’s back; hot, damp skin against his lips.

And he came down slowly, but not slowly enough to delay the sucker punch of guilt.

Carefully, he withdrew from Cullen, wincing slightly at the overload of sensation. Cullen didn’t move except to breathe. Shuddering inhales and exhales, in and out, face in those hands.

Dorian surveyed him in the light gifted by the partially revealed moon. Cullen’s skin was a mess of marks and freshly forming bruises. Dorian wanted to look away from the landscape of purple below the line of Cullen’s lower back, but he was transfixed by it. Pain made manifest, he longed to touch and caress it. Drag his lips over where it hurt most, make him feel safe and secure and so fucking _loved_. Press kisses, lavish praise, give him the world.

But Cullen’s breath was slowing and Dorian could see the beginnings of the extent to which he’d fucked up when Cullen didn’t _move_. Stayed right there, like if he was still enough, he didn’t _exist_ anymore.

Dorian dragged a shaking hand over his mouth, cursing fluently in his mother tongue.

‘I’m sorry,’ he breathed, the cold prickling at his sweat soaked skin.

‘Get the fuck out.’

‘Cullen, I didn’t mean to.’

He began to panic, the kind of feeling he’d had when he realised Cullen had _left_ Skyhold, all those months ago.

Cullen’s hands slid around the back of his neck, fingernails digging into his skin_, _clawing and hurting himself.

‘_Leave_.’

Dorian watched it play out in his head. He could pull the covers over Cullen, wordlessly leave him be, wait until he was outside before he upended the contents of his stomach into the snow. Go back to his room, get drunk, _not_ sleep, regret every single thing he’d done since he came into Cullen’s quarters.

He _did _pull the covers over Cullen because it was dangerously, impossibly cold in that room, but he didn’t leave.

Dorian subtly cast a few warming orbs and put them between the open, snowy night and the two of them on the bed. When Cullen’s back began to shake, began to judder in undeniable rhythm, Dorian risked everything by laying his hand gently upon him, touching him through the covers. Cullen didn’t flinch or lash out, he just lay there, silently crying.

Movements slow and painstakingly wary, Dorian shuffled around to the top of the bed and began to manoeuvre Cullen into the mage’s lap. It was difficult because Cullen was curled so tightly, _protectively_, but Dorian got him across his thighs, into a position where Dorian, not caring what the Commander would do to him in retaliation, could give what little comfort he was capable of.

He couldn’t _hold_ Cullen, but he could touch him. He could be there.

It wasn’t about him, Dorian knew that much. Had known it when he’d seen Cullen staring down at the letter. It wasn’t about him or _them_. After a few minutes of awkwardly stroking his back, Cullen surged up and wrapped himself completely around Dorian, pressing his face into the mage’s neck as he clung to him, hiding there. Dorian held him like he was holding _himself_ together, held him like it was all that would save them.

Silence prevailed as the snow continued to fall, Dorian’s magic making the air breathable, but still every now and then a few snowflakes made it past the wall of warmth, landing on the meagre covers protecting them both. Dorian watched them melt slowly as he ever so slightly rocked Cullen while holding him, as they held each other and Cullen grieved for things that Dorian could never understand.

And when Cullen fell asleep that way, Dorian only moved back, sliding down enough so that he could bear the blonde’s dead weight without disturbing him. Leaving was unthinkable. Where else would he go?

*

The worst thing was, he hadn’t _meant_ to fall asleep.

Dorian had stayed awake for most of the night, guardian of Cullen’s slumber, of the heartbeat he could feel pulsing against his own. He’d made sure the room was warm enough, watching the moons pass across the sky, watching for false dawn through the gradually clearing gaps in the clouds. Snow continued to fall, thick and soft, into the room and Dorian didn’t do anything about it besides safeguard Cullen from the cold.

So despite how much sleep called for him, lured him in with the heavy warmth of Cullen’s body above his own, Dorian stayed awake through most of the night. His hands moved slowly up and down over the scarred skin of Cullen’s back, soothing him whenever Cullen tensed or let slip a sound, indicating nightmares. Dorian wanted Cullen to sleep, to _rest_.

But in the end, his own fatigue won out before he caught any signs of that reddish smear in the sky and when he woke, it wasn’t naturally because truth be told, he could have slept for _days_ that way.

Cullen was rousing, slowly shifting. A bolt of alarm lanced through Dorian, shattering the blissful nothingness of dark, warm sleep. The room was painfully bright, the snow steadily piling higher in the corner was shockingly white and it radiated with the dull, obscured sunlight from above. The room was markedly less warm than when Dorian fell asleep due to the now faded orbs, but beneath the covers it was deliciously, perfectly temperate, especially draped with Cullen as he was.

Oh fuck.

Their eyes met; grey with muted panic, brown with sleepy confusion.

Cullen wore a helplessly endearing frown and he looked just how Dorian remembered, first thing in the morning. He pushed himself up, looking down at Dorian, blinking slowly.

‘What…?’ he croaked, slow and sleep addled. ‘Happened?’

And of all the things Dorian could have said, what _actually_ came out of his mouth was, ‘I shouldn’t have stayed.’

Cullen blinked again and shifted slightly, coming to the abrupt realisation that he was completely naked against Dorian who was, at least, slightly _less_ naked, wearing trousers but nothing else. Some of the sleepy confusion seeped away, his gaze sharpening.

‘Fucking _void_,’ he uttered.

*

_Dorian left just before morning, slipping quietly from the room, leaving Allendas sleeping peacefully in the soft, massive bed, the feel of which Dorian would never forget. He crept away under cover of rapidly declining darkness, walking through the pain that radiated up his back, that shot through him with every step he took and he couldn__’t keep the smile from his face, biting his bottom lip because… because last night had been _everything_ he wanted and so much more. Every dream, every fantasy the young mage had ever collected, had all been realised and then some. _

_He walked through the streets as the shops began to open, stalls setting up for the busy week ahead, decorations fully in place. Some of the people gave him looks, knowing and disapproving, but that just made Dorian smile wider. _

_Dorian was aching and sore by the time he got back to the Circle of Magi. The First Enchanter was waiting inside the doors, an expression of thunderous relief and disappointment in place and Dorian felt an icy trickle of guilt when he saw Matteo was not in his post, that none of the Templars were. _

_The young mage put on a brave face; a thing carved of arrogance and apathy as he shielded himself from the guilt. He would wear it for many years. _

_*_

Cullen didn’t move for a long time and Dorian started to wish he _would_ when the pressure above him began to stir the interest of his body in ways that were _not helpful_. Brown eyes stared down and Cullen’s expression could have been called blank if Dorian didn’t know him so fucking well.

He could see Cullen remembering, slowly piecing things together, composing the picture that was _last night_. Dorian felt sorry for him because it wasn’t a pretty picture in the slightest.

And Dorian wondered what would happen if he just… just leaned up and kissed the man above him. He let his mind wander with impossible ideas and dangerous concepts like taking whatever Cullen would give, even if it _wasn__’t_ love. Even if Cullen didn’t love Dorian, even if it was all an illusion, trickery of blood and magic, Dorian knew he _would_ take whatever he could get, there was no doubt.

Dorian didn’t kiss him, though. He didn’t move, didn’t dare encourage friction because that was far too risky and he didn’t press for what Cullen wouldn’t (_couldn__’t_) give. Though Dorian would’ve gratefully accepted the very bare minimum Cullen could offer, he would never expect or want _Cullen_ to settle for less than what _he_ deserved.

Which was everything. Cullen deserved _everything_.

Cullen’s mouth pressed into a thin line, lips bitten between teeth as he surveyed Dorian like he didn’t quite know how to proceed. When he swallowed, Dorian’s eyes followed the movement, heart thudding so hard that Cullen could not have missed each heavy, traitorous beat. Despite his sternest instructions, his body was becoming _interested_, cock firming up against Cullen’s lower abdomen.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dorian said in a toneless breath, an apology that was woefully inadequate because _this_ was what he did. He fucked things up, he made a mess. He ruined things, he caused chaos and he hurt people. ‘I’m sorry.’

For what felt like _forever_, Cullen just looked down at him. Studied him with an expression Dorian wished he could read like the other tells. He burned to know what Cullen was thinking as he surveyed Dorian. When a short, stuttered breath escaped through scarred lips, Dorian would have given _anything_ to know what it meant.

Cullen’s weight shifted slightly as he freed one hand, leaning on his elbow, fingers gravitating to Dorian’s face and oh _Maker_, the world was tipping, positively sloping so far to the left it might topple and fall, taking Dorian with it. He didn’t know what was happening, couldn’t contemplate anything beyond the feel of Cullen’s heart beating against the base of Dorian’s ribs, his own driving a wild, dangerous rhythm through his body as his magic awoke, taking in the sight and proximity of Cullen, purring at both.

When Cullen’s fingertips trailed lightly over Dorian’s cheekbone, the mage shivered, a whole-body thing that ran rampant, waking every part of his skin, setting hairs on end and flesh pebbling.

It was the most intimate thing Dorian had ever experienced and every good thing in the world hinged upon what would happen next. Dorian swallowed very carefully, frozen beneath Cullen’s ministrations, beneath that piercing gaze, beneath the warm body that was responding the same as his own. He waited. He would wait forever for Cullen, if it meant—

_‘Commander, Ser?’_

The voice from below carried up into the icy, bright room with the dancing snowflakes and the moment shattered and broke.

Cullen’s eyes closed and he let out a breath like… like he was _disappointed_, though Dorian didn’t know in which direction that disappointment tended. Dorian’s own sense of that sentiment burned like loss, flooding his mouth with the aftertaste of regret but then would it really have been _better_ to be kissing Cullen when that voice interrupted everything?

Cullen rolled off of Dorian swiftly, generously leaving him the covers.

‘A moment, Pennetell,’ he said in an impressively normal voice, dressing quickly, back to Dorian. In the cold light of morning, Dorian could see the remaining marks on Cullen’s arse cheeks, faded red streaks of what would soon be bruises across the soft, tender skin. The bruises were worst around his hips and Dorian’s erection throbbed at the memory of holding him that way, of the _noises_ Cullen had made. ‘Await me outside.’

Only when the door closed loudly, did Cullen turn, studiously avoiding Dorian’s gaze. ‘I…’ he started to say, dragging a shirt over his head. ‘I’m sorry too.’

Dorian just nodded, sitting up and gathering the covers about him as Cullen hurriedly dressed and descended the ladder without another word.

*

_Satinalia was in full swing in the Pavus estate and Dorian__’s parents had truly outdone themselves in terms of luxuriance and opulence. Dorian cared nothing for coin, but even he couldn’t help but wince to think of what they’d spent on such a gathering, every notable magister in Minrathous in attendance. Halward was not speaking to Dorian, but his mother had forgiven him quick enough for his suspension from the Circle. It was temporary; a two-week absence while his _future _was discussed and debated or, more likely, Dorian__’s father donated handsome sums of aforementioned coin to ensure his son’s continued attendance. _

_Dorian would go back, he knew, and he wouldn_ _’t let the absence of the kindly Templars weigh heavily on him. He would return and bask in the admiration of the others, ignore Felix’s mild disapproval and pretend Petyr didn’t exist. _

_The music and food were undeniably exquisite but Dorian wasn_ _’t hungry and he didn’t want to dance. Many of his friends were already there, but he wasn’t interested in seeing them. _

_There was only one person he wanted to see and as fate had it, he was already there when Dorian entered the ballroom, dressed in such finery that heads turned sharply, smiles coy and full of hunger. _

_Allendas was speaking with Halward and a bunch of other, far less interesting Magisters. It all looked very _serious_ to Dorian and he could barely contain himself as he approached. He caught sight of his mother, though, and he went to her then, happy to delay what would be a most delicious moment for a short time. _

_‘Mother,’ he greeted, kissing her cheek as she gifted him with a smile that mirrored his own. ‘You are radiance personified.’_

_‘Silly boy,’ she chided lovingly, arranging his hair thoughtlessly. ‘Look at you, though. You’re beautiful.’ She said it simply, like it was true and Dorian leaned ever so slightly into her touch as she cupped his cheek. ‘Don’t worry about the suspension tonight,’ she said in a lower voice, adjusting the taffeta ruffles of her dress. ‘Enjoy yourself, hmm?’_

_And for a second, Dorian_ _’s resolve faltered. He felt briefly guilty about making a scene the way he was planning, about embarrassing his father and by default, his mother who had worked so hard to make this night memorable, no matter the reasons. This kind of thing was important to them and even though Dorian hated it, positively deplored all the vicious smiles and backhanded compliments, the glittering treachery and the poison tasters, stationed subtly around the room, disguised as servers… he loved his mother and so he faltered. _

_But it didn_ _’t last. _

_‘I will,’ he promised and she flitted away to attend to other matters, wine glass in hand. _

_Dorian breathed the perfumed air, let it fill his lungs before he approached his father and the men around him, the very picture of innocence. _

_*_

Dorian sat in Cullen’s bed for a few long minutes, trying to gather himself enough that his legs had a chance of supporting him. The events of the previous night replayed over and over, tormenting him but he shut it out, shut it _down_ because life went on. Life fucking went on, he’d said it last night to Cullen, hadn’t he?

It was so cold that Dorian began to shiver, teeth chattering and really, how Cullen was still _alive_ was truly beyond the mage. He watched the snow fall, eyes adjusting to the stunning brightness of it as it piled high in the corner. Cullen was lucky enough that it was so cold, it hadn’t yet begun to melt. It made Dorian irritable that Cullen apparently didn’t _care_ that he was essentially sleeping outside, despite what he’d been through while circling the Frostbacks, despite what Nalari had done to save him from certain, _neglect-induced_ death.

Dorian heated the air around him enough to get dressed, but he didn’t take his eyes off of the snow, a _plan_ forming.

*

‘Sleep well?’ Leliana asked, not looking up from the scroll she was currently reading, bent over her desk as Dorian approached. The mage sighed and took a seat in front of her.

‘Not so bad. Yourself?’

‘I haven’t slept for three days,’ she commented, eyes moving rapidly over the writing. ‘Lavellan writes ahead of her return. This is the first letter a bird has managed to deliver now that the storm is easing.’

Dorian sat forward eagerly. ‘What does it say?’

‘Only that she is well and aims to be back here before the week’s end. She says Bull sustained a fairly serious injury, but that he’s healthy and in good spirits. Still no word of Cassandra and our army, two weeks ago was the last,’ Leliana added, a definite note of worry in her otherwise silky tone. ‘But I am certain we will hear more as the sky clears for messenger birds.’

‘Of course,’ Dorian assured her quickly. ‘You should sleep though. Truly, I mean this in the kindest of ways, but you look terrible.’

The Spymaster smiled instead of laughing, dark eyes swimming in circles. ‘Vivienne is up and about today,’ she told Dorian. ‘Nalari’s work with the healers is paying off wonderfully. I spoke with Vivienne at some length about Hawke and many other things.’

‘What does she make of it all?’

Leliana thought for a moment before answering. ‘She is unsure. That is a good thing for Vivienne, to be unsure. To question things, look upon previously held beliefs anew.’

‘And how is Hawke?’ Dorian asked grudgingly. ‘Still alive?’

If possible, Leliana seemed to grow wearier. ‘The Champion lives and begins to recover from the effect of my potions. I have compiled a full report of everything we extracted from him. The picture it paints is disturbing, to say the least, _but_,’ she added slowly. ‘It is not pressing enough to be dealt with before Corypheus. Hawke made specific reference to something his master said about not interfering with the Inquisition in terms of our war against the Elder One. If you recall, Hawke asked that the Inquisition disband, but beyond that, beyond his interest in Cullen, there was little attempt to hinder our efforts.’

Dorian sat back. ‘Does Cullen know this?’

‘I told him last night.’

_Last night_.

‘Right, of course. What about Fenris?’

She grimaced slightly. ‘We must all hope that Fenris is valuable to this _master_ of Hawke’s. It would be senseless to abandon the war for one man.’

‘Cullen agreed?’

Leliana inclined her head. ‘Cullen agreed in principal.’

Dorian did not pursue it. ‘I appreciate everything you do for us,’ he said after a beat. ‘I know none of it is easy and your role is largely thankless. I appreciate you, Leliana.’

She seemed a little surprised, eyebrows raising delicately, but she was not dismissive. Instead she offered the mage a tired smile. ‘I… thank you, that means a great deal to me.’

‘When Lavellan returns, what do you anticipate?’

The smile faded, replaced with a mildly suppressed yawn. ‘The clearing of the storm will mean open communication again, but the snows remain severe and will take weeks to clear. Our armies will not be able to safely return for a while. Weeks by Cullen’s estimation, but she mentions that Morrigan has been travelling extensively, investigating mystical objects called _Eluvians_.’

Dorian’s interest pricked up, despite himself. ‘Oh really? I confess to knowing a little about them, though not much beyond the fact they’re mostly lost and defunct, only capable of spreading the Taint and, at best, communicating long distance.’

‘Lavellan has been in constant contact with her apparently,’ Leliana said, unable to hide the slight frown of concern. ‘And many of their discussions circulate around Eluvians. I believe that when she returns, things are going to move very quickly, despite the lack of an available army.’

‘Does she know of what happened with Hawke and Cullen?’ Dorian pressed urgently. ‘That we have the letter now?’

‘She is aware,’ Leliana said. ‘But she made little reference to it in her missive. It will be better to wait and explain everything to her in person, I believe.’

Dorian thought of the last time Cullen and Ellana had been in the same room; a wholly unpleasant memory.

‘Hmm,’ Dorian said, quietly lost in the pain of such recollections. ‘Cullen and I slept together last night.’

And that… was _not_ what he intended to say. At all. It came unbidden, like a confession. He winced, viciously cursing himself internally but he didn’t retract it. He waited and he lifted his eyes to Leliana, the closest thing he had to a true friend in the castle at that time.

He found no judgement or derision, no trace of scorn. She was unfathomable, her thought process unreachable. Then she blinked and said, ‘Is it too much to hope for that it _wasn__’t_ on the ramparts this time?’

Dorian laughed despite himself and she smiled again. It didn’t last long, couldn’t hold in the face of such overwhelming fatigue and… fucking endless necessity, ceaseless planning and plotting, but it was a light moment and Dorian cherished it all the same.

‘It may as well have been,’ Dorian said, the laughter ending in a slightly breathless chuckle. ‘Cullen’s roof had almost entirely collapsed under the weight of the snow.’

Leliana sighed. ‘I know. He refuses all attempts to have it repaired.’

‘He needs the air,’ Dorian said automatically, almost defending him.

She looked down at the scroll. ‘I know that too.’ She ground the heel of her palm into her eye. ‘He told me what you are doing to help him remove the lyrium.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, and while I’m happy it has lessened his withdrawal symptoms, I remain concerned about the state of things between you two, in magical terms of course,’ she added quickly. ‘I think that when Solas returns, it would be wise to seek counsel from him about the nature of your connection with Cullen.’

Dorian shrugged. ‘I don’t see what _he _would know about such things.’

‘Perhaps nothing, but I’ve never heard of a mage running magic through a human without it eventually killing them. Cullen seems to suffer no negative side effects from the process, quite the contrary in fact.’

‘Lyrium stays inside him for a long time, builds up like moss on a stone. It’s _unnatural_ for humans to consume lyrium,’ Dorian explained, unable to pinpoint why he felt slightly defensive. ‘My magic burns through it, that’s all.’

A slanted eyebrow and a hint of disbelief. ‘That’s all?’

‘All that warrants concern.’ He pressed his thumb into his palm, following the line of fate as if carving it anew. ‘Did Cullen say different then?’

Leliana heaved a sigh. ‘One day, you two will have something resembling a _conversation.__’_

‘Yes and one day you’ll sleep for more than two hours at a time.’

‘Two hours sleep is more than sufficient for me to perform my duties.’

‘Is it sufficient to keep you alive?’ Dorian snapped, despite himself. ‘Fasta vass, does no one actually want to _outlive_ this threat?’ He stared off to the side, jaw working as he closed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. You’re doing what’s necessary.’

‘So is Cullen.’

‘He’s in pain.’

‘I think you both are.’

Dorian dug his thumb deeper into the groove of his hand. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Do you want me to have his roof repaired, regardless?’ she offered quietly.

The mage shook his head and forced a smile. ‘I beat you to it, I’m afraid.’

*

Cullen convened a War Room meeting and no matter how much Dorian called for him, Cole did not come. Cullen assured him that the boy was likely fine, off exploring somewhere and caught up in his own attention, but Dorian worried for him. His presence lately had been intermittent at best. The mage felt he should have done more to spend time with him, make sure he was all right. Though Dorian’s time was somewhat stretched between Nalari and Dawn, Keenan and the mages who were old enough to be trained in the hall with Cullen and the cluster of soldiers and guards and then the mages overall, their care in a very general sense, there was time in the evenings when Dorian could have – _should have – _called for Cole and made time to be with him. He felt the guilt keenly when he eventually gave up and they started the meeting without the spirit.

‘Ahead of Lavellan’s return,’ Cullen was saying, moving a few markers on the map. ‘We must prepare for what will likely be imminent move to battle elsewhere. The Deep White has allowed us to take care of the threat Hawke posed to me and the Inquisition overall and now our focus must return once more to what is necessary.’

Varric sat on a chair close to the table, peering at it thoughtfully. ‘What was the last thing we heard from our Seeker?’

‘Two weeks past,’ Leliana said. ‘Before the storm closed in, she checked in with a customary report of losses and gains, advancement progress and an estimated timeline for their return, allowing for the pathways to clear once the storm had passed.’

‘We estimate two weeks for their return,’ Josephine said.

‘And how were the mages faring with her?’ Varric asked.

‘Exceptionally well,’ Leliana answered evenly. ‘Her reports were positive overall. I dispatched ravens to their last known location this morning. We should hear something soon.’

‘And what of Lavellan?’ Blackwall chimed in.

‘She, Sera, Bull and Solas are well,’ the Spymaster told him. ‘Their progress in the Emprise de Lion is considerable. She returns by the end of the week.’

‘Which is when we anticipate the storm to have fully passed,’ Cullen added. ‘Four can navigate a crude path back to Skyhold better than an entire army. They should be able to make it here without incident.’

Vivienne addressed Cullen. ‘Will she execute Hawke, do you think?’

The Commander’s expression hardened slightly and he shared a subtle look with Leliana. ‘No, we do not think so.’

‘We intended to use the Deep White to extract intelligence and then dispose of him.’

Varric made a face. ‘Whatever else he is, he’s a _person_,’ the dwarf said quietly. ‘You can’t dispose of a person.’

Leliana inclined her head. ‘I assure you, we can, but we decided that she should have the final say overall. Disposing of him—’

‘_Killing him_.’

‘Very well, _killing_ Hawke without her approval leaves us with very few options in terms of moving forward. We would likely have to hide it from her entirely and that is unacceptable. In her absence we have had to make decisions and we stand by them but this would possibly be one too far, one too many.’

‘She won’t kill him,’ Dorian said, unable to supress the small jolt of _something_ when Cullen’s eyes met his. ‘And not out of kindness or whatever _weakness_ you assign to her nature. She won’t kill him because she’ll suggest we use him. After the war, if there is an _after_, she’ll use Hawke to draw out his master.’

Leliana looked down, but Dorian wasn’t going to have this conversation with her again. No matter what she thought, he _knew_ Ellana would survive. She was strong, the best kind of _strong_. Scrappy and full of verve, underestimated from day one and using it to her advantage.

‘This is not our priority,’ Cullen said, cutting through the stilted silence. ‘For now, we must focus on getting through to the end of the week. Five days is a long time to go on half rations of food, but we can manage it, however I’m told we are low on elfroot. I will forage down the side path of the mountain tomorrow and then we will ascertain the likelihood of increasing provisions.’

‘I’m going with you,’ Dorian said, quite without meaning to. Everyone looked at him but as Cullen opened his mouth, doubtlessly about to refuse Dorian’s offer, the mage said, ‘You need me and don’t for a second believe otherwise.’

Varric coughed conspicuously and Blackwall gave Dorian a look of friendly sympathy, patting him on the shoulder. It took the mage a horribly long second to realise the double meaning of his words. Cullen, for the most part, hadn’t reacted at all.

Leliana saved the day. ‘A mage will make the journey far safer, Cullen. The slope is treacherous in the extreme.’

Dorian and Cullen stared at each other, seemingly unable to look away. Dorian couldn’t help but imagine if Cullen could still _feel_ him, how sore his arse cheeks might have been.

Vivienne said, ‘I would like to help you with the drills you’ve been performing with the younger mages and soldiers.’

It broke the moment between Commander and mage, Dorian’s gaze sliding to her somewhat doubtfully. ‘And I am most appreciative of any assistance, but—’

‘I can _help_,’ Vivienne said somewhat fiercely. ‘Let me help. I’m not going to round your mages up and lock them in a closet, Dorian.’ She sobered slightly. ‘They’ve made great progress, anyone can see that. Your… _methods_ are undeniably effective. I’ve never seen mages with such confidence, with such forward abilities. I will follow your lead, not deviate from it.’

‘That’s… thank you,’ Dorian said, a little awkwardly. ‘Yes, of course, I welcome the help. You can start this afternoon if you like, they have studies in their dormitory.’

‘Wonderful.’

‘So, how is Nalari doing?’ Cullen asked in a jarringly soft voice. ‘And her baby. Baby Dawn.’ Oh fucking void, _no. _No, it wasn’t _sexy_ the way Cullen asked that. It was _not_ and it did _nothing_ to Dorian’s insides when the Commander added, ‘If they need _anything_, please let me know.’

‘It’s nice to have a baby in the castle,’ Leliana added with uncharacteristic cheer. ‘I love babies.’

‘_You_ love babies?’ Vivienne echoed.

Leliana was unashamed. ‘I love and adore them.’

‘They are both very well,’ Dorian answered Cullen with a small, genuine smile just thinking about them. ‘Nalari has taken to motherhood incredibly well.’

‘She is receiving full food portions?’

‘Yes and even if she weren’t, the others would see to it.’

Cullen smiled around the eyes and Dorian’s knees were not weak, not in the slightest.

‘As I said, I’m here for anything they need.’

‘I suppose it’s novel for you,’ Blackwall said, not unkindly. ‘To witness a mage give birth and not have the baby taken from the mother immediately.’

‘Yes, quite,’ Cullen said and Dorian wanted to smack Blackwall upside the head but refrained. ‘Are there any other issues in the meantime?’

There were, most of them voiced by Josephine, but they got through them expediently. Dorian couldn’t help but admire Cullen in this role, saw what Leliana intended when she spoke of him taking over, even though it was inconceivable that there would ever be a world without Ellana Lavellan.

Once they were done discussing dwindling supplies and fixing roof leaks, the mage’s heating orb in the corner had almost entirely faded and the meeting concluded.

‘Dorian,’ Cullen called calmly when the mage was almost at the door. He looked back and saw the Commander standing by the table, an unreadable expression in place. ‘A moment, please?’

Varric winked at Dorian as he passed, but other than that, everyone had left. Dorian faltered, unsure of himself, but agreed. Of course he agreed.

‘Close the door behind you,’ Cullen said. ‘And bar it with magic, please.’

Dorian swallowed, but did as the Commander bid. Once the doors were secure, the mage hesitantly looked to Cullen, unsure of what to expect.

‘I apologise,’ Cullen said without preamble, looking down at the map. ‘I should have told you about Cole before now.’

Dorian blinked. ‘Sorry?’

Cullen chuckled dryly, still not meeting Dorian’s gaze. ‘You say that far too much. Time was, I never thought I’d hear an apology pass the lips of a Tevinter mage.’

Dorian longed to say something equal parts snippy and sad, but Cullen had mentioned Cole and he needed to know more.

‘What of Cole?’ Dorian asked, approaching cautiously.

‘The day after my return here, something occurred to me about Cole. I spoke with him at length about it after the meeting in here, do you recall?’

Dorian did. ‘What did you speak of?’

‘I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Cole can traverse distances magically.’

‘Oh,’ Dorian said, frowning slightly. ‘Yes, I know that. He pops in and out whenever he feels like it, like he did with you and Joy, running back and forth.’

Cullen nodded patiently. ‘Yes, but he can travel quite a bit farther than the confines of a castle.’

‘You mean…’ Dorian looked down at the map. ‘He can travel to where Lavellan is?’

‘I spoke with him for some time,’ Cullen went on. ‘And the basis of my understanding is that Cole can travel almost _anywhere_ he wishes, but the further he travels from his starting point, the more stretched he becomes. If he is standing here in Skyhold and he travels to Lavellan in Emprise de Lion, only a shadow of his self can reach. He can see and bear witness, but he cannot communicate and he cannot materialise there.’

Dorian looked up at Cullen sharply. ‘You’ve had him checking on them. On Lavellan and Cassandra.’

‘Yes, to the extent he is capable. It can be difficult for him, apparently,’ Cullen admitted. ‘Sometimes he is only capable of witnessing… decisions. Choices rooted in emotion, personal matters. The greater the distance, the more he is likely to return to me with a riddle wrapped in poetry.’

‘Where is he now?’

Cullen surveyed Dorian. ‘You’re angry with me.’

‘For using Cole like a spy bird? Yes, I’m angry. I’m angrier still that you kept it from me.’

‘There are reasons for both.’

Dorian crossed his arms tightly. ‘Astonish me.’

There was a moment of long hesitation and Dorian could tell Cullen was parsing how best to phrase whatever he was about to say. ‘I believe this _man_ who pulls on Hawke’s strings, is watching us, me in particular, very closely. Leliana and I have known for a while that something or some_one_ was pursuing me. There have been attacks made, attempts to capture me. I have observed a pervasive _feeling_ of surveillance for a long time, as though I am being watched. Now that we know this to be Hawke’s master, I am wary.’

Suspicion curled low in Dorian’s stomach. ‘Wary of _what_?’

Cullen sighed. ‘Cole is indeed checking in on Lavellan and Cassandra, but no one can know that, not even Leliana.’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ Cullen said heavily. ‘When things have stabilised, I believe Cole is our best chance of finding Hawke’s master. If this master gets hold of the fact that we can use Cole to travel great distances and spy so effectively, I believe it could put the boy in danger.’

Dorian studied Cullen carefully. ‘_And_ therefore lessen the chances of finding him, right?’

Cullen dropped his gaze down once more. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly.

‘You can’t use him like that.’

‘He _offered_—’

‘Cole is barely more than a child! I will _not_ have you risk him in such a manner!’

‘And when Lavellan takes him with her to trudge through the Fallow Mire, gives him blades to wield, what of the risk then?’

Dorian slammed his hand down against the table so hard that some of the markers shook and toppled. ‘It is _not _the same as sending him out alone, so far stretched that he is a _shadow_ of himself!’

‘Cole is useful.’

‘Cole is a _child_! No matter how Lavellan uses him, no matter how _handy_ he is to you. He is a child and damn you both for arming him and sending him out into the fucking world when— when he should be here, kept safe.’

‘He is a member of the Inquisition.’

Dorian’s mouth twisted. ‘And when did that extend to mean _disposable_?’

Cullen frowned deeply. ‘Cole is not remotely disposable. I do not believe that he is in any danger, surveying things this way. I would not place him in undue risk.’

‘How the fuck is sending him after this _master_, a man who we know barely anything about, not putting him at risk?’

‘It would not be until—’

‘No!’

‘Dorian.’

‘NO!’

Cullen looked away, expression tight, jaw working while Dorian tried to regain himself, regretting the outburst, but unable to contemplate the idea of Cole – sweet, gentle Cole who saw everyone’s pain and tried only to make it better – being captured and held by the same man who had ordered Hawke to undertake the actions that had driven Dorian and Cullen to the brink of ruin. ‘Very well.’

‘What?’

Cullen nodded slightly. ‘Your reaction precedes Lavellan’s. You two are often of the same mind. It was… selfish of me to even consider using him for such a purpose.’

Much of Dorian’s anger dissipated. ‘I don’t know what Lavellan will say. I don’t know what she’s going to say about any of this, Cullen. Do not ask her for permission to send Cole off to find this man. _Please_.’

Cullen’s eyes closed for a brief moment, hands tightening on the edge of the table directly between them as it had once been before. ‘As you say.’

‘We will find Fenris,’ Dorian offered, but it sounded useless even to his own ears. ‘I promise you.’

‘It is not your responsibility,’ Cullen said. ‘He was taken because of me, because of what I did in Kinloch Hold. This is all because of me. How many lives are ruined because of my very existence?’

‘Don’t you dare start all that,’ Dorian warned, voice cracking ever so slightly with the panic that threatened to bubble up.

‘I’m not, but that doesn’t mean it’s not _true_,’ Cullen said quietly, carefully picking up the markers that had fallen and placing them back precisely where they were before. ‘Had I the strength to kill myself the day after Jassen, how much brighter the world might yet be.’

It was painful, the anger Dorian felt then. It crackled in his chest, seized him mercilessly. ‘You really think that, do you?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It matters if I say it matters,’ Dorian said, the words trembling slightly. ‘And you’re a good man if I say you are.’

‘Would that the world were so simple.’

‘You’re right, the world is not simple but it most assuredly would not be _brighter_ without you, believe me. You, despite your overwhelming tendency to brood and mope, _are_ a good man.’ Dorian crossed his arms, as if trying to hide his heart lest it betray him. ‘The best kind of man.’

Cullen stared down. ‘You don’t know me.’

‘I really do.’

‘I… I want it to mean something, when you say that,’ Cullen breathed after a beat of silence. ‘There was a bedrock once, a foundation of trust. Belief was built upon it, belief in the things you told me.’ When he ran a hand through his hair, Dorian’s chest gave a painful twinge to see that Cullen’s eyes were too bright, reflecting too much of the candlelight. ‘Nothing stays, now. Nothing sticks, no matter how much I _want_ it to.’

And Dorian, despite how wretched it made him feel, understood.

‘Well,’ he said, tightening his arms around himself. ‘I’m never going to stop saying it, so my apologies in advance if it becomes repetitive.’

The way Cullen took a breath, deep and steeling, was all the warning Dorian needed to know what was coming next. ‘My conduct last night was unforgivable.’

Dorian scowled irritably. ‘Oh, fuck _off_, Cullen.’

‘I should not have… I had no right to demand such things of you.’

The mage shook his head, rolling his eyes. ‘You didn’t _demand_ anything and I was hardly unwilling. I know how the world works and I know what it’s like to need things that other people wouldn’t understand.’

‘I’m ashamed of it.’

‘Don’t be. Believe me, you at your lowest ebb is still _nothing_ to some of the things I’ve done under cover of lamplight with total strangers.’

It was strange to see something like _jealousy _and _curiosity_ warring within the Commander, but in the end propriety won out as it often did. ‘I apologise, regardless.’

Dorian spoke as plainly as he knew how, voice admirably level, lifting one hand to gesture with. ‘Don’t treat me like an acquaintance with whom you crossed a line. I _know_ you, Cullen. Do not diminish what was between us once and pretend we’re strangers. You can hate me to your heart’s content—’

‘I don’t hate you.’

_I love you too much to be your friend. _

‘But don’t ever pretend that your _worst_, as I know you think of it, is anything to me but foreplay.’

Oh. Fuck. No, wait.

‘That’s—that’s not what I meant, but you understand the gist of what I’m attempting to get across,’ Dorian stuttered slightly, trying to shake the mistake away because he hadn’t meant to say _foreplay_, that definitely wasn’t the right word. Cullen was moving around the side of the massive, sturdy table now and Dorian’s nervous system experienced a jolt, adrenaline flooding through him, pushed slyly by his previously dormant magic, always waiting, always hoping. ‘You’ve nothing to… _nothing_ to apologise for, is what I mean. I’m more than used to it, h—have experienced far worse. Not worse, far more _extreme_, that’s it, that’s what I mean.’

Cullen stopped when there was barely an arm’s distance between them, watching Dorian with something like concern and regret, despite Dorian’s insistence against both.

‘I know,’ Cullen said, eyes moving between Dorian’s as the mage sought any measure of calm and failed due to Cullen’s proximity. ‘But you still deserve better.’

_Better than you_? Dorian wanted to demand, because such a concept was frankly ridiculous and needed to be corrected, but he didn’t say that, let it pile up in the category of _Things Unsaid_.

‘You did nothing that warrants any regret.’

‘It won’t happen again.’

Ah, wonderful. Dorian was _dying_ now, apparently. Gutted from the inside out, heart being cut right out of his chest. ‘Right, of course.’

‘No, I mean—like _that_. I didn’t—’ Cullen fumbled quickly, nervously and oh look, hand on the back of his neck again. ‘I didn’t mean to say it won’t—Maker, why is everything so fucking _impossible_ with you?’

Dorian’s eyes widened slightly at the outburst, allowing himself some small measure of relief that Cullen apparently _wasn__’t_ saying nothing would ever happen between them again because… because Dorian didn’t quite know how he could live without at least some small glimmer of hope.

Hope that one day, they could get past everything that happened. That Dorian could be sure it wasn’t magic driving Cullen into his arms. That they could have back what he’d so stupidly taken for granted. That one day, Cullen would let Dorian take him to new places, show him things that would bring about that look of _wonder_ that Dorian loved so far beyond the telling of it.

Cullen shook himself and closed his eyes. ‘That was—last night, wasn’t _about_ us. It was wrong of me. I don’t want things like that touching you, you’re… you should be kept clean and free of it.’

Dorian breathed a small, weak laugh, eyes moving freely over Cullen’s form while the man couldn’t see him, couldn’t judge him for taking in the sight of him with abandon. ‘I’m hardly _clean_, Cullen,’ he said gently.

Cullen opened his eyes, intensity blazing when he said, ‘Of this you are and _don__’t_ talk about yourself like that.’

Something inside Dorian was pulling intently, some _alert_ that demanded attention. When he ignored it for too long, losing himself in the strange silence growing between he and Cullen, his magic swirled carefully through him, whispering, _we are not inside him, all blood is contained, do you still not see?_

Quietly, hoarsely, Dorian said, ‘I’m just being honest.’

Cullen’s expression darkened slightly. ‘You’re clean if I say you are,’ he insisted, a hint of a challenge. ‘You’re _nothing_ like… like…’

Dorian noticed that Cullen’s hands were flexing, fists curling and uncurling and Cullen himself seemed to be trembling with something that might have passed for self-control. There were so many reasons for Dorian _not_ to kiss Cullen and he couldn’t remember a single one of them.

‘Nothing like what?’ he whispered, falling into the stare, falling prey to Cullen in every way that mattered. If Cullen kissed him now, Dorian had nothing left to restrain himself with, had not the strength that Cullen did to keep himself from making beautiful, blissful mistakes with the man he loved more than his own existence.

But Dorian’s question seemed to remind Cullen what it was they were discussing and it sobered him enough to step back just slightly.

‘We should…’ Cullen said, looking elsewhere, throat working.

Dorian nodded in agreement, not trusting himself to speak.

*

The rest of the day was bustling and non-stop. Dorian scarce had time to draw breath let alone obsess like a love-struck teenager over all things Cullen. Skyhold was no less busy for having a fraction of the population within it. There were elements that needed to be attended to, endless little things that required attention and fixing, adjusting to ensure the smooth operation of daily life. Dorian had grown up on the other side of things, had been raised with extravagance and abundance as standard. He now knew the work that went into something as simple as making food for everyone in the castle three times a day. He understood what was required to keep drinking water clean, to keep the _castle_ clean. He helped where he could, happy to apply his magic wherever it was useful.

Nalari and Pick were still helping out in the infirmary and it didn’t seem like Nalari had any intention of stopping until she was told otherwise. She carried Dawn with her everywhere, stopping now and then to feed and change her. Nalari’s demeanour brightened that grim place to no end.

Vivienne was true to her word, helping with the mages in Dorian’s stead. Privately, Dorian asked Landon how she was treating them and the mage had nothing but good things to say. 

Dorian saw very little of Keenan, but he supposed that was to be expected. He would make time for him the next day, have a proper conversation with the boy, the kind he deserved.

When darkness fell, Dorian was more than ready to actually sleep. He finished up arranging the last of the books he’d sorely neglected, books the kids had been asking to read. His library duties often fell by the wayside, but he’d had a little time towards the end of the day and so had devoted it to organising a hefty stack of books to deliver to the mage’s dorm.

‘Dorian.’

The mage looked up from the desk, closing the last of the books he’d been inspecting, making sure none of the pages were susceptible to damp. Cullen stood at the top of the stairs. He had snow in his hair and on his shoulders.

Oh shit.

‘Cullen, let me explain,’ Dorian said quickly, moving around his table. ‘I know you didn’t want anyone to fix it, but I couldn’t leave you to freeze to death so I… I, fuck, are you angry?’

Dorian genuinely couldn’t tell if Cullen was furious or confused or overjoyed. Mostly, he seemed astonished.

‘You made a window,’ Cullen said simply. ‘You… fixed the roof and you made a window.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, cringing somewhat in anticipation of what was certain to be anger. ‘I knew if I asked, you would say no.’

‘How… the _fuck_… did you make a window?’

‘Well,’ the mage began slowly, cautiously. ‘I pushed some of the bricks out, like we did in my room and I crushed them down to sand and then I,’ Dorian cleared his throat. ‘I melted the sand and made a pane of glass. It’s not very clear and you’ll probably want to get it replaced. I took wood from the unused quarters along the ramparts to frame the hole I made in the side and position the glass in there and also to cover and brace the gaps in the roof. I just thought you could have a window open instead of a hole in your ceiling. I know you liked seeing the sky at night but I couldn’t put glass in the roof because the weight of the snow… would… crack it,’ he finished lamely, regretting every moment of his _stupid_ existence.

Cullen’s jaw was slack. ‘You melted sand.’

‘Yes.’

‘To make glass.’

‘That’s how you make glass, yes.’

‘You made me a window.’

Dorian began to feel nervous. ‘Yes, _but_ I also evaporated the existing snow that was going to melt and rot your entire upper level, so before you fly off the handle, let’s just remember that I had good intentions.’

The Commander was just… standing there, breathing, staring at Dorian and bloody void, it _was_ born of anger, wasn’t it? It had to be. He was almost vacant with the force of it, like it had pushed every other emotion right out of him.

‘I’m… sorry?’ Dorian tried.

Cullen blinked hard and shook his head, something in him seeming to snap. ‘_Fuck it.__’_

He crossed the gap between them so quickly, with such _intent_, that Dorian actually flinched when he took the mage’s face in his hands.

But it wasn’t to hurt him, no.

He stared intently at the mage for a single moment; a moment, Dorian knew, that was a gift. A chance to say no, to turn away and refuse and if he refused, Cullen would respect that.

Dorian didn’t refuse, could never refuse Cullen fucking _anything_.

*

_‘Ah, Allendas, I believe you’ve met my son?’_

_Dorian_ _’s grin was wide and oh so pretty. He knew he had a lovely smile, a gorgeous thing he’d spent hours staring at in the mirror, training it to be perfect. _

_‘We’ve met, I’m sure,’ Dorian purred, offering his hand to the man who’d spent hours fucking him through the mattress of a hired room only two nights ago. Allendas, to his credit, only widened his eyes slightly, lips parting. _

_‘Uh,’ he said slowly, taking Dorian’s hand. ‘Yes, I think so.’_

_Halward was watching the interaction carefully, suspicion coiling around his eyes and Dorian just kept smiling, wine glass in hand that he_ _’d swiped from a nearby table. _

_‘The lower city avenues, yes?’ Dorian said, making sure to rub his thumb over Allendas’s knuckles in a way that Halward most definitely did _not_ miss. _

_‘Near the Circle of Magi?’ another man, Redaine, asked politely, though his eyes were glinting with amusement. They all were, all those eyes of important men, those magisters who never missed a single fucking thing. _

_‘Walking distance,’ Dorian commented, letting his hand fall by his side as he sighed. ‘Wonderful party, Father. You’ve _truly_ outdone yourself. The wine especially.__’_

_‘You shouldn’t be drinking wine,’ his father said, making no attempt to take the glass from Dorian, though. Halward knew better and Dorian loved that he was literally too _risky_ to be chastised at such a gathering. It filled him with a heady kind of power. _

_Dorian took a sip, nodding. _ _‘Too young, I suppose. Not yet sixteen.’ He met Allendas’s gaze, found himself surprised and a little impressed by how the older man didn’t waver. ‘But still, it’s delicious.’_

_‘Quite,’ Halward said blandly, looking around the room. ‘Dorian, fetch your mother to me, would you? Oh never mind, in fact. We’ll go together.’_

_‘Certainly,’ Dorian said, running his tongue across his lower lip and looking at each of the magisters in turn, saving Allendas for last. ‘Lovely to meet you again.’_

_Allendas grinned and shook his head as Dorian left and the mage felt like he was falling from the greatest, most beautiful height he_ _’d ever known. _

_*_

Cullen was an inch taller than Dorian, _barely_, but he took Dorian in a kiss that left the mage feeling like the Commander was towering over him. Their lips met in a desperate, agonised clash and there seemed to be _so fucking much_ that Cullen wanted to say, but he couldn’t, he just kissed it all into Dorian instead.

Lips moving over lips, grinding and pressing, slanting and angling and then, _yes_, Cullen’s whole body was pushing into Dorian, walking them back dangerously fast, stumbling and knocking into the desk behind them, sending all the books to the floor, their previously meticulous order long lost. Dorian wrapped his arms around Cullen’s neck, clinging on for dear life and Cullen kissed so hard and so deep it left him dizzy and panting with need, fingers sinking blissfully into Cullen’s hair.

It was everything he’d wanted to do last night, everything he’d held back.

Cullen was frantic with need, holding Dorian tightly like he was terrified if he let go even a fraction, he would lose him. When Dorian’s back hit the bookshelf, it wobbled dangerously, books clattering softly to the floor and Dorian had never cared less about broken spines and creased pages. Cullen’s tongue was so deep in his mouth, kissing him with a desperation that bordered on violence, but it toed the line, did not _become_ violence.

Dorian made a noise that could have been a sob, but it resonated like a moan and it drove Cullen, if possible, even more wild. His fingers plunged into raven curls, kissing Dorian so hard that it hurt, crushing them together like he wanted to fucking _fuse_ them for all time, crawl into Dorian, mouth first.

They were kissing like it was the end of the world.

The mage pushed his hand underneath Cullen’s armoured chest, under the shirt he’d worn last night. Dorian sought his heart, palm splaying over it protectively, not really knowing _why_. With his other arm, he curled around Cullen’s neck to keep him closer, draw them into one another deeper but it really wasn’t _possible_. There couldn’t have been an inch of space between their bodies.

It stole his breath, that kiss. Cullen was devouring him, absolutely consuming every part of him. He couldn’t kiss Cullen back _enough_, couldn’t make the outward urgency match the _explosive_ sensation inside him, his heart fit to burst and burn like a barrel of gatlock. Cullen smelled of leather and sea salt and the faintest trace of _ozone_, the kind building before a storm. He filled Dorian’s head, set it swimming and _singing_ for him.

It came to the point where the mage thought he might actually pass out. Hand firmly, _possessively_ pressed to Cullen’s heart, Dorian broke the kiss enough to take a breath. Though he could tell how badly Cullen wanted, _needed_ to keep his lips pressed to the mage, he actually reigned himself in. His trembling, unstable breath ghosted over Dorian’s face, hands cradling him, nose gently moving over the mage’s as his eyes fluttered shut.

Neither of them spoke while Dorian breathed _properly_ for what felt like the first time in months. It felt so good, like the freshest, sweetest air ever to grace his lungs. He was high on it, sky fucking high from the feel of Cullen’s heart under his palm, steady and strong and eager. From the way Cullen pressed his forehead to Dorian’s, unwilling to move away even fractionally as though distance would shatter the dream.

Dorian laughed softly, couldn’t help himself. It was a light, _beautiful _thing. He felt like _himself_, like he was surfacing. He ran his fingers through Cullen’s hair, slow and unhurried and Cullen drew back enough to take in the sight of him, the weight of whatever he saw in Dorian impacting _hard_ in those eyes of honey and amber.

And Dorian wanted to make a joke, wanted to say something flippant even. Not to belie the moment, not to undermine it, but simply to make Cullen smile. He wanted that smile more than anything else. More than he wanted Cullen to fuck him against that bookshelf, more than he wanted Cullen to move back into his room _immediately_. He wanted to iron out the line on Cullen’s forehead, the one that spoke of worry and concern, and replace it with happiness.

Cullen was so astonishingly beautiful when he smiled.

But Dorian didn’t dare undercut the moment, knew better now than to look a gift horse in the mouth. Cullen pressed his hand over Dorian’s through metal and cotton and he whispered, ‘You feel that?’ When Dorian nodded, he closed his eyes and whispered. ‘It’s all for you.’

The mage felt the world fall away, felt the physicality of it like the entire world was _tumbling_ beneath him, but he was held tight by Cullen and Cullen could fucking _fly_.

They kissed again, but it was _new_, this thing. The urgency had cooled, had _set_. Dorian remembered this feeling once before, of his love for Cullen simply taking form and crystallising for all time. This was much the same, no less impactful, no less important.

It was bittersweet and it was _everything_ when Cullen pressed a lasting, slightly chaste kiss to Dorian’s lips and then slowly drew away. Dorian made to follow him, panicking slightly but Cullen just shook his head and there, _there_ was his fucking smile. Small and half formed but _see_ how it backlit his eyes, oh, Dorian’s heart would suffer being broken a million times more just to witness that every day.

Cullen backed away, finally letting Dorian’s hand slip from his own as the mage braced himself against the bookshelf, books all around his feet. They stared at each other for a long moment, Dorian’s chest rising and falling, his magic swirling within, quiet and entirely _smug_.

He half expected Cullen to come out with something gruff and non-committal, maybe clear his throat and rub his neck again as he hovered at the top of the stairs.

But Cullen was just staring at Dorian, trying to catch his breath, pretty little vestiges of his smile playing about his eyes and the corner of his mouth.

‘I love the window,’ he said, pausing at the top step, something so very _alive_ about him. ‘Thank you.’

And Dorian Pavus, for all his impressive Tevinter wit and tea-room banter, gripped the bookcase behind him and only managed to say, ‘You’re quite welcome.’

*

Dorian slept in his own room that night and Cullen in his. Somehow, the mage just _knew_ he wasn’t going to get a visitor, to hear that soft knock and it was completely fine. Dorian couldn’t explain it, but he felt like… like he _understood_. There was something good about not rushing it, about not running and tripping. It would be good to get some _actual_ sleep anyway. He imagined Cullen in his room, window open, but the room itself _snowless_ and dry. Perhaps even warm, though that was unlikely.

He bid his mages a goodnight, all but Keenan giving him a cheery wave as they settled into their nightly routine. Dorian assumed the older boy was with Nalari and Dawn and he left them to it, wanting to give them what little privacy he could.

He closed the door behind him, trying to temper the smile by gently biting his lip, hand over his heart.

There hadn’t been any blood, no _magic_ and Cullen… Cullen had still wanted him. Had _trembled_ with how much he wanted him.

He took a bath, not an especially long one, but he let himself enjoy the water in a way he hadn’t for a very long time.

When he dreamed, alone in his silky, cool sheets, he dreamed of swimming with Cullen, of holding his breath and plunging together into deep blue water, rays of purple sunset piercing from above, dancing beams in the water around them.

*

They didn’t talk about it, but they didn’t pretend it hadn’t happened and no matter the respective silence, everyone seemed to realise that something had happened anyway.

‘Glad to see you sorted things out,’ Blackwall told Dorian after morning drills. Dorian had been mildly distracted, helping to rearrange the hall furniture back where it belonged before lunch.

‘Huh?’

‘You and Cullen,’ Blackwall said, glancing over at the Commander. ‘Haven’t seen him like this in a long time.’

Dorian frowned a little and squinted at Cullen as Blackwall walked away, his work clearly done. Cullen didn’t look any different, did he? He was chatting animatedly with Pennetell, his eyes alight and… well, all right, fairly _glowing_ and yes, _maybe_ he was laughing but… oh for fuck’s sake, now he was mock-punching Pennetell’s shoulder and Pennetell, for her part, seemed pleasantly dumbfounded.

Vivienne, who had helped immensely during the drills, caught Dorian’s eye from across the room and dropped him a highly unsubtle, emphatically self-satisfied wink and Dorian groaned, hoping he was doing a better job of containing his _patent happiness_ than Cullen was.

He could _feel_ rather than see Keenan watching the whole thing.

When Leliana joined them in the hall for lunch, it made a cosmic kind of sense that she and Cullen joined Dorian at his _mage table_, Nalari and Saffy on either side of Dorian.

‘Oh, she is _adorable_,’ Leliana cooed, sitting opposite Nalari who was rubbing Dawn’s back, the tiny baby’s chin over her shoulder.

Cullen sat beside Leliana. ‘Excellent drill today,’ he told Dorian without preamble and then greeted all of the other mages who were seated.

‘Um, thank you,’ Dorian said, just a _little_ cautiously.

‘Commander,’ Nalari chimed brightly. ‘You’re looking much better now.’

Cullen smiled again and fuck, it would be bad if Dorian just _dissolved_ into a quivery pile of shivery goo, wouldn’t it?

‘I feel much better,’ he said, reaching for the ladle, steeped in a hearty, but well-stretched bowl of stew. ‘How are things in the infirmary?’

She considered. ‘We are low on elfroot, but it’s not critical. The storm is passing well.’

‘When does the Inquisitor return?’ Saffy asked. Landon, who sat at her right, was offering her what remained in his bowl and she shook her head, wordlessly declining. Dorian very subtly leaned back in his chair, catching Landon’s gaze behind Saffy’s back and raising his eyebrows to emphasise what he’d told him before, what _advice_ he’d given him about confidence.

Landon nodded sagely and said, much too loud, ‘Actually Saffy, you _can__’t_ have my leftovers.’

Saffy looked puzzled and slightly alarmed. ‘I already said no.’

‘Yes,’ Landon said in a strong and carrying voice. ‘Yes, you did but I have now… retracted my offer anyway, so. Yes. Indeed.’

Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose and changed the subject swiftly.

‘What were you saying?’ he asked Leliana.

‘I was saying that we expect Lavellan sooner than estimated as the snows are clearing quite rapidly. There is barely any additional snowfall now. We are most fortunate.’

Dorian glanced up at the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows and afforded himself a moment to appreciate the beauty of it, of the glorious, great edifice that offered a home to so many who, Dorian among them, had nowhere else to truly _call_ home.

And when he looked back, Cullen made no effort to hide the fact he’d been watching him. Leliana smiled as she drank her water, the secret kind of grin that was apparently contagious as all out fuck lately.

‘What?’ Landon asked, looking curiously between the three adults. ‘Why is everyone smiling and staring?’

*

Cullen and Dorian ventured out of the castle together after lunch to go, as Cullen described, foraging. There was still a thin layer of snow falling, the flakes no smaller than Dorian’s little fingernail, but the sky was clearing and there were periods of actual _sun_, times when Dorian let himself look up into the white sunshine, enjoying the phantom sensation of warmth. How long had it been since he’d felt the sun his face? It felt like _years_.

‘You’re terrible at foraging,’ Cullen commented lightly.

‘Maybe,’ Dorian said, watching his footing as they made it to the bottom of the narrow, rocky slope. ‘Because I don’t know what the fuck you mean by _foraging_?’

‘You do it with Lavellan all the time,’ Cullen said. ‘We’re looking for elfroot.’

Dorian looked around. ‘In the _snow_?’

‘It can grow in all kinds of places,’ Cullen assured him. ‘Beneath trees and shrubs, it would be protected from the worst of the cold. Look, see?’ He gently brushed some of the snow away at the base of a small nearby tree, revealing familiar leaves. He plucked it carefully, root and stem intact.

‘We can plant them in the garden,’ he said. ‘Try not to damage them.’

It was quiet work and Dorian made no effort to fill it, happy to _be_ with Cullen in the absence of anything especially horrible or tense.

He was just getting the hang of pulling the plant out from the frozen earth without damaging the roots when Cullen said, ‘I wanted to come to you last night.’

Dorian’s heart gave a painful, wonderful lurch and he stood up much too quickly. ‘Oh,’ he said, _not_ swaying from blood rushing in all kinds of directions. ‘Yes. I did too.’

Cullen was watching him carefully, hesitantly. ‘I wanted to, but I felt as though we shouldn’t… probably shouldn’t push.’

Dorian wanted to agree, _mindlessly_ agree to whatever Cullen was saying but he remembered Cullen’s sentiments about _honesty _and he decided to try.

He placed his slightly ruined plant in the satchel and then looked up at Cullen, the man’s outline starkly contrasted by the glowing, gleaming white all around them.

‘I agree in principal,’ he said. ‘But it’s not about pushing, for me.’

Cullen seemed to understand. ‘Your hesitation comes from… your blood.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said. ‘And yours is that you don’t want me to feel _obligated_ or pressured to say something, to say… y’know.’

It was difficult to verbalise and evidently quite difficult for Cullen to hear. Dorian watched as Cullen struggled, but eventually succeeded in finding the right words.

‘I can’t… be without you,’ Cullen said slowly, awkwardly. ‘I don’t _want_ to be without you.’ He heaved a breath, eyes closing. ‘I will take you however I can get you, Dorian. I will respect whatever boundaries you require. I just… can’t be without you anymore. Ever since that day you remade the letter, since the connection was lost, I felt like half a man. Like I’d been physically cleaved in half. I’ll take whatever you give and that will be more than enough.’

Dorian wasn’t sure when his hand had crept over his mouth, listening to Cullen say such things. His heart was in his throat, every muscle tense and rigid. He tried to think of words, of _things_ to say in return but his mind was painfully jarred, stuck replaying little parts of what Cullen had said over and over. It didn’t feel _real_, but it had to be, didn’t it? Boots soggy, toes burning with cold, fingertips numb and prickling with icy agony.

Cullen waited and he _waited_, the little line between his eyes growing deeper as time drew on between them in silence.

‘That’s….’ Dorian shook his head, swallowing thickly. ‘I can’t be without you either. Everything you said, I feel the same. But I don’t want to—to rush _anything_ and I can’t permit any chance of my magic interfering with your state of mind.’

Deep within his mana pool, Dorian _felt_ his magic sigh impatiently, practically rolling its non-existent eyes.

_We do not interfere_, it breathed gently. _We found him, we brought him to the surface, breach and breathe, safe and ours. _

Dorian ignored it, biting down all his insecurity and uncertainty. ‘A single moment with you is worth anything, Cullen. Making you smile is worth anything, worth everything.’

And _oh_ but it made Cullen smile just to hear him say that, which was so far beyond magical that Dorian couldn’t quite believe this was his reality.

Though the urge was present, hung heavily in the cold air around them, they didn’t kiss and they didn’t clash. The moment existed between them, unchanged, unamplified. Completely pure and better than anything Dorian had ever felt, untouched. Dorian went back to picking elfroot and then they journeyed back to Skyhold together, hyper aware of every single time their hands brushed, the snow crunching beneath their boots.

*

_Halward hit Dorian across the face as soon as they were behind a closed door. The slap echoed loudly; a vicious blow that made Dorian see a burst of yellow behind his eyes, the crack ringing in his ears. His cheek burned. _

_‘You _disgust _me,__’ his father said, breathing hard. ‘How could you?’_

_Dorian didn_ _’t put his hand to the stinging cheek, wearing it proudly instead. ‘It was easy,’ he purred. ‘I can explain it if you’d like?’_

_Halward didn_ _’t flinch. ‘All this because of what happened with Erisam?’_

_Dorian gave a gentle laugh, eyebrows raised. __‘Erisam? I barely remember him. Father, I’m doing you a _favour_. Showing you what your son is many years in advance so that you can stop wasting your time, trying to encourage me to marry. To be anything less than the _disgusting_ child you regret.__’_

_Halward shook his head, mouth in a thin line. _ _‘He’s a dangerous man.’_

_Dorian sneered. _ _‘They all are, you among them.’_

_‘They use blood magic, Dorian. I would never stoop so low. The resort of a weak mind, lowering themselves to such methods!’_

_‘Yes, I’ve heard that once or twice,’ Dorian sighed, eyes rolling. ‘And I like a little danger, a little risk.’_

_‘You are a stupid child. Determinedly _shallow_ in every way and you have gone out of your way to shame me.__’_

_Aquinea came inside, a glittering smile in place that didn_ _’t falter until the door closed behind her. _

_She looked only at Dorian, at the handprint on his face. _

_‘Oh, my love,’ she sighed. ‘What have you done now?’_

_*_

True to Leliana’s prediction, Lavellan’s return was the very next day. The weary travellers arrived just before sundown, carving a clever path through the easing snows of the steepest parts of the mountain. They were spotted by a scout and when told of their approach, Dorian ran out into the snow to meet them halfway, Lavellan jumping up into his arms and hugging him tightly. He held her fast and she gasped, body tensing slightly as if in pain, but when he questioned it, she didn't let go and if anything, clung tighter.

Bull, who was missing the tip of one horn, made a suitably teasing comment about where exactly _his_ full body greeting was. A few guards came trickling down to help with tent rolls and travelling packs. Solas was remarkably subdued, though he gave Dorian a polite nod when the Tevinter mage went out of his way to be _especially_ friendly to the apostate. Dorian would need his help later, after all.

‘Ree!’ Sera greeted Dorian, joining his hug with Lavellan when it didn’t seem to be ending any time soon. ‘Where’d your tache go?’

Lavellan firmly kissed his cheek, wiping at her eyes very slightly as he set her down. ‘You look gorgeous,’ she whispered. ‘As always.’

‘Shall we venture inside?’ Solas suggested with a hint of impatience and after that, they walked together, Lavellan and Sera on either side of Dorian while Bull looked on, doubtlessly utilising all his Ben-Hassrath spy instincts to understand everything that had happened in his absence.

Once in the gates, Sera called out for Cole a few times and shrugged when he didn’t appear just as Cullen and Leliana came into view, Cullen meeting Dorian’s gaze for a single, significant moment.

‘Cullen,’ Lavellan said, looking as though she was about to hug him, but then thought better of it. ‘It’s good to see you back.’

‘Inquisitor,’ he greeted politely with a hint of discomfort that Dorian disliked immensely. ‘I am… glad to _be_ back.’

Josephine came hurrying over as the gates slammed home. She had a far more appropriate, gentle hug for Lavellan and informed all four of them that hot baths were drawn for them in their rooms, courtesy of help from the mages.

‘Perfect!’ Lavellan groaned, taking Sera’s hand in hers. ‘I desperately need a bath and then we’ll go over everything, together.’

*

There was a rather stunning amount of _everything_ and Josephine, brilliant woman that she was, organised dinner for everyone in Lavellan’s bedroom instead of standing awkwardly around the war table. Atop the sturdy spread stood three cast iron cauldrons filled with stew, plates of fresh bread and bottles of Lavellan’s wine. There were also maps, scrolls and plenty of ink and quills.

‘To Cassandra,’ Lavellan toasted solemnly. ‘May she be back with us soon.’

‘And Cole!’ Sera added. ‘Wherever he’s lurking!’

Dorian saw Cullen swallow fractionally.

Everyone echoed the Seeker’s name, Cole’s too, and began to eat, a pleasant level of chatter emanating around the table. Bull was telling Blackwall, Josephine and Varric the story of how he’d lost the top part of his horn to a Highland Ravager. Vivienne and Solas seemed to be in deep conversation about something that Dorian couldn’t pretend to keep up with, magical theory and _Fade_ walking and really, how was he supposed to pay attention to anything when Cullen was sat directly beside him?

Leliana and Lavellan were clearly talking business all the way through the dinner, albeit subtly, which left Dorian, Sera and Cullen to chat amongst themselves.

‘Fucking crazy,’ she said again, ripping apart the bread with her teeth. ‘I mean, even _after_ we kill Coryphybeans, there’s just so much _mental _out there. Red Templars and demons and Fade rifts and that’s without even mentioning all the standard _evil_,’ she went on, dunking the bread in the thick, brown stew. ‘Being a bloody hero is _exhausting_.’

‘You seem to manage it well,’ Cullen told her.

Sera grinned wide, face stuffed full of bread. ‘Awww fanks! S’goodtaseeyougen!’

Dorian chuckled and when Cullen reached for some water, he leaned across the mage, their bodies briefly pressing. It was like an electric shock, like something very flammable inside of Dorian catching fire on a single, tiny ember. It sent heat spiralling through him, set his cheeks aflame and _what the fuck_, Cullen had barely even touched him.

‘Well,’ Lavellan said after the sounds of eating died down and Dorian had forced himself into a calmer state. ‘Shall we get down to business?’

It was a hefty amount of business.

At first, it was purely catching up. Lavellan listened to everyone who had something to say. When she was caught up on the smaller, domestic issues, she began to ask about Hawke.

It was mostly Vivienne and Cullen who fielded these elements of the explanations. Vivienne told Lavellan in depth of her undercover mission to gain Hawke’s trust, of everything she knew about his _master_. Cullen spoke with quiet authority over how Hawke had attacked Skyhold, how he infiltrated and what magic he used on the doors causing a lockdown. He left out the finer points of how Hawke was captured, namely that it was _Cullen_ who broke the lockdown by channelling Dorian’s magic.

Leliana then took over explaining about what they had learned from Hawke. When Bull asked what interrogation methods were used, Leliana smiled and answered, ‘None but liquid persuasion.’

‘And he’s alive still?’ Lavellan asked, chin resting on her steepled fingers.

‘Very much so,’ the Spymaster answered.

‘Well,’ Lavellan sighed, taking it all in. ‘Though there are elements we will need to go over in more detail, I can see that in my absence, you’ve done the Inquisition proud. Oh, fuck that,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You’ve done _us_ proud. All of us, we _are_ the Inquisition. I’m proud of us, of everything we’ve done, no matter the cost.’

She caught the Commander’s eye for just a moment and Dorian, unable to help himself, slid his hand into Cullen’s, hidden by the table above. Cullen took it quickly, squeezed gently and held it for the duration of Lavellan’s side of things.

*

_‘What have you done?’_

_Dorian and Halward glared at each other but it was the older Pavus who broke first. ‘He was bragging of his suspension.’_

_Aquinea’s expression remained sharp and suspicious. She looked between them both, seeking out signs of weakness. ‘Is that the truth?’ she asked her son. _

_Dorian _longed_ to tell her that no, it wasn’t true at all and if she wanted some truth, he had some to give her. _

_‘Yes,’ he said, rolling his eyes and rubbing his cheek. ‘And I got slapped for it which seems, in my humble opinion, an overreaction.’_

_Halward’s mouth was a barely visible line of control and fury. ‘Perhaps it was,’ he managed to say in a tight voice. _

_‘Dorian, you know how important this party is to us,’ his mother said, replacing his hand with her own upon his cheek and gifting him a little healing magic, a caress of warmth and something sweet. ‘Not to mention that this would be a wonderful opportunity for you to mingle.’_

_Dorian groaned. ‘Mother, _no_!’_

_‘Mother, yes,’ she insisted primly. ‘There are many lovely girls out there, some of whom would make an exceptional match for you, my love. Don’t antagonise your Father simply for the sake of it,’ she added with a secret little smile. ‘That’s my job.’_

_Halward sighed with unrestrained disgust and left the room. Dorian watched him go, feeling smug but somehow unsatisfied. _

_‘Your suspension is nothing to be proud of,’ she reminded him, straightening the long, curving collar of his outfit. ‘You’re lucky they’ll even let you go back.’_

_‘Lucky you donated a new library.’_

_She raised an eyebrow in warning and Dorian fell silent, censured in a way that his father could never, ever manage. _

_‘I know it feels like challenging him is important,’ she said, brushing him off and stepping back to survey him. ‘And I’ve no doubt it feels good, but he won’t be here forever, my love. Don’t taint your relationship with him beyond repair.’_

_‘He hates me,’ Dorian stated, quite without inflection, belying the way it cut to speak aloud. _

_‘He loves you, silly boy,’ she said in a warning tone. ‘He just makes the mistake all men do with their sons. Wanting the best for them. His best and your best will never meet in the middle and if they did, I would worry that we had not raised you to be your own man.’_

_Dorian cracked a grin and followed his mother out of the room once she deemed his appearance well enough to return to the party, now in full swing. _

_‘In that, dear Mother,’ he said, dropping a kiss upon her soft cheek. ‘You have excelled.’_

_*_

It was late by the time they’d finished but Dorian now knew much more about Eluvians than he did before and he knew there was a battle coming; a race to the finish line to steal what the Elder One wanted before he could get his claws into it. Morrigan would be joining them in Skyhold in a few days and, it seemed, accompanying them on this final _push_.

It was going to be chaos, more endless days of travelling, much like the journey to Adamant. Lavellan had told them all to prepare, to make ready in the coming days. There was a sense of finality in the air, something that wasn’t quite fear, but instead, a deep understanding of the need for preparation.

Dorian couldn’t help but feel nervous in the face of it. The memories of Adamant had lost their vivid colour, but the _sounds_ had not waned in the slightest. The pitch of screaming soldiers, the roaring hiss of mages being incinerated, the snarls of a dragon and the wet, sick crunch of bodies beneath rock. He still awoke sometimes, sweat drenched and gasping, body drowning in adrenaline and fear.

But there were things to do in the meantime. No matter how much Dorian wanted to swing by Cullen’s quarters, see how he was getting on with the window, he went to visit Solas instead. The elven mage was not in his usual circular area, instead he was in the Undercroft, attending to his staff which had become damaged somewhere on the way back from the Emprise de Lion.

‘Dorian,’ he greeted quietly, the Undercroft dark and cold, filled with the sounds of rushing water once more now that the snows were ebbing. ‘Dagna has crafted a most impressive masterwork for me. I fear her talents are, and will continue to be, grossly under-utilised.’

Solas seemed rather more tired than usual but Dorian couldn’t let that dissuade him. Maker knew this conversation was already going to be difficult enough.

‘Yes, what she did with the Nook is fairly astounding.’

Solas frowned, running his fingers over the staff. ‘Nook?’

Dorian cleared his throat. ‘I uh, I actually came to—’

‘You need my help,’ Solas said, focused on the bladed end, squinting at it. ‘Some area of expertise in which you lack and I excel, no doubt.’

‘Well,’ Dorian sighed, crossing his arms. ‘There’s no need to sound _that_ smug. Yes, I need your help and yes I require your expertise.’

Solas was mostly blank and calm when he looked up at Dorian.

‘Your blood magic?’

Dorian sulked. ‘Yes.’

‘Vivienne said you’ve had issues connecting and bonding with it.’

‘I shouldn’t _have_ to bond with my own magic.’

‘Yes, why should you have to exert any effort or energy at all to explore the nuances of a magic completely different to that which you’ve housed your entire life? How terribly inconvenient.’

‘Look, I’m _going_ to bond with it, all right? I’ll—I’ll devote a whole day to it. Take it to lunch, visit a spa and then stay up all night reading to it. In the meantime, however, I want to know how it can act this way.’

Solas ran a small amount of his magic through the staff, the end lighting up in a bright green glow. ‘Act in what way?’

‘Like it’s sentient.’

‘Magic _is_ sentient.’

‘Right, but… like it’s alive. Like it has an actual life of its own.’

Solas sighed again. ‘Dorian, is it too much to hope that in Tevinter they teach about _control_? If you don’t reign in your magic, by way of coming to know it, then it will control you. It will indeed take over as you are describing.’

‘Then I’m describing it wrong because that’s not it!’ Dorian snapped. ‘It’s… is all blood magic like this?’

The apostate eyed him warily. ‘Like _what_?’

Dorian’s teeth ground together for a few seconds before he finished weighing the pros and cons of honesty. ‘Very well,’ he said grudgingly. ‘You know that a few months ago, Cullen and I were sharing my magic.’

‘I was aware of something to that extent yes, but I was under the impression that it was accidental.’

‘It mostly was,’ Dorian explained. ‘And there was some kind of _connection _between us, probably forged by the magic.’

‘Cullen can channel magic properly?’ Solas enquired, seeming at last genuinely interested. ‘Not just for the sensation?’

‘If I push my magic into him,’ Dorian said. ‘He can use it, yes.’

‘As in, actually cast?’

‘Yes. In Adamant, he used it against Hawke. He created a shield.’

‘Was he touching you at the time?’

‘No. He also… later he heated the water for me. It was… well, he was touching me that time.’

Solas’s eyes were rounded with curiosity. ‘That is most unusual, but,’ he said nodding to himself. ‘I suppose theoretically, due to his sustained lyrium use it is possible his body has been conditioned to receive unnatural power throughout the years. What of the effects?’

‘Well, that’s one of the reasons I’m seeking your expertise.’

‘Indeed?’

‘I wanted to ask if one of the side effects could be…’ Dorian waved one hand and rubbed the back of his neck with the other as Solas waited. ‘Romantic… feelings?’

The corner of that fucking elf’s mouth quirked. ‘Are you asking me if _magic_ has caused Cullen to have feelings for you?’

‘I think it might be more to do with my blood, and _yes_, that’s what I’m asking,’ Dorian ground out. ‘There’s most definitely some kind of effect whenever he…’

Solas tilted his head. ‘Consumes your blood?’

Dorian glared dully but didn’t contradict him and after a few moments indulging in amusement at Dorian’s expense, Solas spoke again.

‘There would be a brief, temporary aphrodisiac effect, but beyond that, no. Magic cannot be used to induce love, Dorian. You know that.’

‘I didn’t say _love_.’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘And I was thinking more along the lines that it might be blood magic of some sort.’

‘Well,’ Solas admitted. ‘That would be different. It wouldn’t be love, of course. Obsession, slavery, mindless and destructive, but yes, it’s possible to bind someone to you with blood magic.’

_I forget my name. You become the still point of the turning world. _

‘I—I see.’

‘But,’ the elf offered. ‘Your transition from natural to blood magic is recent. There is no way you could have used it accidentally, let me put it that way and even if you _had_, you would know.’

‘How?’

Solas touched Dorian’s hands very carefully, lifting and examining them. ‘The same way you know now, without a doubt, that your magic is forever altered. Could you mistake this magic for the kind you were born with?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Well, there you are then.’

Dorian frowned when Solas released his hands and stood before him expectantly. It didn’t make _sense_. Cullen admitted there was an effect, but it couldn’t _only_ be an aphrodisiac. It made Cullen so unlike himself, so _different_ from his thunderous moods, his overcast scowl, his detachment from people and emotions.

‘Can you…? _Would_ you please do me a favour, one which I would hold in the highest regard, and check for me?’

Solas seemed doubtful. ‘You want me to _check_ that Cullen’s feelings for you are genuine?’

‘Check my _blood_,’ Dorian corrected with a scowl. ‘Obviously.’

‘Dorian, with you nothing is obvious and I cannot _check_ your blood for anything. What you are requesting is a highly nuanced, subtle process of communing with the essence of your magic.’

‘Yes, that. One of those, please.’

Solas set his staff down on the floor, eyes fluttering skyward. ‘You owe me a rather large favour,’ he pointed out. ‘Don’t think for a moment I won’t come calling one day to collect it.’

‘Anything,’ Dorian promised hastily. ‘What do you—’

‘Place your hands in the starting position.’

Dorian arranged his hands as if he was holding a large crystal ball before him, creating a circle of fingers and palm. The space in between vibrated and the aim shimmered. It was how all young mages were first taught to call upon their magic.

‘Good, now hold the position while I take a small droplet of blood.’

Dorian watched, keeping stock still, as Solas nicked his thumb with a precise cut of magic and swiped the small bead of red that bloomed. The apostate then rubbed the blood between his own thumb and forefinger, eyes falling closed as his hand glowed white.

And then nothing happened for at least five minutes. Blood trickled lazily down Dorian’s thumb, down his wrist until the cut clotted and stoppered itself. His magic was sweetly singing of all they might accomplish together now that he had drawn blood, that they shouldn’t waste it, but Dorian ruthlessly ignored it. Solas wore an intent frown as he _communed_ with Dorian’s magic by way of his blood.

Dorian’s arms were starting to ache by the time Solas finished. He nodded towards Dorian’s hands and the mage was relieved to let them drop, taking his thumb into his mouth and sucking the blood clean.

‘Well?’

Solas seemed troubled.

_For fuck’s sake._

‘I communed with your magic at some length,’ he said, looking off to the side. ‘I found it conceited and demanding, much like yourself, though undeniably powerful. There is much you do not know of it, Dorian. It is capable of more than you are using it for.’

Dorian waved his hand impatiently. ‘Yes, yes.’

‘I will explain what I can, but most prevalent was the blood curse. Your magic spoke to me of many things, but that is the…’ Solas considered. ‘Hmm, the _main concern_, the focus of it.’ Dorian opened his mouth to say he didn’t _care_ about the fucking blood curse, but Solas was already back to enjoying the sound of his own voice. ‘Blood curses are not often built to last, they become unstable and they fray with time. With enough years passed, they can evolve and shift, becoming what some might consider alive in many respects, much as your blood magic feels to you. This curse has been left for many years now and as such, it has evolved into something quite dangerous and insidious. Your magic seeks to destroy it.’

‘Solas,’ Dorian said, determined _not_ to snap. ‘I truly appreciate your insight, but I couldn’t care less about my blood curse.’

Solas looked at Dorian as if he was very, _very_ stupid.

‘I’m not speaking of your curse. I’m talking about Cullen’s.’

*


	22. Elsewhere

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘I do not care to repeat myself to better your sense of stability.’

‘No, really… _what?__’_

Dorian was staring at Solas and he knew he must have looked fairly ridiculous but he couldn’t bring himself to care. The water crashed down behind them and Dorian could taste something damp and cold and _sharp_ in the air. The aftertaste of Solas’ magic mingled with the waterfall.

‘You didn’t know.’

‘I didn’t know _what_? Cullen isn’t… he’s not cursed.’ Dorian’s throat closed up momentarily as a nasty, unbidden fear crept through him. ‘Unless… did I somehow give him _my_ curse? Oh Maker, is that what this is?’

‘Dorian,’ Solas said firmly. ‘Do us both a favour and _shut up_. I’d like to rest at some point tonight and if I have to stand around waiting for you to finish working yourself up into a fine frenzy, my chances of sleep are non-existent.’

It was a mark of the situation that Dorian meekly nodded and fell silent as commanded by the apostate.

‘Good, now listen very carefully to what I’m telling you, not least because I don’t particularly look forward to explaining myself over and over beyond this occasion. Are you listening?’

Dorian’s hands balled tightly. ‘Yes.’

‘Very well. I will preface by saying that everything you need to know, _everything_ I’m about to tell you, can be confirmed and discovered yourself, simply by way of communing with the essence of your magic. It has been _trying_ to communicate these same elements to _you_, but you have been ignoring it. I’ve rarely encountered a kind of magic with such will and purpose and that purpose is shaped by Commander Cullen.’

Dorian could feel his magic, he could _always_ feel it, but in that moment he reached inside so very cautiously and touched it. The effect was immediate; it undulated and swirled like a sea snake, pleased at the attention.

‘Why?’ he whispered.

‘Of that, I am uncertain. There is _some_ manner of link between your blood magic and this curse of Cullen’s, but that link is not the origin. It could have been forged by the blood sharing you mentioned or it could simply have been shaped by the sheer strength of your… _affections_ for Cullen. Regardless of how the connection came to be, your magic is highly aware of, and, in fact, quite determined to break Cullen’s blood curse.’

The Tevinter mage felt undeniably childish when he said, ‘Cullen doesn’t have a blood curse.’

Solas glared. ‘What did I say about shutting up? Cullen’s curse is old. It is deeply ingrained in him and your magic, from what I gathered, has been attempting to free him of it.’

‘I…’ Dorian’s mouth was open, spluttering slightly. ‘I don’t understand.’

The elf made a face as if to say, _well, obviously. _‘Cullen has a blood curse that predates the one I can sense in _your_ blood. Yours itself is quite old and especially malicious. Curses born of anger are often some of the worst, left to turn spiteful and cruel over time, they are highly dangerous. Cullen’s was not born of anger.’

‘What _was_ it born of?’

Solas frowned intensely, looking down while he considered. ‘It’s very hard to put into words and because your magic is not my own, there is a gap in the language, but it wasn’t anger. Your magic communicated it as _ownership_, of Cullen not being able to breathe until it brought him to the surface.’

Something like alarm shot through Dorian. ‘What did you say?’

‘Your magic insisted that without it, Cullen couldn’t—’

‘No, the—the surface bit.’

‘Yes, Cullen’s curse apparently manifests like water, like—’

‘A lake?’

The apostate nodded. ‘Yes, it could be called that.’

Dorian’s jaw was practically on the floor. ‘Void take me,’ he breathed. ‘Cole’s been trying to tell me this for months. _Cullen is a very deep lake._ Fucking Maker!’

‘Cole’s intuition is usually quite precise.’

‘Solas, who placed this curse on Cullen?’

‘I have no idea. There is no way of ascertaining such information from _your_ magic.’

‘Could you learn more if it was Cullen you were examining?’

Solas seemed annoyed. ‘In theory, yes,’ he answered slowly. ‘Though that was _not_ our original agreement.’

Dorian tried very hard to calm himself, but he ended up pacing anyway, boots echoing slightly as he marched back and forth. ‘What is the purpose of Cullen’s curse?’

‘Again, it’s unclear.’

The mage stopped pacing. ‘Can you tell what _my_ curse entails?’

‘Not without provoking it to action. Blood curses can live dormant inside a host, burrowed in their blood for many years. Yours seems to be the kind that often sleeps. Cullen’s is apparently less dormant.’

‘Solas,’ Dorian said, gesturing in a controlled, desperately polite manner. ‘I am happy to admit here and now that yours is the superior intellect, all right? Please, speak plainly to me.’

The apostate seemed to take a small amount of pity on Dorian. ‘Cullen’s curse operates in a way that, according to _your_ magic, keeps him submerged most of the time. What _submerged_ means, I cannot say with any authority, _but_ if I have to read between the lines, given the context and my limited knowledge of Cullen Rutherford as a person, I would say it started out as a primitive curse to prevent him from experiencing happiness.’

Dorian felt _sick_, his head too full of thoughts, too many tumbling realisations. ‘And how old is it?’ he asked, although he already knew the answer. He’d known it from the moment Solas told him that Cullen - beautiful, tormented Cullen who had never been _happy_ until he met Dorian - was stricken with a very old blood curse.

‘Hard to determine, but I would venture at least ten years old.’

‘And this is the reason why my magic is acting in such a way?’

Solas picked up his staff from the ground, twirling it once. ‘Perhaps you should seek the answer to that question yourself, Dorian. Everything you need to know is right there inside you.’

The Tevinter mage gave the apostate a withering look, despite how he felt and how insanely indebted he was to him. ‘You could just _tell me_ to fuck off, you know.’

Solas chuckled as he left and Dorian remained rooted to the spot, staring at nothing, mind scrambling to catch up.

*

All Dorian’s plans to sleep were nought but a distant fucking memory as he left the Undercroft after Solas, positively vibrating with the need to find Cullen and tell him everything.

But he knew he couldn’t, not yet. He needed to be sure, first. He needed to know everything; the fullest extent of what his magic could tell him about this curse.

So he went to his room and tried to prepare. To calm his nerves, he drank a glass of wine all in one go, trembling hands setting the container down on the table as he wiped his mouth.

It had been many years. Not since he was a teenager had he needed to learn about the essence of his magic and even then, it had always come naturally to him, the understanding of his classification. How he shaped the mana, how he channelled it

He yanked off his shirt, making the room warm and he sat on his soft fur rug, crossing his legs.

Dorian let out a breath that shuddered with nerves, but when he inhaled, he began to steel himself. In and out, slow and steady. The process wore on and his muscles began to relax. When his body was in a calmer state, he let his consciousness wander inward. It was dark at first, it always was, but there, when he searched, was a small speck of light.

It was a dark, glittering thing, small and richly purple.

It had been waiting for him.

Dorian kept breathing in the same controlled way, flexing his fingers and biting his cheek because he hadn’t… hadn’t done this yet, he didn’t _know_ this magic and it was blood magic, at the end of the fucking day.

Your_ blood magic_, it whispered, speaking directly to him without actually _speaking_, unwinding and stretching. Dorian watched how it glistened and gleamed like diamonds submerged in blackberry wine. _We are yours and you are ours. We are what you make of us and you make nothing of us, so we tend where we wish. _

Dorian shaped his speech into thoughts, turned words to sensations.

**And what is it you wish?** he thought, and his magic understood, of course it understood, it was _him_.

_We wish for Cullen_, it answered longingly and heartfelt. Dorian could feel the intensity of the sentiment. _We ache for him. Inside is where we wish to be. He can shape us, bend us into beauty and destruction. We are total as is he. We are magnificent and he sees it. _

**Tell me about Cullen** **’s curse.**

His magic gave him what could only be described as a cool, narrow kind of faceless stare. It turned distant and haughty, inching away from him as though maybe it had better places to be. _Why should we speak with you now? You reject us, you push us away and listen not to our immense wisdom. You are not worthy of us. Cullen is worthy of us. He glows to bear us. You are ashamed. _

**I am sorry for that**, Dorian tried, but his magic moved away when he tried to touch it. **I****’m not ashamed of you, I’m… I do not know you. **

_That fault is yours. We are here, patient and brilliant and yet, you ignore us. _

**I** **’m here now** ** _. _ **

That glittering dark magic observed him in a calculating manner. _You are here now because of Cullen. _

**No, even if you tell me nothing of Cullen, I will ignore you no more. I _must _know you. You are mine and I am yours. **

_Cullen is ours too,_ it was quick to add. _He is ours in a way that not even you can compete with. We are born of your blood and your blood birthed his pain, poured onto paper, anchored and reborn_. _It was our purpose, it was our imprint. Cullen is ours and we will not neglect him as you have neglected us. _

**I regret that, truly. I should not have neglected you. **

_You miss the _other, it sneered disdainfully. _The other was weak and unable to help Cullen like we can. It forged feeble threads where we make ropes of iron, haul him up, breach and breathe. He is ours, we will make him ours, we have the power to save him. _

**Save him from what?**

_From beneath. We are strong enough for him, to keep him above, keep him with you and, therefore, us. You ignore us but we will tend where we like. We will keep him safe because he is ours. _

Before Dorian could even think his next question, his magic turned abruptly, colours shimmering in the dark as it fixed its gaze upon him.

_Why do you shy from this power, Dorian? You were made for power and we are all you will ever need. Tell us why. _

Dorian shook his head slightly, body suspended in the real world and he fell deeper into the trance, into himself.

**Blood magic is corrupting. I fear dying as a symbol of everything I despised. **

_We will not corrupt you, _it promised. _You birthed us not to kill or maim. We have divine purpose. Cullen is our purpose_. Cullen_ is ours, entirely._

**Cullen belongs to no one**, Dorian pointed out.

His magic laughed; a shudder of amusement, brightening all that purple. _Whose then, if not ours? Foolish Dorian, lying to your own self. We see all you do and feel, we flow with your thoughts, we _are_ your thoughts. He is yours and therefore, ours. We will share him with you. We are generous in all ways. You and we are one and the same, would you but accept us and what we can give you. _

**I****’m not going to bleed again, not for the purposes of magic**.

The magic, despite not having a body, seemed to shrug.

_We could give you power beyond all you know, but you fear what you do not understand. We will not make you bleed. We cannot force you nor would we, despite how you sneer at us. We do not mind. You are riddled with limitations and doubt, not like our Cullen. _

Dorian observed, wholly fascinated, as his magic turned warm and temperate; a glowing, radiant violet colour running through the length of it in pulsing waves. It emanated with desire, deep and sincere.

_Cullen, _it sang._ We long for Cullen. Take us to him, Dorian. We rejoice in his closeness, it pleases us to see him smile. We will make him smile, stir waves of happiness in him unlike anything he has ever felt. He is worthy and strong, our beautiful Cullen. Take us to him. We miss him, we crave him. Where is he? He might be cold and alone, sinking and drowning because we are not with him. _The magic stretched and vibrated. _Push us into him, Dorian. Push us deep and let us stay there, this time. We will stay with him as he wishes. We will never let him go. _

**Do you love Cullen because I love Cullen?**

There, his magic turned still and dim. It paused and grew silent. Dorian was unsure of what had even happened, when he felt an overwhelming sense of fear blossom in his core.

_Do not speak such things_, it warned quietly. _You will wake it._

**My blood curse. **

_It slumbers now, but it watches you often. It waits, it has waited many years. It is evil. We shudder when it wakes, we saw how it smiled that day you birthed us. We saw it and we do not want to see it again. Let it sleep, Dorian. _

**What is it waiting for? Do you know how it works?**

_It waits for the perfect moment, but we dare not touch it to see. It is a liquid demon, hiding in your blood. It would see you die in the worst, most painful way. It bides, making wine of your misery, sweeter with time and heartbreak. Do not wake it. We can have Cullen in every way but that. He is ours, breach and breathe, always ours. _

**Can you tell me about Cullen** **’s curse?**

_We will break it, bring him to the surface and keep him there. We are stronger than the _other_. We will protect him. We will break it. _

**What is it, his curse?**

_We are the light that guides him to the surface, that penetrates the darkest of blues. _

**Please. **

_You have seen it. Touched it. Been touched. It is coldness, cruelty. It is hating, inward and outward. An anchor that weighs him down, keeps him low, keeps him drowned. We are strong enough for him now and he is so worthy of our strength, of our brilliance. You never let us shine. Cullen is made whole with us inside him, much as you are when he is inside you. We are intertwined, us three. His curse cannot compete with our strength. We are the light and Cullen is ours._

Distantly, Dorian acknowledged that he was starting to feel his body less and less, falling deeper into himself, determined to learn all he could.

**Who cursed him** _?_

_How are we to know? We only feel the pull of it, ever downward, ever sinking. It would pull him down and keep him there, draining his light. We are all the light he needs. You are his light. You know this now. You believe us at last. We were growing tired of telling you and being ignored. _

**I believe you, yes. **

It gave a happy twirl then, glowing and glimmering. _When can we be inside of him again? There is sticky blue within him still and we will burn it away, replace it with _us_. We like when you are inside him, but we would like him inside you more. We are a triangle, powerful and strong and sharp. Let us be inside him while he is inside you. We and Cullen will take such good care of you, Dorian. You would like that, we know. _

The mage adopted what he hoped was a stern, mental frown. **Don****’t try to trick me into feeding him my blood. **

_It is inevitable, _his magic said softly. _He longs for us inside and soon he will not need your blood. Once the sticky blue is gone, we will bond and then he may call upon us as he wishes. Where is he, our Cullen? You are foolish not to have him close at all times. Let us seek him out now. _

**What does that mean?**

_You ask that often. Your fear leeches your instincts. We are bored of your questions. Cullen has no questions, only praise. He loves to see us work, desires to see more of us and all the beauty we craft. Take us to him. _

**Not yet. What does that mean, _bond_?**

_When there is no more sticky blue, we will have space to sink into him, to latch and fuse. We will be patient though. We are masterful and enduring. _

Dorian thought of Adamant. **Cullen will be able to draw upon my magic whenever I****’m close by, without contact and without blood?**

_He is worthy. Once there is no blue, we will remake him in violet, take every fracture and meld him whole. He will know magic. You and he will walk lands unknown and all will tremble to see you and we will bask, resplendent between you as is our divine purpose. _

The magic was singing now as colour ran through it like an electric rainbow. The song was familiar, a slight variation of the one it had sung within Cullen, if a little quieter. A soft symphony that ranged the spectrum of all colour.

**Does Cullen know that he** **’s cursed?**

_Cullen only knew lightless depths until there was you and then us. He felt it like sadness, like a weight that lifts when you are near. We have him now, we will not let the anchor take him again. _

**Is the curse something I could break?**

_Like yours, it lives in his blood. It drowns him, first a trickle then a flood. We are the light, we bring him to the surface and soon we will shatter those depths, clean his blood and run through him ourselves. You must let us inside him, let us cleanse him and gift him our glorious strength. We long to be inside him, he is our worthy one, he is the reason we shine so brightly, dazzling for all to see. Where is he, our Cullen? Bring us to him and kiss him again, nudge your lip between his teeth and beg him to bite. Spill us, make the way wet and ready and we will crash into him, dissolving the sticky blue, filling the hole it has made in him for all time. We are the remedy, we are the light. He will push into you and we will swim between you both. Perhaps then we will forgive you, Dorian. We can be forgiving. _

It was dizzying, the suggestion of his magic and there was no real way of differentiating it from Dorian’s own desire. Distantly he felt himself falling, felt a soft, dull thud on the back of his head.

**This bond you want to create, is it blood magic? **

_It was not blood magic before, was it? Your _other_ was weak but even they were capable of connecting to our Cullen. Weak threads you snapped when you birthed us. We regret nothing. We are all the splendour of the Fade and the other was a mere echo. It will not be blood magic. Cullen is worthy of us, his beautiful body has a home for us within and it will be pure. A space, carved and dug by the sticky blue. We will bond there when it is clear. Take us to him, Dorian. We would have him now. We tire of you and your ways, your denial and your ignorance. Cullen is ours, he will come undone for us and we shall remake him, glorious and magical, Soporati no more. Worthy human, worthy vessel. Ours for all time. _

Dorian was finding it hard to breathe, but he didn’t need to breathe down there, did he? He sank deeper and the light behind him faded a little more.

**Why****…** he shook himself but found he had no body to shake. **Why is Cullen your divine purpose? **

_When first we were born, we were young and confused,_ his magic sang softly. _We were bled with pain and loss onto a page and then there was even more pain. We were muddled when we first met with Cullen, we did not realise he was ours. All we knew was screaming and hurting and when he left, we were glad for you, we did not know who he was yet. Only when he returned, only when we touched him in the snow that night, did we realise. _

**Realise what?**

_That he is ours. He has always been ours. We are bound to him as we are bound to you, through paper and pain and blood for ink. Even without that pain, we would seek to bring him to the surface. Without the bond, we would desire him. He is worthy and he is ours. We will stay with him, we will never let him go. _

So very distantly, Dorian felt like the body he no longer had was being shaken. It was odd, more like the _memory_ of being touched by frantic hands, a worried voice calling his name.

His magic positively _beamed. _

_Wonderful_, it chimed happily. _He has come to us. See how he cannot be away for long. _The magic purred and swam contentedly, glittering all the more. _See how he adores us, Dorian? He longs for us, is drawn to us even when he wishes to show you restraint. Do as we bade. We desire to be inside him once more. Go and pour us into him, our beautiful Cullen. _

The mage was confused, slowly losing the ability to think, let alone understand what was happening to the body he’d once had.

His magic curled impatiently. _We said **go**!_

There was a spectacular amount of force and all that glittering darkness and pulsing spectrum of violet faded as light whooshed in, followed painfully by sensation and sound, taste and touch.

Dorian crashed back into his body with a violent jolt, heart positively thundering against his ribs as he took great gulps of air.

Cullen was above him, relief flooding his features.

‘You,’ the Commander gasped, cradling Dorian’s head in his lap, eyes flashing. ‘Absolute fucking _moron_!’

*

‘What happened?’ Cullen asked insistently as he helped Dorian get to his feet. ‘You’re lucky I saw the light under the door, or I wouldn’t have thought to disturb you! What were you doing? What was happening with your magic?’

Dorian groaned and clutched his head. It felt like the worst fucking hangover of his entire life and the strain around his heart was more than worrying, but Cullen was there, Cullen had brought him back and that was really all he cared about.

‘I was—ah!’ he winced, as the harsh light of too many candles burned the back of his skull. He doused a few and let Cullen walk him to the bed. ‘I was communing with my magic.’

Cullen sat him down carefully, bending quickly to pull his boots off. ‘Well, it looked like it was killing you,’ he grumbled. ‘Don’t do it again, whatever it entailed. You were barely breathing, just lying there, _glowing_.’

‘I didn’t realise I’d gone so deep,’ Dorian croaked and slowly, things began to stabilise. His vision was no longer swimming, his sense of balance was returning, fingertips tingling as blood rushed back to them, back everywhere it had been neglecting because Dorian had almost _left_ his body, like an idiot. Like a moron, as Cullen had called him. ‘It was stupid of me.’

‘Very,’ Cullen agreed sternly, yanking off a sock as though it had personally impugned his honour. ‘Why were you doing… whatever that was?’

Dorian rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. Fuck, where to even _begin_?

‘Cullen—’

‘You don’t need to tell me,’ the Commander said quickly, swiftly rising to plump Dorian’s pillows. ‘As long as you’re all right, that’s all I care about.’ And Dorian was dazed and he was overwhelmed, but he didn’t miss the way his magic purred within him, self-satisfied and ridiculously smug. ‘Sit back, I’ll get you some water.’

Dorian sat back, mostly because he needed to and he watched Cullen retrieve an empty water pitcher and a wine glass. He sat on the bed beside Dorian and held the pitcher out gently, expectantly.

The mage filled it with ice and then melted it almost all the way, leaving a few chunks to keep it cool. Cullen watched the entire thing, leaning over slightly to see inside the rim of the pitcher.

Dorian’s magic preened.

‘Thank you,’ Dorian said when Cullen poured it out for him. He took a gulp, their hands touching briefly as the glass was exchanged, the ice tinkling gently against the side. The water was cool and soothing, spilling down his hot, dry throat. Cullen observed him with unrestrained concern and… and other things, Dorian thought. When Dorian finished, he reached out slightly and stroked the side of Dorian’s face.

‘I thought,’ he said, the words catching like they were stuck. ‘It was your curse.’

Dorian’s heart _stopped_. Missed a whole beat, painful and jarring.

‘You…’

‘I saw you lying there, surrounded by magic and I…’ Cullen swallowed, wincing. ‘I thought it was your curse, that you were dying.’

The mage placed his hand over Cullen’s and closed his eyes. ‘It wasn’t my curse,’ he managed to say, gripping the calloused hand tightly.

‘Good,’ Cullen said, nodding to himself. ‘That’s good. It would also be good if you could _stop_ almost dying. This is the third time.’

An awkward silence yawned between them as they veered into dangerous territory, near things that had not yet been discussed.

‘Adamant didn’t count,’ Dorian said weakly, mostly to break the silence.

The Commander’s countenance was grave when he said, ‘Oh it didn’t, no? I didn’t witness you fall from a height that no man could survive into the Abyssal Rift? I _saw_ you fall, Dorian. You were gone.’

‘I _meant_,’ Dorian said thickly, Cullen’s hand slipping from his face. He chased it quickly, twined their fingers together. ‘That it didn’t count because it wasn’t just me.’

Cullen stared at the connection, jaw working slightly. ‘It _felt_ like it was just you. It felt…’

But whatever else it felt like, Cullen didn’t seem to be able to verbalise. After a few seconds of silent struggle, he shook his head and brought Dorian’s hand to his lips, pressing a fervent kiss upon the soft, unused skin.

It felt profound, that small motion. They were caught in something, something _important_ and Dorian had so much to tell Cullen he genuinely didn’t know where to begin. Cullen knelt before him, grasping his hand as if it was precious and Dorian tried to think of a good way, or _any_ way, to inform Cullen that as of this very moment and for the last eleven years, he was cursed by blood magic.

‘You’re cold,’ Cullen said while Dorian was still parsing decent sequiturs around in his head. ‘Do you want a bath?’

‘Um,’ Dorian said as his stomach lurched like he’d missed a step. ‘A bath?’

Cullen smiled fondly at him then. ‘Not _together_,’ he corrected before Dorian even had a chance to ask. ‘But you’re cold.’

‘I’m all right.’

The Commander nodded again and stood up, reaching behind Dorian to pull the covers free. He then set about wrapping Dorian up in them, arranging them around his shoulders, folding the silky material around the mage. ‘Better?’ he asked as Dorian sat there, dumbfounded but admittedly warmer.

‘Yes,’ Dorian managed to say. ‘Thank you.’

‘Good.’ Cullen looked around and Dorian’s chest tightened because he knew that look. It meant Cullen was seeing if there was anything else he could do before he left and… no. Just _no_.

‘Please stay with me,’ Dorian blurted out. Cullen looked at him quickly and for a second, Dorian was sure he saw something like fear in the Commander’s eyes. A brief, bright flash before it was swept away neatly, impressively, like it had never even existed.

‘Dorian, we shouldn’t.’

The mage shook his head, shuffled back onto the bed, heading for the pillows. ‘No, just… just stay. Nothing else. Just be here.’

He watched Cullen consider, saw the internal debate as Cullen looked back near the door and at Dorian. When Cullen smiled slightly, Dorian scooted to the side eagerly, making room in the frankly enormous bed. Cullen undressed only the bare minimum, but Dorian didn’t care. He was caught in a trance-like state, watching Cullen hesitantly remove his boots, slide off his overshirt and then carefully sit beside Dorian in the bed.

It was quiet and strange; a softer, sweeter inversion of that other night two days ago when things had been emotionally restrained for such different reasons. Dorian could feel the heat coming from Cullen, instinctively sought it out because Cullen was right, he _was_ cold.

Cullen sat back against the headboard and lifted one arm. Dorian moved into the space he offered, burrowing gratefully into the warm body, clothed with rough cotton which scratched gently against Dorian’s silks. His arm wrapped around Dorian, making the mage feel impossibly _safe_. He exhaled shakily, unaware of the extent to which he’d been controlling his breathing until that point. Cullen was like a bath himself, like slipping into scalding hot water. He stroked Dorian’s shoulder through the silks and pressed a kiss to his forehead, a burr rumbling contentedly in his chest when the mage slipped his arms around him.

‘Do you want to tell me what it was?’ Cullen asked quietly as Dorian began to fall asleep, the strong slow rhythm of Cullen’s heartbeat causing Dorian’s to match it. ‘The magic?’

‘I do,’ Dorian said sleepily, somewhat slurred. ‘Tomorrow.’

Cullen kissed him again and sighed into his hair. ‘Of course. You sleep now. I’ve got this watch.’

*

When Dorian startled awake, his arms were met with soft, warm skin; a protective embrace that prevented him from flailing in the vestiges of a nightmare. His panic subsided instantly, body warm and curled perfectly against the other man in his bed.

‘Mmm,’ Cullen said, nosing Dorian’s cheek. ‘Morning.’

Dorian blinked and stretched, basking for a few moments in the sheer bliss of waking up warm and safe and then he let it sink in that Cullen was in his bed, Cullen had stayed. Cullen had held him all through the night.

And Cullen… was cursed.

‘Morning,’ Dorian answered croakily and he hastily cleared his throat. He didn’t know at what point in the night they’d become so wrapped up in each other. His face was buried against Cullen’s neck, chests half pressed against each other, legs tangled beneath the covers that Cullen had somehow managed to spread over them both. ‘Did you sleep—?’

Cullen bent enough to kiss him. His lips were warm and dry and as he kissed Dorian, he wrapped his arms tighter around the mage, rough hands sliding up his back, caressing over his neck and into his hair, their natural destination.

All Dorian’s pressing thoughts and worries simply melted away, unable to withstand the heat of Cullen Rutherford. He parted his lips, responding to the kiss slowly, unhurried like they had all the time in the world. Cullen’s fingers were carding through his hair carefully, losing himself in the sensation and when Dorian gasped, because _fuck_ if he wasn’t a little bit touch starved, Cullen smiled against the mage’s lips.

‘I slept well,’ Cullen muttered, pressing smaller kisses there instead. If Dorian died there and then, it would all be Cullen’s fault because no one, _no one_, had ever kissed him that way. ‘Yourself?’

Dorian valiantly managed to mumble an incoherent, ‘Mmmhmm,’ before Cullen let there be an inch of space between their mouths. It wasn’t _insistent_, that proximity. Cullen was simply very much _there_, wrapped all around him like a blanket of heat and skin and strength. Like he had nowhere else to be and…

‘Cullen,’ Dorian said, inching back into the pillow to create space to speak. ‘We should get ready for drills.’

Commander Rutherford shushed Dorian Pavus with more kisses, drawing the mage closer in his arms. ‘’S’what I came to tell you last night,’ he said. ‘Lavellan cancelled all morning activities.’

‘She…did?’ Dorian asked in between the kisses that were starting to linger more and more. He realised that he was getting hot, hot enough that a thin sheen of sweat was forming over him. Cullen was literally _plastered_ against him, driving him slowly wild and kissing him like he was perfect, like he was _precious_.

Cullen simply nodded and moved on top of Dorian in one smooth, effortless movement. A stuttered gasp escaped Dorian’s throat because _that_ was supremely unfair if they weren’t… if they couldn’t…

‘So,’ Cullen said, punctuating every few words with a kiss. ‘Now. We can. Stay here. All… morning,’ he finished, the final kiss something closer to a hard, wanton thing than a sweet press. ‘And later you can tell me about what happened last night, but in the meantime, I have some ideas about how to fill the time.’

Dorian was more than a little breathless, clinging to Cullen with trembling hands. He forced himself to remain in control, though. Lifted a hand to sweep aside that lock of hair that often fell into Cullen’s eyes.

‘Oh you do, do you?’

Cullen smiled.

*

Cullen was only really half-dressed when he returned with fresh bread, hot tea and a few slices of rather bruised, but still perfectly sweet fruit. Dorian protested about the fruit but Cullen kissed him soundly and popped a piece of it between the mage’s lips as he drew away. The fruit was delicious and sweet, the faintest trace of salt present from Cullen’s fingers.

Cullen’s presence, adoring and attentive, was just about the best feeling in the world. Dorian ate with Cullen in quiet, companionable silence, looking at each other now and then. Dorian offered Cullen his tea and when Cullen simply shook his head, Dorian cursed himself.

‘Sorry,’ he said automatically. ‘I forgot. Sorry.’

Cullen’s expression never wavered. ‘It’s fine,’ he said and clearly meant it.

‘No,’ Dorian insisted. ‘I should have remembered.’

‘You made me a window,’ Cullen said, leaning back and wiping his hands on a hand towel atop the table. ‘I think you’re entitled to make a few errors here and there and besides, it’s not… it’s silly of me. Normal men drink tea, share wine without fretting uselessly.’

Dorian swallowed his piece of fresh bread. ‘It’s understandable,’ he said softly. ‘You were poisoned.’

It was subtle, the way Cullen tensed up. He had this way of doing it sometimes where he used the motion of an inhale to make his shift in posture seem natural. It dissolved with the exhale, slow and controlled and only _slightly_ trembling at the end.

‘Yes,’ he said evenly. ‘But as I said, it’s foolish to still worry about such things.’

Dorian sipped his tea - delicious and strong, well made - and let the warmth imbue him with strength.

‘The first time I had a panic attack was a week after my father placed the blood curse on me,’ he told Cullen, bringing the Commander’s gaze to him quickly, worriedly. ‘I didn’t know what was happening at first. I thought I was dying. I still do, always think I’m dying because that’s how it feels, isn’t it? They’ve never gone away. There’s always one lurking around the corner. It’s stupid and _silly_ and I ought to be well past it by now, but here we are.’

Cullen surveyed him. ‘Your panic is rooted in reality.’

Dorian looked down at his tea. ‘As was yours.’

‘Emphasis on the word “_was__”_. I should be more than able to let it go by now.’

‘Well, what would happen if you had some of my tea?’ Dorian asked carefully. ‘I can assure you it’s not poison. A mage would be able to taste even the smallest hint of witchgrass or anything else untoward and as someone who grew up in Tevinter, the land where poisoning your close friends is standard practise, I know a thing or two about tampered drinks.’

He stared at Dorian’s cup, at the swirling, steaming liquid inside.

‘I…’ he shook his head. ‘That’s very kind.’

‘Come on,’ Dorian said, pushing the cup across. ‘It’s safe, I promise.’

Their eyes caught on the last word and something purely electric shot through them. The word was laden with meaning. With shattered promises and the possibility of newer, stronger ones, all there for the making.

Cullen worried his bottom lip slightly, fingers tapping on the table. ‘You promise?’

Dorian didn’t hesitate to answer. ‘I promise, Cullen.’

The Commander slowly reached for Dorian’s cup, every movement full of caution and care. He held it warily and Dorian didn’t take offence when Cullen sniffed it more than once before tasting it. The tip of his tongue flashed from behind those lips and Dorian shifted in his seat, _obviously_ not aroused from seeing Cullen drink tea of all things, not at all.

‘Hmm,’ Cullen said, pushing it back to Dorian. ‘I don’t care for the taste but thank you.’

Dorian beamed regardless because progress was _progress_, no matter the form.

‘I’m sure there’s some extremely dull, very brown Ferelden alternative you can sample next time. How do you feel?’

‘I feel well enough,’ Cullen answered earnestly. ‘It’s only because I… because I trust you, though. I don’t think I could do it elsewhere, with others.’

And Dorian wanted to say stupid things then, things like _‘Well, you’ll never have to, because I’ll always be there.’ _Things that were dangerous and risky and so incredibly childish that Dorian scolded himself on the spot for even—

‘Maybe if you’re there, though,’ Cullen said aloud, a little forcefully, purposefully not meeting Dorian’s eyes. ‘Maybe if you’re there, I’ll uh… continue to try. Elsewhere. If you’re… elsewhere with me. If _we__’re… _elsewhere.’ Cullen’s eyes screwed up and he rubbed his face, grumbling under his breath.

Dorian blinked slowly. ‘Elsewhere,’ he echoed stupidly.

‘That sounded much better in my head.’

He could see Cullen’s irritation turning inward, how he was chiding himself internally and Dorian, frankly, was sick of things being _internal. _

‘Yes,’ he said quickly and a touch too loud, reminding himself helplessly of Landon. ‘Yes, I’ll be elsewhere with you, of course I will be. Especially if this _elsewhere_ is somewhere wonderfully lacking in accursed snow, of which I’ve quite had my fill. I’ll be there to check as many drinks as you like. If you’ll… ah, that is, if you’ll have need of me for such a task.’

Cullen _smiled_, soft and slow, like the kisses he’d given Dorian in bed. ‘I think I may have need of you, Dorian, yes.’

The Tevinter mage did _not_ bite his lip to hide a replying smile. ‘Well then, you have only to point the way. You know, if we survive this threat and the next one.’

Cullen brushed the front of his shirt and frowned slightly. ‘Hmm, I think I’ll let you do the pointing, actually,’ he said in a would-be casual way. ‘I’ve no real preference.’

_He would go with you anywhere_, Cassandra had once said and it had never really left Dorian, that burning desire for it to be true.

The mage finished his tea. ‘This is rather domestic, isn’t it?’

Cullen looked up and Dorian caught the small flash of self-consciousness in those beautiful eyes. ‘Oh, I’m… I didn’t mean to imply—’

‘I’m not complaining,’ Dorian cut over him swiftly before any adorable babbling and unnecessary apologies could commence. ‘I’m _really_ not complaining. I’m just… looking around and observing. You have to stop and smell the roses sometimes. See here, this moment? It’s nice to look around and realise I’m _inside_ something that I’ll remember for all time.’

‘Something good?’ Cullen asked, so quietly Dorian barely heard it, but he _did_ hear it; he was listening, completely attuned to Cullen as he was.

‘Something good, yes.’

Cullen nodded to himself, looking down. ‘You’re very far away.’

‘I am?’

He didn’t answer that question, but Dorian could see the desire to _act_ battling against the obvious need to stand as stone, keep distance between them.

Dorian didn’t like distance and yes, when he looked down at the table, he realised he _was_ quite far away.

_Too far,_ his magic informed him in a whispered caress. _We must be nearer._

Dorian listened and he wholeheartedly agreed. He wiped his mouth with the napkin and got to his feet, approaching Cullen.

‘You didn’t have to—’

Dorian slung one leg over his lap and the Commander’s hands went right to his waist to steady him, to welcome him even as he half-heartedly resisted. Dorian hushed all his well-meant protests with a kiss that sought to offer Cullen everything that _words_ could not. His magic sighed and the sigh stretched into a song, dulcet and smooth.

‘Here’s the thing,’ Dorian whispered when they parted enough to breathe, his arms twined about Cullen’s neck, noses touching. ‘We can take things as slow as you want, but no amount of restraint will erase what I feel for you. I know we’re not saying it that way and maybe that’s a good thing, but hear this, my Commander. There is no path in this world I would walk without you and that includes out of this room in a few hours. I don’t want to be parted from you, now or ever.’ He took Cullen’s hand from his hip and placed it over his heart.

Cullen’s eyes closed tightly, leaning his forehead to Dorian’s.

‘This,’ the mage whispered, fighting to keep it steady. ‘Is all for _you_. It always will be.’

_Never let him go, ours always, our Cullen._

‘I know I gave you reason to doubt it,’ Dorian went on, pressing his hand harder, the filaments of his heart tightening like harpsichord strings. ‘I was careless with your trust and I was—’

‘No,’ Cullen bit out. ‘No, Dorian. I expected too much. I never spoke with you about it, I left you to deal with what I assumed you read. I never explained and I should have _explained_ it to you. I placed a burden of knowledge upon you, without any right to do so!’

Dorian’s fingers stroked soothingly at the base of Cullen’s neck, playing with the silky curls he found there quite absently as he sought courage and for once, _found_ some.

‘You have _every_ right,’ he said, biting down on all his lingering fear, their eyes locked together. ‘Because I’m yours. I don’t think I could ever not be yours, not anymore. I wouldn’t know where to begin unravelling myself to remove you and I… I don’t want to.’ Cullen stared at him, one hand on his waist, the other over his heart, lips parted ever so slightly. Dorian let his voice drop a full octave lower, a husky whisper born of purest intimacy. ‘This here _lapful of mage_ is entirely yours, so burden away, Cullen. Weigh me down, tell me everything or tell me nothing but don’t think for a single moment that I’m anything less than yours.’

He waited, heart beating painfully hard as everything inside him watched Cullen, desperate for assurance, for acceptance of what he was offering. It was amazing really, sitting in Cullen’s lap, wrapped around him and yet still feeling that there was a chance the Commander might set him aside, might heave a sigh and say his name in a patient, yet clipped manner. Cullen had every right to and Dorian knew there were still so many things between them left undiscussed, not least of all what he’d learned last night.

But this… they had to be sure of this before anything moved forward.

So he waited, breathing shallow and light, staring down into amber eyes which briefly closed as Cullen’s arms encircled his waist bringing him just that little bit closer. It was everything Dorian wanted and yet not enough, nowhere _near_ enough because the mage was holding out his heart in his fucking hands, offering it up and asking for nothing, only wanting Cullen to take it.

_Take it. Please, take it. _

‘Dorian,’ Cullen sighed, brow furrowing slightly and oh, it _hurt_. Dorian didn’t want to hear his own name, couldn’t _bear_ kindness cradling the rejection, no, he would die of it. He began to shift, seeking to look away before he betrayed himself and made it worse for Cullen. But strong arms tightened around him and then a hand gently held his chin, thumb and forefinger moving his gaze back to Cullen. _‘Dorian_,’ he repeated, stronger and more insistent. ‘Do you honestly think there is any part of me that doesn’t belong to you in return? I was yours from the first moment we met. You can’t understand it, how I felt then, what you did to me.’

A weak, strangled sound made it past Dorian’s lips and Cullen’s thumb moved across his jawline, sweeping carefully, _lovingly_ across his mouth.

‘It wasn’t magic,’ Cullen said, shoulders rising and falling with a deep, steadying breath. ‘It was just _you_. I can’t say it the way you can.’

_‘Try_ for me,’ Dorian begged in a slip of a whisper.

Cullen’s eyes danced in the morning light and he nodded. ‘Three nights ago, you told me I was everything. You said I was the centre of the world and I always would be. That’s how you made me feel, that very first day. You looked at me and I… I felt _seen, _right to my core. You’ve always seen me for who I really am, you didn’t listen to what others said about me, good or bad. You followed me around and you…’ Cullen cupped the side of Dorian’s face with the scar. ‘You were determined to find out who I really was and I was lost to you then. I’m lost to you still. You’re the brightest, most beautiful creature ever to grace this world and you’re sitting in _my_ lap, offering _me_ everything I don’t deserve and yet,’ Cullen leaned in close, bringing their lips within touching distance. ‘Yet, _you__’re_ the one trembling? Dorian, you are the reason the sun rises. You’re the brightest and best part of my life.’ That hand slid around to the back of Dorian’s head, their noses brushing. ‘And when you tease me for saying all of this later, I won’t even care.’

Dorian’s breath was coming harshly; molten gold was dripping down his spine and pooling in the base of his stomach, making him warm, making him lightheaded. He couldn’t keep the pained expression away because it _hurt_, but in a completely different way. Brand new and searing, it burned every corner of dark, shadowy doubt, lit up all those terrible places within where Dorian sometimes remembered why he wasn't good enough, why he would never be _good enough_ for someone like Cullen.

Burning, bright and beautiful.

‘Cullen,’ he let out in an agonised whisper, fingers threading through golden curls, their chests pressed flat against one another.

‘I know,’ the man beneath him answered, breath playing across his lips as they lightly brushed from proximity. ‘I _know_. You showed me. You’ve always showed me and I let words matter where they should matter the least.’

‘You said we shouldn’t…’ Dorian said thickly, trailing off.

‘Shouldn’t rush?’ Cullen inferred and the mage nodded fractionally. ‘I said that, I know I did but… things are going to get worse before they get better. We’re going to war and it’s the kind where not everyone will make it back here, the kind where people are going to die. Not _you_,’ he added sternly. ‘You’ve met your quota for terrifying me, understand?’

Dorian laughed weakly despite himself and Cullen, seizing upon that little fracture, gifted him a swift, sweeping kiss that Dorian simply wasn’t ready for. It stole his breath, marked the moment deeply and he wanted to fall into Cullen then, let himself loose and rush inside.

‘These are dark, uncertain times,’ Cullen whispered against Dorian’s lips, swallowing tightly. ‘And whatever light I have to offer in return for what you’ve given me, is yours.’ He drew back and pushed Dorian’s hair out of his eyes. ‘I’m yours, as much as you’re mine, if not a great deal more so. I was yours long before and I’ll be yours long after.’ His eyes roamed the expanse of the mage’s face, something distantly wonder-struck in them. ‘My Dorian,’ he breathed. ‘My beautiful, brilliant mage.’ He leaned back a touch and seemed ever so slightly smug as he surveyed what had once been a cold, callous Tevinter mage, determined never to fall in love. ‘Good enough?’

Within, Dorian’s magic sighed contentedly and so did Dorian. The word _worthy _rang through him, loud and clear.

He tilted Cullen’s face up and held it there, drawing out the moment, wanting it to last forever. ‘Not bad,’ he whispered. ‘For a Ferelden.’

*

‘Now stay still,’ Cullen instructed. ‘I don’t want to cut you.’

Dorian’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

Cullen smirked and held Dorian’s chin steady. ‘It can’t look much worse than it does now.’

The mage glared but there was no real heat behind it. He was sat in the chair, Cullen kneeling in front of him with a bowl of hot water, some soap and a straight razor. The Commander gave him a level, steadying kind of look, running his free hand over Dorian’s lower jaw.

It was Cullen’s idea to do this for Dorian. He made the suggestion and Dorian wasn’t averse to it. There was some gentle teasing, a little back and forth as Cullen gathered the necessary things.

‘You should talk,’ Dorian muttered to himself as Cullen worked up a lather with the soap and his wet hands. ‘Your hair is positively unruly.’

The Commander quirked a little smile, looking up at Dorian with hooded eyes. ‘You like my hair this way, though.’

He applied the thick, soapy lather to Dorian’s face before he took the sharp blade in hand. ‘Ready?’

To be shaped under Cullen’s hands and remade in whatever image he wanted? ‘Very much so.’

Cullen’s movements were highly meticulous and Dorian had expected nothing less. He watched him with abandon, drank his fill of him, of that little frown of concentration. The blade carved a clean path along his jaw line and underneath. Dorian felt the slicing effect, the sharp pull as weeks of stubble was shaved away. The last few months, he’d barely shaved five or six times and it had been a kind of _cull_ to remove the irritation of having to pay attention to his own face. To avoid the mirror he could easily have fixed by now.

Cullen was pressed warmly between Dorian’s thighs, holding his chin with one hand and carefully, attentively scraping away offending beard hairs with the other. Cullen’s focus was total, doubtlessly taking care not to cut the mage.

And maybe Dorian was a little proud of how his magic didn’t even _wish_ that Cullen’s hand would slip and draw blood.

‘Hmm,’ Cullen rumbled. ‘Don’t move at all.’ He held Dorian’s cheek and began to shave tiny, precise areas of Dorian’s top lip. At some point, Cullen’s thumb slipped partially inside Dorian’s mouth, the salty, warm taste of his skin flooding Dorian’s tongue. Cullen froze, eyes dropping to the _incident_. ‘Sorry,’ he said quietly, voice more than a little hoarse. ‘Stay still, though.’

And it was ridiculous, honestly _laughable_ that something so small should send all the blood in Dorian’s body insistently, demandingly south. Cullen corrected his hold of Dorian’s face, refocused on his task once more but this close, Dorian could practically smell the arousal on him, could almost _feel_ the heat of the blush that crept up the Commander’s neck.

Cullen shifted closer and now, fucking void, _no_w he was kneeling directly between the mage’s thighs, bodies pressed together in a way that left nothing to the imagination. ‘Nearly done,’ he said in a strained kind of way.

Dorian didn’t trust himself to speak, didn’t trust himself to fucking _move_.

When Cullen was done, he moved back quickly, wiping Dorian’s face for him as though the mage was somehow incapable of doing so himself. He wiped away stray suds, little trickles of soapy water that had run down Dorian’s neck, making the collar of his plain grey shirt damp.

‘Well?’ Dorian asked. ‘How does it look?’

‘It looks good,’ Cullen said, leaning on Dorian’s knees to stand up. ‘Do you have scissors?’

‘I… yes, but may I ask why?’

Cullen went to the dresser. ‘I’m going to cut your hair.’

Dorian blanched. ‘Uh, no you’re not.’

When Cullen whipped out the scissors, he turned around and gifted Dorian a secret kind of smile that really was more of a smirky grin. ‘Only the sides, don’t worry. Unless you’d like something different?’

‘I don’t believe for one single moment that you can cut hair.’

With a chuckle, Cullen said, ‘I can, actually. It’s not like there’s a salon stationed in the barracks. I learned young, one of my many talents. There’s really nothing to it.’

‘Yes, that’s the worrying element,’ Dorian went on, eyeing the scissors warily. ‘That you think there’s _nothing to it_. I may not have especially cared how I looked before but my hair is precious.’

Cullen stood beside his chair, ‘I agree. Just the sides and the back.’ While he spoke he was running his fingers through the hair he intended to do away with, fingernails scraping slightly over the scalp. Dorian’s eyes fluttered, unconsciously leaning into the touch before he shook himself. ‘If you’re _still_ worried,’ Cullen went on. ‘Why not fix the mirror? Then you’ll be able to see everything while I do it.’

Later, Dorian would realise that Cullen actually had _ulterior motives_ for convincing the mage to repair the mirror.

In the present moment, however, Dorian did _not_ realise this and so he irritably shuffled his chair towards the dresser and repaired the mirror. It took a few seconds, heat and the very essence of _repair_ flowing through the glass, melding cracks and making it whole once more.

He was all at once shocked to see that Cullen had managed to do a decent job with his moustache. Of course it lacked Dorian’s _flair_ and there were no perfect curls at the ends but… it was very even and the thickness and length were almost exactly the same as Dorian had previously maintained. There was even the dark, small tuft on his chin.

‘All right,’ he permitted grudgingly. ‘If I see you cutting anything from the top, there will be screaming and fireballs.’

Cullen rolled up his shirt sleeves, testing the scissors. He dropped a brief kiss to the top of Dorian’s head and without saying another word, began to cut.

The mage sat there, at first watching Cullen in the mirror. He kept a shrewd eye on him, wary of the Commander creating bald spots or slipping and taking an ear, but to his astonishment, Cullen _did_ genuinely seem to know what he was doing. Dorian watched him take the hair on the side of his head and expertly trim it. He relaxed and as he relaxed, he began to look at _himself _instead.

It was inevitable, obviously. Staring at himself had been a big part of Dorian’s life, especially as a teenager. His appearance was always a point of pride, of _safety_ for him. Beauty to fall back on when other attributes were found lacking.

He was a little pale and his hair had become far too long. It made him look almost like his fucking _father_ and that was simply unacceptable.

Cullen seemed to know what he was doing, at least.

True to his word, he left the hair on the top of Dorian’s head untouched. With the sides cut away almost to the point of appearing shaved, Dorian could see how long it had gotten, curling just slightly at the ends, a thick, tendril of fringe falling into his eyes now and then as Cullen moved his head where it needed to be. Cullen’s fingers were constantly touching him, moving through his hair, all that focus, all that attention…

Dorian cleared his throat and crossed his legs.

‘Almost done,’ Cullen promised, his chest close to Dorian’s face, the skin of which was partially exposed from wearing Dorian’s shirt, unlaced at the top. ‘And… _there_. Finished.’

He swiftly moved behind Dorian, looking at them both in the reflection as he brushed the trimmings onto the floor, freeing Dorian of any remaining hairs.

Dorian let himself really _see_. He looked… different. It wasn’t the same person he’d seen before, the man he’d last caught a glimpse of when smashing this very mirror. Cullen had cut ever so slightly higher at the sides than Dorian used to and his hair was long enough to fall backwards now, not only to that one side. It was almost the same, _almost_ but not quite.

‘You’re beautiful,’ Cullen said, apropos of nothing. ‘So beautiful, look at you.’

It was like lightning; a bright, thick flash right through Dorian’s chest, the excess energy of which pooled in his lower stomach. The praise and the sheer intensity behind it left him slightly breathless and Cullen, who was watching him in that mirror, saw it, fucking zeroed in on it.

‘You did a good job,’ Dorian commented, aiming for breezy and landing very much elsewhere. ‘I look different.’

‘You like it?’ Cullen asked, but there was no hint of insecurity or worry in his tone. He stood behind Dorian’s chair, looking at the mage in the mirror. He brushed the back of his fingers down the side of Dorian’s neck, smoothing away errant hairs, but it was more than that. Dorian could feel the weight of that feather light touch and he couldn’t look away from the mirror.

His throat stuck a little when he said, ‘Yes.’

‘Look at you, Dorian,’ Cullen said, the back of his index finger brushing over the vein in the side of Dorian’s neck, lingering slightly in that place where… where Cullen used to bite him. ‘Just look at you.’

Dorian wanted to make some weak protest, tell Cullen that he’d much rather look at _him_ but all the air he had to make words ceased to exist when Cullen’s hand moved to his chest and began slowly, delicately opening his shirt.

‘So gorgeous,’ Cullen was saying, voice like raw, dark silk. ‘Never seen anything like you, my beautiful mage. Don’t look away. Keep looking at yourself, see what I see. See how fucking _perfect_ you are.’

It hit like a fever, like suddenly Dorian was drunk without ever having taken a sip. Arousal, sweet and thick, was flowing steadily through his veins. It turned the air thin, difficult to breathe and it made him feel worryingly hot, especially around his face. Fucking void, he was _blushing._

‘Oh, you’re so good,’ Cullen praised, spreading the shirt open and tracing the origins of that blush all the way up to Dorian’s face. ‘Blushing for me like the perfect, beautiful man you are.’ When his hands were cupping Dorian’s face from behind, Cullen crouched low and tipped the mage’s head back enough to press a warm, open mouth kiss just below his ear. ‘All your blood rushing around,’ he muttered. ‘Because you’re seeing what I see. Look at yourself, Dorian. Just _look_ at what I see.’

And it was _hard_ because Dorian had not seen himself in so long now, he’d begun to think of himself as a stranger. As someone who didn’t _have_ a reflection. He’d wanted to be invisible ever since Cullen had left and now…

He made himself look because that was what Cullen wanted but maybe, just maybe, he wanted to see it too.

‘Keep those eyes on yourself,’ Cullen instructed softly. ‘First thing I ever noticed about you, first thing I ever saw was those fucking _eyes_,’ he said, pressing another kiss lower on Dorian’s neck with just a hint of teeth. That mere scrape sent a shiver through Dorian like a ripple. ‘Don’t look away even for a moment.’

A fractured gasp escaped Dorian’s lips but he nodded, hands flexing and then gripping at the material on his thighs as Cullen moved around to his side. His hands roamed over Dorian’s chest, fully exposed now. He didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry. Everywhere he touched was slow, methodical, the same way he’d shaved Dorian’s face and cut his hair.

‘I’d never seen anything like you.’ Cullen began to slowly, carefully peel back the collar of Dorian’s shirt, drawing it over his shoulders with painstaking care, pressing a kiss to every new inch of skin he exposed. ‘It made me dizzy just _seeing_ you. I had to stand there and be strong, be the _Commander _when all I wanted was to touch you. I ached for you and even the sight of you, Dorian, that alone drove me to madness. Do you know why?’

It was difficult to breathe, almost impossible to keep his head from falling back, but Dorian was managing both. He kept his eyes on himself as Cullen’s tongue flattened and dragged to where shoulder met neck, swirling over the flesh and ending in a gentle, almost _unbearably_ tender kiss. Cullen’s hand was pressed to his chest, bracing him as he bent to kneel again.

‘Do you?’ Cullen prompted, Dorian breaking out into gooseflesh as the patch of damp skin cooled quickly without Cullen there to maintain the heat.

Dorian swallowed and shook his head, painfully riveted by the scene in the mirror.

‘Because you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen… and because I knew the moment I saw you, you were _mine_.’

Cullen’s fingers were playing with Dorian’s left nipple when he sank his teeth carefully into his neck. It didn’t hurt, it wasn’t a _bite_, but the pressure there, that hot mouth sucking bruises into the skin was enough for Dorian to let out a broken, whiny sob.

‘You’re so good,’ Cullen rumbled into the skin he was sweetly devouring. ‘So fucking perfect. Look at yourself. See what I see. The most beautiful thing in the world. My mage, my Dorian.’

Dorian’s eyes crossed and Cullen’s hand journeyed lower and lower, slipping past the waist. ‘_Please_.’

‘You don’t need to beg,’ Cullen said after sucking a final mark into his favourite place. ‘Everything you want is already yours for the asking.’ His scarred hand palmed over the hot, aching flesh he found beneath Dorian’s trousers and _fuck_, Dorian almost came there and then. Everything was unbearably heightened, sensations doubled and tripled, sending skittering bursts of pleasure through the mage wherever Cullen touched him.

The Commander’s hand ground over his cock, sliding perfectly, giving just enough friction for Dorian to groan loud and unrestrained.

‘Good boy,’ Cullen praised, mouth trailing up to the freshly shaved line of his jaw, nosing over his cheekbone. ‘You’re so perfect, aren’t you?’

When Dorian didn’t answer, mostly due to lack of cognitive fucking _function_, Cullen moved to the mage’s ear, sucking the lobe into his mouth and dragging it between his teeth. Dorian gave a whole-body shudder, eyes crossing again before he looked back at himself, at the mage who was simply being _worshipped_ by the blond.

‘Say it,’ Cullen purred, his hand moving faster, palm circling the head of Dorian’s strained, leaking cock. ‘Say it for me, beautiful.’

‘I’m—’ Dorian panted as strange and vast things were happening to his heart, to every part of his body. ‘I’m perfect.’ His mouth was dry, blood rushing like a river of fire and the pleasure from Cullen’s hand was fucking _unbearable. _

‘That’s so good,’ Cullen praised, his voice affecting Dorian almost as much as his hand, if not more so. ‘You’re doing so well, look at you.’ His free hand curled around Dorian’s back, holding him steady as he worked him faster. His lips were pressed lightly against the shell of Dorian’s ear so that every whisper, every sound from him was a _sensation, _eliciting shudders and shivers and sweeping rolls of prickling skin with every breath. ‘Now,’ he whispered. ‘Look at yourself, look into those eyes that I fell in love with on the _spot_, and tell me that you’re the most beautiful thing in the world.’

White hot pleasure was coiled so tight, getting ready to snap pulling lower and harder than anything Dorian had ever felt. He was openly panting, sweat trickling down his temples. Cullen had him so securely, hand wrapped around his shaft now as he pumped him effortlessly, bringing him closer and _closer_.

Dorian swallowed and forced his eyes to stay open when he choked out, ‘I’m the m—most…’ he trailed off when his throat closed and the words faltered. He didn't want to say it, couldn’t bear to. He shook his head, closing his eyes but before he could do anything else, Cullen’s hand was on his chin, keeping his face steady.

‘Open your eyes, Dorian,’ Cullen bade. ‘Open your eyes and look at me.’

In the mirror, Cullen was staring at him, a delicate flush playing at the edges of his cheeks, eyes half hooded and so fucking _dark_ from how blown his pupils were.

‘That’s good,’ he breathed, cheek pressed against Dorian’s, holding his face so the mage couldn’t look away. ‘See us together, see what you do to me. I’m going to make you come so fucking hard your vision will blur and you’re going to watch, even if it’s painful, because I _need_ you to see,’ he took a shaking breath and swiped his thumb over the head of Dorian’s cock on the upstroke. ‘What I see when I look at you.’

Dorian was so close, fucking _inches_ away and it was going to wreck him, he could feel it, whole body tensed with something that half resembled _dread, _it was going to hit him so hard.

Cullen’s mouth formed a dark, lustful smile and he said, ‘What are you?’

The word barely formed, his mouth was so dry from panting. _‘Beautiful_.’

‘Come for me, Dorian.’

A force unlike anything else absolutely _plunged_ into Dorian. It smashed into him; a shockwave, a riptide turned tsunami and Dorian was lost to it, dragged under, dragged deeper than he’d ever been. Submerged into the most perfect, glittering darkness and he couldn’t see or feel anything except Cullen and the pleasure he was wringing from him. His body was stricken, head falling back with no way of stopping it as he came and _came_ and the pleasure left him ruined, perfectly, sweetly ruined.

Cullen worked him through it, drawing out every last droplet of agonising rapture, face pressed against Dorian’s.

And Dorian was practically _floating_ as if detached from his own body. He could feel Cullen’s arm around him, felt his body, the warm, solid presence but that was _all_ he could feel. The rush of his orgasm had faded but only very slightly, a bright like reducing to a glow. Dorian felt like he was suspended mid-air, like he was exempt from gravity and all its rules.

He was weightless and he was _perfect_. Everything was perfect. He was safe with Cullen, safe and protected and… and _loved. _He turned his face into Cullen’s, wanting to hide there while he drifted through shapeless emotions and nameless thoughts, all of them glowy and wonderful.

It was unclear how long he’d been that way. At some point, he felt Cullen moving him with careful, strong arms as if he was an especially heavy _doll_ of some sort, but he couldn’t make himself care. Cullen kept him close throughout and then Dorian’s face was buried against bare skin. The mage sighed and burrowed deeper, floating still, light and free, while safely ensconced.

Exterior sensation returned. A hand moving over his back, warm chest against his own and Cullen’s scent all around him. Leather and sea-salt, ozone and fresh sweat. Gradually, he came back to find himself sat atop Cullen, fairly straddling him as he leaned against him, boneless and disoriented.

He drew back enough to look at Cullen who had one hand in his freshly cut hair, the other rubbing his lower back in soothing circles. His expression was one of bone deep adoration, surveying Dorian with all the contentment in the fucking _world. _It could have been called pride.

‘My beautiful mage.’

The kiss was inelegant and it _hurt_ but it hurt in all the ways Dorian loved, the way he needed. He came out of the glittering dark and he felt too much to express, the only way of showing Cullen was to kiss him and the only way to kiss him was to _crush_ his mouth against the Commander’s. Cullen surged to meet him, matched the intensity and as Dorian shifted to get closer, he could feel Cullen’s hardness pressing against the place where he’d literally _come in his underwear_ like a horny, uncontrollable teenager.

Cullen pushed his tongue against Dorian’s, gasps and grunts filling the air. The mage sought to fucking _drown_ in the man beneath him, in the man who had broken him and remade him anew, much as Dorian’s own magic intended for Cullen.

And the magic was there, it was _always _there_, _but Dorian was _allowing_ it to be there, to be _with_ him instead of keeping it at bay like he’d done ever since that day he cut his finger and bled for Cullen’s secrets.

It was wordless for once, wholly without opinion and demands and Dorian didn't restrain it. It flooded through his blood and his heart, into his mind, his fingertips, every single part of him where it was _meant_ to be.

Cullen drew back, lips spit slicked and entirely irresistible as he panted, helplessly grinding up against Dorian in a needy, desperate little rhythm that drove the mage fairly crazy.

‘You taste so good,’ Cullen said, looking down over Dorian’s body, possessive and lustful. ‘So fucking _amazing_, aren’t you?’

Dorian moaned, the praise hitting him like the physical sensation of over-stimulation. He was raw and exposed and if Cullen kept saying things like this, Dorian was going to end up _believing them_.

Which seemed to be Cullen’s precise aim, of course.

Cullen growled, expression darkening just a touch when Dorian ground down on him in return, ignoring the wet spot and how sensitive his spent cock was. _‘Maker_, I want to be inside you.’ His voice sent a thrill of desire through the mage, despite the state of him.

‘Do it then,’ Dorian rasped, fingers digging into Cullen’s shoulders. He marvelled when some of Cullen’s flawless composure began to crack as he focused on making Cullen feel good.

Cullen met Dorian’s gaze, the two of them looking at each other in a way that seemed to transcend normal eye contact. It was a whole conversation without there ever being words spoken. Cullen’s stare was deep and assessing, Dorian’s much the same except that he was taking the time to _imprint_ upon himself how Cullen looked this way, pent up with need and yet incredibly in control. He made Dorian feel safe, he made Dorian fucking _wild_.

The mage had never wanted anything more.

And there were things still left unsaid, there were things they would speak of afterwards. Dorian knew this. He knew it and it didn’t colour his confidence, not a single shade, when he leaned closer, dragging his hips up and then _down_ over Cullen’s clothed cock, and said, ‘Every moment you’re not inside me is agony.’

*

‘Nngh!’ Cullen protested, reaching for Dorian as he slid off the bed, stark naked and padded over to the table. ‘You’re too far away.’

Dorian threw a little smile over his freshly marked up shoulder. ‘I’m only getting water and the rest of the food, amatus. You can live without me for a moment.’

Cullen muttered while Dorian made quick work of gathering the things he wanted to take back to the little _nest_ he’d made with Cullen. ‘Here,’ he said, passing Cullen a glass of water and the rest of the bread. ‘My big strong Commander needs his strength.’

Cullen’s smirk was by far the most delicious thing about the picnic, if indeed bread and water could be called that.

‘Am I a growing boy, then?’ he teased. He sat cross legged on Dorian’s enormous bed, silken turquoise covers pooling around his waist and Dorian returned to his original position, mirroring him.

‘Mmm,’ Dorian murmured, sipping the cool, refreshing water. ‘Don’t get me all riled up _again_.’

‘Though I suppose if anyone is the _boy_ here,’ Cullen commented, like Dorian hadn’t even spoken. ‘It’s clearly you.’

The mage rolled his eyes. ‘You’re all of _four _months older than me.’

‘That seems more than enough for you to call me _Daddy_ next time, no?’

The water got stuck, went down the wrong way and Dorian very slightly _choked. _No amount of attempts to conceal it or style it out were sufficient. Cullen looked _supremely_ smug, the cat that got the creamiest of creams, though he did generously pat Dorian’s back while the mage cleared his throat, willing himself back to basic bodily functions like _not_ choking.

‘You absolute—’ Dorian gasped, shaking his head as his oesophagus apparently wasn’t quite done spasming yet, preventing the insult from forming.

‘What was that? Didn’t quite catch the end.’

Dorian smacked Cullen’s shoulder and bloody void, but _look at him_. Cullen was practically glowing. The frown line, usually well dented in that gorgeous and very manly brow, was just _gone_. He was relaxed, playful and apparently, rather _mischievous._

Maybe having sex twice in a row did that to him.

‘Bastard,’ Dorian managed after a few seconds of shallow breathing. Cullen leaned forward and kissed him for no apparent reason. He pushed him down flat on his back and sat on top of him, the covers falling off to reveal his bare, naked glory. He kissed a messy, playful trail down the mage’s chest.

‘Bastard indeed,’ Cullen scoffed mildly. ‘My standing may not be that of _Altus _but my parents were lawfully wed I’ll have you know.’

‘Your standing is a great deal higher than mine,’ Dorian pointed out, loosely tangling his fingers in Cullen’s curls, unruly tendrils still damp from the bath they’d shared. ‘Commander of the Inquisition’s armies means everything down here in the South whereas Altus means, at best, absolutely nothing and, at worst, Maleficar.’

Cullen looked up from Dorian’s naval and it did something dangerous to Dorian’s heart when he said, ‘I’ll kill anyone who calls you that.’

Dorian stroked a hand down Cullen’s face. ‘Even though it’s more or less true?’

The Commander surged up, capturing the mage’s mouth, tongue curling under Dorian’s, his teeth dragging slightly, just _slightly_, over his bottom lip.

‘It’s _not_ true,’ he said, quite sternly. ‘You’re the best man I know.’

‘Best _man,__’ _Dorian echoed. ‘Not best mage? No qualifier beyond gender?’

‘No qualifier whatsoever,’ Cullen promised. He took Dorian’s hand, selecting the index finger that Dorian tried not to look at very often. Cullen examined it, tracing the scar that had never quite faded despite having fully healed. ‘I don’t care what you did, beyond how it affected you. It doesn’t make you bad, far from it and anyway, your magic is…’ Cullen tilted his head, considering and while he considered, he sucked Dorian’s finger into his mouth, swirling that clever tongue all around it, hot and wet. ‘Your magic,’ he said at last, pressing a sweet kiss to the finger as if it was injured and Dorian was three. ‘Is too strong to be corrupted or lured.’

Right on cue, the aforementioned magic swirled and purred, radiating pride in a smug, pleased manner.

_So strong_, it agreed. _Strong and powerful and unbreakable. _

Cullen leaned close, his mouth opening as if he was about to say something. He paused, inched from the skin of Dorian’s throat.

‘Is that…?’ he asked carefully, hands moving up and down the mage’s arms. ‘Is that your magic I can sense?’

Dorian sat up a little, sobering. ‘What did you say?’

Cullen was wary, like he didn’t want to say the wrong thing. ‘Sometimes,’ he began. ‘Lately, I can feel something. A kind of vibration in the air around you. A taste on the back of my tongue. Is it… your magic?’

Before Dorian had the chance to divert towards the things they had to speak of, his magic moved once more, creating words from light and colours.

_He knows our worth, senses our presence because he is ours. Let us inside him, Dorian. We ache to flood him, burst free and deep and expunge the sticky blue. We will take him and we will never let him go. _

Sharply, Cullen’s eyes snapped to Dorian’s. ‘There it was again.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said slowly, sitting up fully. He stroked Cullen’s sides, fingers brushing over scars here and there. ‘It’s my magic.’

The corner of Cullen’s mouth curled slightly. ‘I thought so. That’s not… normal is it?’

‘It’s what we need to talk about.’

Cullen nodded. He laced his fingers between Dorian’s, bringing them to him mouth where he pressed kisses to the mage’s knuckles. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Last night,’ Dorian began. ‘When you came upon me, I was communing with my magic. Solas suggested it after I went to him for advice.’

Cullen was a blank canvas, waiting patiently for Dorian to continue and so, emboldened by the man before him, the mage did.

‘I communicated with my magic and confirmed what Solas intimated which is that,’ he gripped Cullen’s hands a little tighter. ‘You have a blood curse of your own.’

Cullen didn't react at all. ‘A blood curse.’

‘Let me explain what I know,’ Dorian said. ‘My magic can sense the curse in you, in your blood more specifically which indicates a _blood_ curse, as I said. It’s very old and I have no way of knowing, but my guess is that it originated from—’

‘Kinloch Hold,’ Cullen said, looking away. Dorian fell silent, waiting to see how Cullen wanted to proceed. The blond closed his eyes and took a steadying breath, exhaling in a controlled manner. ‘What does it… do?’

‘Again, this is _not_ confirmed, but my best approximation is that the curse seeks to keep you weighed down and… unhappy. My magic…’ Dorian trailed off, wanting to use all the right words. ‘It senses it like _water_. Like you’re being held under water. That’s how it manifests. Ever since you returned, my magic has been demanding that I allow it to bring you to the surface, _breach and breathe_, it often says. I think my magic instinctively seeks to destroy your curse.’ Cullen was silent, eyes closed as he faced away from the mage. ‘Cullen, are you… can I do… something?’

‘No,’ Cullen said, in a low whisper. ‘Just give me a moment.’

Dorian waited, surveying him worriedly. Maker, he should have told him before now, should have told him first thing in the morning. What if Cullen blamed Dorian for the curse? What if—?

‘I think…’ Cullen said, bringing Dorian sharply from his reverie of stress and downward spirals. ‘I think I’ve always known it to an extent, but I didn’t let myself believe it was a blood curse. I thought…’ he exhaled shakily. ‘I thought this was my penance. To never feel happiness again. To feel that way because of what I did to those in the Circle Tower.’

Dorian moved closer, daring to offer what comfort Cullen would allow.

‘It’s not penance,’ he said, touching Cullen’s face and bringing his gaze home. ‘It’s a _curse_. A curse someone has placed upon you.’

Cullen’s eyes were a little too bright. ‘I just… thought it was what I deserved.’

It was too much. Dorian pulled him into his arms, locking them tightly together. He held Cullen and pressed what little kisses he could manage into his skin. ‘It’s not what you deserve,’ Dorian promised him, arms around his neck. ‘_I__’m_ what you deserve.’

It was a tremulous laugh, but Dorian took it, building upon the possibility that he was getting through to Cullen by drawing a trail of kisses along his jaw, over his cheeks and resting upon that scar. The scar that spoke of how Cullen had refused healing magic, opted for stitches instead. ‘You deserve only the best,’ he swore fervently. ‘And you’ve made clear that I am, in fact, the best, so there.’

He smiled sadly at that and Dorian wiped under his eyes when smudges of tears rolled down his skin. ‘No one who knew what you went through in that place would ever judge you,’ Dorian whispered, ducking to hold his gaze.

‘They should,’ Cullen said, screwing his eyes tight shut.

‘No, don’t retreat,’ Dorian implored. ‘Stay with me, amatus.’

Cullen drew a sharp breath, eyes opening. His lips parted to speak, but nothing came out. Instead he shook his head and pressed a wet kiss to Dorian’s forehead. It lingered a while and Dorian basked in it, in the closeness born of _honesty_ and pain.

‘I’m here,’ he offered after a beat or two. He sniffled. ‘I’m here.’

‘Good,’ Dorian praised and some of Cullen’s sadness eased.

‘So, how does it work?’

‘Well,’ Dorian said, easing back, stretching out his legs alongside Cullen’s. ‘Solas explained the basics to me but he would need to examine you for more details. We could speak with him again.’

Cullen didn’t seem to like that idea. ‘Can’t _you_ examine me?’

‘I… suppose I could, if you trust me to.’

The wary expression about Solas turned to deadpan disbelief. ‘_If I trust you?_’

‘You know what I mean. Solas is far more intuitive about magic and things like this.’

‘Dorian, I really doubt that _Solas_ is better qualified than you when it comes to understanding me. Your magic has literally been inside me.’

‘That’s what I’m saying,’ Dorian said. ‘I would have to use magic on you to examine you.’

‘… and?’

‘And, that’s the whole reason I went to Solas in the first place. This magic… Cullen, it’s determined to bond with you. I don’t even know if such a thing is possible, but there’s no doubt of the magnitude of its regard for you.’

Cullen squinted. ‘Are you saying your magic has feelings for me?’

_‘Feelings_ is a mild way of putting it,’ Dorian said as within, his magic nodded in agreement. ‘If I run my magic through you, it has made clear that it will remove the last traces of lyrium—’

‘Well, good.’

‘—and then bond with you.’

‘Like before?’

‘Perhaps. Before it was broken, there was _something_ there between us. Something almost physical, though much _quieter _and obedient.’

Despite everything, Cullen smirked. ‘Your magic is anything but obedient. I feel the strength of it, the sheer will, every single time you use it.’

‘Blood magic has amplified it, certainly and apparently your curse has given it a purpose. _Divine purpose_, it says.’

Cullen stared at Dorian. ‘You don’t want it to bond with me.’

Dorian sighed. ‘I don’t know what that will _mean_. Will it simply be like before where my magic could move through you without use of my blood or… will I be shackling you to me with blood magic? There’s no way of knowing until it happens.’

‘We haven’t used blood in days,’ Cullen pointed out as Dorian’s magic agreed wholeheartedly, becoming excited by the upcoming prospect. ‘My feelings for you haven’t waned, really quite the _opposite_.’

‘It might _not_ create a bond, my examining you, but I… I feel like my magic is just waiting for the opportunity.’

‘Are you really so separate from your magic?’ Cullen asked gently, curiously. ‘Your magic is _you_, Dorian. You are your magic. I can feel it.’

‘But it wants things,’ Dorian said in a tumble of words, a rush of insecurity and worry. ‘Things that could hurt you.’

‘I _care_,’ Cullen said in a way that gave Dorian precisely the opposite impression. ‘About those things and I respect your concern, but—’

‘But what? Cullen, we don’t know anything about this! There’s no precedent for it, not really! I’ve seen humans run through with magic but it was for purposes of _torture_, not to create a… whatever this bond could become.’

‘I know,’ Cullen said soberly. ‘I’ve seen it too, but that’s not what this is.’

‘My magic wants to break your curse.’

‘I think it already has,’ the Commander said plainly, watching Dorian without a trace of hubris. ‘This is the happiest I’ve ever felt.’

Dorian let out a stuttered kind of gasp that he couldn’t swallow down, no matter how hard he tried. Cullen took his face in his hands and planted a warm, deep kiss that did not linger.

‘I _know_ you’re wary,’ he said, shaking Dorian slightly for emphasis. ‘But I’m not and I need to know about this curse. I’ve felt it for so long and I never once considered it was something real, something tangible. I can’t move forward unless I understand it.’

_Clever, beautiful Cullen,_ the magic sang. _We will show you the dark waters. You will see and in seeing, you will be free. We will keep you free, ours for all time. _

Cullen made a noise, a kind of _groan_ twined with a breath. ‘I can feel it,’ he said. ‘I can_ feel it_.’

‘It’s reaching out for you,’ Dorian said in a thin voice. ‘If I let it inside —’

‘Do it,’ Cullen said, with no trace of doubt or hesitation. ‘I want it back.’

‘It won’t be the same.’

Their faces were close, noses brushing once more. ‘No,’ Cullen agreed. ‘It’ll be better. It’s stronger now. It won’t break this time.’

_Breach and breathe, our worthy Cullen. We will never let you go. _

Cullen’s cheeks were a rosy-pink and he was practically panting with anticipation, body pressed against Dorian’s now, tangled together as he waited for Dorian to make the decision.

When Dorian hesitated, Cullen whined, low in his throat. ‘I _want_ it. Please?’

Dorian closed his eyes, fighting for sanity. ‘What if you only…?’

‘Only what?’ Cullen held the mage’s face in both hands, staring down into his eyes. ‘Only feel this way because of your magic? Your blood? You don’t still _believe_ that, do you?’

‘I don’t believe it… entirely, I just… there’s always a risk.’

‘You’re worth any risk.’

The moment weighed heavily. Dorian felt like he was dancing on a razorblade, about to fall one way or the other and whichever way he fell, there would be no recourse. An irreversible decision. His magic was as good as its word, he knew once it had Cullen, it would truly never let him go.

‘Cullen, I think this will be irreversible,’ Dorian tried weakly as Cullen dragged his lips over his, a light, teasing touch.

_‘Good_.’

‘Do you understand what this could mean? Cullen, when we had the bond before, you were _using_ magic.’

‘I want it back,’ Cullen insisted firmly. ‘And I need to know about this… this curse. We can’t have one without the other.’

‘We could ask Solas.’

‘I don’t want anyone else inside me. Bad enough to have this living within me for a decade. I trust _you_. Only you. I want your magic inside me, Dorian.’

The pitch of the symphony within was steadily building, bright and elated at the direction things were headed.

_Cullen should be inside you while it happens, Dorian_, it suggested cheerfully.

‘And I want to be inside you when it happens,’ Cullen said in a rush, causing Dorian’s eyes to widen slightly in surprise. He started to pull away, but Cullen held him fast. In a low, crushed whisper, he uttered, ‘Your magic was made to fit inside me like I was made to fit in _you_.’

And Dorian was fucking _lost_.

It was fast and yet painfully slow. Cullen was shaking with need, with whole body _desire_ and it made him clumsy. It wasn’t _new_, this part. They’d done that twice already that morning. Each element was familiar and easy, Dorian still loose and perfectly slick from earlier, from hours past when he’d cried Cullen’s name so fucking loud there rang an _echo_ in the utmost part of his towered ceiling.

As Dorian sank down on Cullen, adjusting to the stretch _despite_ earlier, he realised he was nervous. More nervous than he wanted to admit. He felt lightheaded almost, so uncertain of what was about to happen. Part of him knew and that part rejoiced but the other, much smaller part that questioned _everything_… that part wondered.

Was this the moment that Dorian’s curse had been waiting for? This perfect, cruel moment? He had no way of knowing and if he so much as mentioned it to Cullen, he knew it would stop this completely in its tracks, but he worried about what else it would stop.

Sharp, bright heat radiated up his spine and every nerve ending in his body was on _fire_. Cullen was the purest, white fire and Dorian would never be able to get enough of him. His Commander would go to war soon, they all would and… fuck, Dorian couldn’t bear the thought of not being able to be _this way_ with him then. To lay in bed and play fight and tease and kiss, spill secrets and slip inside each other whenever they wanted.

It was the best feeling in the world, made all the sweeter because it was _temporary_. Dorian knew why Lavellan had given them the morning off, he wasn't stupid. Big things were coming. People were going to die.

When Cullen bottomed out, his chest rising and falling rapidly, he kissed Dorian. It was soft and sweet, tremulous with the restraint required.

‘Please,’ he begged, expression exquisitely tortured. _‘Please_.’

Dorian pressed their foreheads together, taking a deep, calming breath.

‘Come take it then.’

Cullen bit Dorian’s bottom lip between his teeth, irritatingly gentle at first before the pressure increased and then… oh, yes, _then_ Dorian felt a small sting and the warm swipe of Cullen’s tongue over the cut.

His magic was already pulsing within his blood, the two joining as easily as water droplets. Dorian could barely _hear_ Cullen over the siren song it chanted and when it moved into Cullen’s slipstream, the effect was instant.

Cullen’s head fell back as Dorian crashed into him, into his essence, the pool of his being. The mage’s magic was _ready, _this was the moment it had been waiting for and now that it was here, it wasted no time whatsoever.

_Inside_ it went like the river to the sea, like all the magic of the Fade spilling uncontrolled into Thedas except it was just Dorian and it was just Cullen, magic between them writhing in elegant rapture, desperate to be where it belonged.

It was colour and it was _sensation_ to the absolute maximum. Dorian felt like he was flying. It was difficult to hold on to anything but Cullen, the man who was inside him. They weren’t moving, could barely breathe and the force of the magic churning between them was astonishing. It was _all_ the magic Dorian could give, barely a drop left behind. It wanted in, it wanted Cullen and without the restraint of Dorian’s un-spilt blood, there was nothing in its way anymore.

Formless and natural, it burned through the lyrium almost instantly. Dorian could feel it, the last of the substance dissolving from within his beloved, leaving the passage free and clean. Freshly ready for the only thing that was _worthy_ of residing within a man such as he.

Dorian could not differentiate between himself and the magic, not when it was like this. It was _alive_, it possessed them both. Distantly, he could feel Cullen’s mouth on his own again, their movements clumsy and deluged with the sheer _feeling_ of what was burning between them.

His magic rushed through Cullen, each and every part of him and in every single place it went, it left a trace. Marking Cullen up as it moved, as it flowed fast as light and twice as bright. Dorian felt his eyes roll back when the magic pooled and _set_ inside Cullen and then… it _bonded_.

The feeling was indescribable. The physical manifestation of his self _joining_ with Cullen in a way that went beyond love, beyond _marriage_ and far beyond death. His magic sunk into Cullen, wringing pleasure from all involved and for a while there was no _Cullen _or _Dorian. _Only _them_. Only _we_. The way the magic spoke, the plural that the mage had never truly understood until then.

They were _plural. _Two bodies, two heart beating as one and between them… a thread.

It was more than a thread, though. Before it had been thin, tentative. Dependant on mood, reliant on contact.

This was steel, this was liquid fucking iron.

And through it, the mage could feel the Commander as if he were his own self. Before, there had been hints. When he looked back, he could clearly see how sometimes, he’d absorbed Cullen’s mood, some of his gestures even.

This was different.

They were inside each other. The mage saw everything, he _felt_ everything.

Within the essence of the man he loved, the magic spread out like drops of ink in water. At the core of it, the place where there had been lyrium once, it sat like an Emperor upon a throne most high.

_Ours. Us. We are legion. We will light up the world. _

The mage who could not recall his name sank deeper into the world of purest white, edged with electric violet energy. He sank and he let himself feel. When he breathed, he breathed the _other_; the other half of him, the other piece. They were wrapped together, naked and reborn and shaking and so _intimately_ connected but that was a mere shadow to the magic between them now.

And below, the mage sensed _something_ swimming. Something in dark waters. He focused _down, _actively seeking and the other focused too. Searching as one.

The water beneath was almost black; the darkest, murkiest blue; an ocean of ink in starkest contrast to the white, perfect water that suspended them, dazzling amethyst from above.

The mage reached down into the darkness, despite the _other__’s_ hesitance, and he plunged his hand into the freezing, inky depths.

A shock of cold ran through him; the deepest, worst kind of cold. The type that precedes illness, the kind that kills a man slowly and insidiously. The mage could feel the sheer _pull_ of it. It was strong and violently determined. Seeking to drag him down, drag him deep and hold him there.

Away from the _light_, away from love, from happiness.

It wanted pain, it was _born_ from pain, from the violence of being torn. Hatred was cold as ice and this was far, _far_ colder.

The mage didn’t even know he was being pulled down until the other hauled him up. The light was strong and warm, keeping the waters perfectly temperate and pleasantly cool. The mage breathed it in, let it flood his lungs like it was air.

And then together, they kicked for the surface.

When Dorian came to, he was wrapped around Cullen like he’d been _painted_ onto him. They were both gasping, bodies drenched in sweat and… fuck, when had Dorian come completely untouched? There was cooling evidence pressed wetly between them.

Cullen was… void take him, he looked _drunk_. His eyes were glassy, lids heavy but his focus on Dorian was absolute. The mage’s body was still thrumming in the aftermath, the pure afterglow of what they’d done.

And Cullen was still inside him… as was Dorian.

Their mouths met like there was no other place to go. Like they were falling trees and if they didn't catch and meet in the middle, they would both come crashing down. It was sloppy and graceless, wrought of shuddering need and desperation to cling, to be closer.

Dorian moaned and it cracked at the end.

‘I can feel you,’ Cullen whispered reverently. With slow, sluggish movements, he placed Dorian’s hand over his heart. ‘You’re _here _now.’

And Dorian, who was rapidly losing the ability to stay conscious, managing to mumble, ‘I… always… was,’ before he passed out.

*

When he woke, it was to Cullen kissing him.

There were worse ways to be brought out of the best sleep of his entire life.

‘I’d let you sleep all day if I could,’ Cullen was saying in between soft, closed mouth kisses as Dorian’s consciousness returned. ‘But the afternoon draws near.’

Dorian blinked slowly, blearily, and looked around. He was snug beneath fresh, unused covers and Cullen was, most annoyingly, fully dressed.

‘I don’t want to,’ he mumbled. ‘Let’s abscond. Stay here forever.’

Cullen grinned and kissed him again. ‘We don’t have to leave just yet. I just wanted you to have some time to get ready, that’s all.’

After a few more kisses, Dorian’s brain began to function once more.

‘Did I… was that a dream?’

Cullen’s smile widened. ‘No, but I knew you’d say that.’

Cautiously, Dorian felt inside himself for the magic he’d grown used to. He found it, found it right away, but it wasn’t how he’d left it.

_Before_ it had been a long and coiling creature, trapped in a narrow well. To move it had been forced to circle and twist. Now…

It was stretched between them both, thick and unbreakable. Where his magic began, it ended in Cullen and… oh, but he could _feel_ it inside Cullen. With enough room to grow and _breathe_ between them now, it was the most beautiful thing Dorian had ever beheld. It was power and determination and _pride, _it was glorious and it was made of _them_.

They’d made this magic, forged it somehow together because… because now Dorian could see that it was made of Cullen just as much as him. In the glorious peaks and flares, in the brightest most shimmering parts, that was all Dorian. In the base, the backbone, strong as winter steel and just as lethal, he could feel _Cullen_.

Resplendent and sated, the bond wasn’t an invasive thing. It felt as though it had always been there, like something previously absent had finally returned home. A slot filled once more.

Cullen was watching him realise this, watching the whole thing play out. He seemed lightweight and free and so perfectly content. To Dorian, he was the sun, the moons and every other beautiful thing that deigned to visit this world and make it just a little brighter.

It took a while for Dorian to calm enough to speak. Cullen waited patiently throughout. Finally, when Dorian shuffled up into his pillows and cleared his throat, he said, ‘Your curse.’

Cullen nodded, laying on his side on the bed, leaning on his elbow. ‘It almost took you.’

Dorian shuddered to recall. ‘I… don’t know how you survived with that all these years.’

A shadow passed behind Cullen’s eyes that Dorian couldn’t stand, was desperate to chase away. ‘I deserved it,’ he said very quietly.

The mage surveyed him evenly. ‘Maybe you did,’ he said as Cullen’s eyes rose to meet his. ‘But you don’t now. Any crimes you’ve committed, you have paid for tenfold, Cullen. Living with _that_ for ten years is worse than being imprisoned. You’ve paid your dues.’

They looked at one another for a long moment before Cullen swallowed and then nodded slightly. Dorian would have preferred him to say it aloud, but he would take what he could get.

‘Is it broken, then?’ Cullen asked. ‘The curse?’

Dorian reached for the water atop his bedside table. ‘I don’t know, why don’t you ask the magic?’

It was purposefully casual for several reasons, highest among them was really to see how Cullen reacted. The Commander bit his bottom lip, staring down at the fresh bedspread demurely. ‘You mean _our_ magic?’

‘Is that how it feels to you?’

Cullen played with the material, fingertips tracing the patterns of the Seheron cotton, soft and light. ‘I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s like the bond from before, but so much _stronger_.’

Dorian wanted to say that blood magic was always stronger, but he didn’t.

‘You can feel it still?’

‘I feel it everywhere inside me,’ Cullen said. ‘It’s… _you__’re_ inside me, in every part of me, but mostly here,’ he explained hovering his hand over his chest. ‘I can hear it now. While you slept, it sang to me. To us both.’

‘Maker, Cullen,’ Dorian sighed, dropping his head in his hands. ‘This is fucking madness. You’re a— you _were_ a Templar and I’m a void-damned blood mage, no matter what you say. This is _crazy_.’

Cullen sat up with slow, precise movements. ‘You don’t regret it.’

Dorian wasn’t entirely sure he liked how confident Cullen sounded, that he posed a statement rather than a question. ‘No, I don’t regret it, but come _on_. There’s a world outside, right outside that door… it’s waiting for us and it’s not going to _understand_ what we’ve done. No one will understand and they’ll blame me for it.’

He moved closer, that beautiful blond, taking Dorian’s hands in his own.

‘Blame you for _what_? For giving me everything I ever wanted?’ Dorian tried to turn away, but Cullen followed him, left him nowhere to run. ‘I know this is hard for you and I know the _reasons_ why it’s hard.’

‘Do you?’ Dorian asked quietly, jaw working.

_‘Yes_.’

The mage’s eyes burned a little in the corners. ‘I just—’

‘You don’t need to explain,’ Cullen said, moving closer, moving _into_ Dorian, creating an even more enclosed world for them to hide in, albeit temporarily. ‘And I wish I could prove it to you beyond what I’ve already tried. You _showed_ me you cared with the window. It’s hard for me to believe words, especially when trust is broken but you showed me you cared. It was real and tangible and so is this. Please, _please_ stop doubting.’ He gently thumbed Dorian’s chin up, bringing the mage’s eyes to his. ‘You can’t doubt this, not when it’s right in front of you.’

Dorian wanted to let go of that last splinter of disbelief, buried deep within. The worry that no matter what Cullen said, no matter what Dorian _saw_… it was all magic and always had been. The darkness he’d seen in Cullen had been substantial and beyond anything the mage had felt before, worse even than his _own_ curse when it had first taken him.

The splinter worried that maybe, _somehow_, Cullen subconsciously sought Dorian out in such a way, _longed _for him because Dorian was the only way to break Cullen’s curse. To bring him to the surface.

Maybe Cullen only clung to Dorian the way a drowning man would cling to whatever floated nearby.

‘Stop that,’ Cullen implored, bringing Dorian back to the present moment. ‘I see what you’re doing to yourself.’ He took Dorian’s hands in his own and kissed them. ‘Nothing will ever be perfect. Nothing will ever be completely and utterly _perfect_ because this is the world we inherited. The closest thing to perfection I’ve ever known is _you_. And I know what you’re thinking, but look around. This is as perfect as things are ever going to be. I don’t want to waste any more time. Time is the one thing we can never have more of.’

Dorian released a shaky breath. ‘I know that.’

‘Then let it go.’

‘I’ll… I’ll try.’

Cullen smiled and Dorian found it was easier to match it, like the mere sight of the man gave him strength. He removed his focus from the niggling splinter of worry and set it aside. Cullen was right, of course he was right. This was exactly what Dorian had done before. Obsessed over something tiny and unimportant, driven himself mad with it and almost destroyed them both as a result.

They didn’t have much time, Cullen was right about that too.

So, Dorian brought himself into the moment. The present, beautiful moment of being close to Cullen. Of touching him freely, of kissing and caressing and chasing gorgeous sounds out of each other. Of seeking deeper levels of _interior_ and of relishing an intimacy Dorian had never known until then. Everything between them was a slip-slide, magnificently easy to move within and to move out once more. Cullen was inside him and he was inside Cullen. It was tangled and messy and so fucking _agonising_ that Dorian could scarce draw breath to let loose a whine when Cullen’s teeth dragged up the expanse of his throat.

Inside, deep and buried. Inside, where he was _loved_ and so cherished it hurt. Inside, where Cullen breathed easier, no longer shackled to the inky dark beneath the light, clear waters where he and Dorian swam and lavender rays of sun kept those waters tepid.

He could lose himself to this, he knew. Lose himself and never return to _Dorian. _Only them, only _us. _Cullen was no longer a lake, he was the _ocean_ and the desire to let go of his name was powerful when he, river-like and contained, plunged into that ocean. Once the river joined the ocean, it held no self, no form.

It was deep and light. It was everything.

And Dorian, sick and tired of prickly, poisonous doubt, gave himself over to it.

*

Cullen was dressing when someone knocked on the door, bringing the world back swiftly in three neat raps against wood.

They shared a glance and a somewhat rueful smile and Cullen, who was nearest opened the door before Dorian could tell him not to.

‘Commander,’ Nalari said politely in a pleasant voice as Dorian slid swiftly off the bed, tightening the lace of his shirt. He was barefoot still, but otherwise fully dressed.

‘Nalari,’ Cullen greeted. ‘Please come in.’

She stepped inside holding Dawn in her arms, bundled and swaddled in the same silks that Dorian had cut for her that first day, the day that seemed so _long_ ago now.

‘Dorian,’ she said, beaming at him. ‘I hoped to find you here still. Vivienne said you were resting this morning and that you ought not to be disturbed, but—’

‘You’re hardly a disturbance,’ Dorian said, kissing her in greeting and staring down at the baby, stroking the side of a tiny, pink cheek. ‘Have you had a good morning? What about the others?’

‘I should go,’ Cullen said, picking up his boots from the place he’d neatly placed them last night; the _usual_ spot, Dorian observed with a warm curl of something very domestic. ‘Let you two—’

‘Why don’t you stay?’ Nalari suggested, smiling. ‘There’s no need for you leave.’

Cullen seemed uncertain. ‘I… don’t want to intrude.’

Nalari handed Dawn over to Dorian, who barely contained his excitement. The tiny baby weighed so little and he held her carefully, learning more and more over the last few days how was best not to disturb her and ensure continued sleep.

‘Why would you be intruding?’ Nalari asked lightly, sharing a brief, significant look with Dorian. ‘If anyone is intruding, it’s me and Dawn.’

At the same time, both men said, ‘Not at all.’

She laughed softly. ‘Well then,’ she said. ‘No intruders here, are there?’

Cullen seemed a little uncomfortable, but he closed the door and let his boots drop softly to the ground again. Something in Dorian’s chest loosened a little.

‘Was the elfroot sufficient?’ Cullen asked as she settled down into the chair at the table. ‘We’re intending to plant the intact ones in the garden to keep a better, more consistent supply.’

‘They were, thank you. We’re able to meet demand now. A lot of people have colds and they don’t necessarily _need_ the potion, but it’s good to offer even a spoonful, it gives them a boost. Making use of the garden is a wonderful idea.’

Cullen sat at the table with her while Dorian walked around the room, quietly pointing out all his possessions to the sleeping baby.

_‘This_ is an extremely beautiful bookshelf, carved from aged mahogany.’

‘I’ve been considering transforming the entire garden into something much more functional, actually. It seems a little ridiculous to have so much space devoted to mere aesthetics.’

Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘And _this_ wonderful example of the role aesthetics play in creating a calm, relaxed living space, is my dressing table which I had specially shipped in from _Minrathous_, the place where all the most beautiful things come from.’

_‘_What were you thinking of?’

‘I was considering perhaps an herb garden, properly maintained with a vast collection, especially rarer ones. It shouldn’t be too difficult to bring in the correct kinds of soil. The Inquisitor has a great collection of seedlings, in fact.’

‘And _here_ is where I keep all my clothes.’

‘What about food, as well?’ Nalari suggested. ‘Potatoes, tomatoes, onions.’

‘That’s a brilliant idea. We could remove the statues, tear down that structure and build raised beds.’

‘_This_ is the lovely bed I ordered which has clever drawers underneath, see?’

‘We could keep chickens too. They’re easy to maintain.’

‘And bees.’

‘What about apple trees?’

‘And _this_ is Uncle Dorian’s most favourite thing in his entire room, the bath where you were born.’

‘Apple cultivars would certainly take to this soil if pruned well throughout winter months. We would need to have them brought here specially.’

‘We can’t grow them from seeds?’

‘You know,’ Cullen said, clearly building steam. ‘It’s interesting—’

‘Ugh,’ Dorian grumbled. ‘For those who grew up on a farm, I’m sure it’s fascinating!’

‘I’m fascinated,’ Nalari said gifting the mage a sweet, highly teasing smile.

Cullen looked somewhat smug and Dorian gave up.

The pair devolved into increasingly technical plans for turning the garden into a fully functioning mini farm while Dorian showed Dawn all his lovely things, occasionally dropping in a piece of non-possession related information, namely a few of his favourite things about Cullen himself.

While Nalari and the Commander planned to grow all manner of vegetables and fruits, even bring in a few goats, Dorian said, in his low, pleasant voice, ‘And _here_ is where Cullen left me the chess set in a box and I didn’t even realise what it was for the whole day. He’s silly like that, Cullen is. Who gives someone a gift and puts it in a filthy box used to contain weapon rags?’

Cullen heard that one and he shot Dorian a teasing, narrow-eyed glare that caused Nalari to laugh.

When Dorian looked down at the silky bundle, he saw with a jolt that Dawn’s eyes were open; clear, glittering blue, staring up at him. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Hello.’

‘Is she awake?’ Nalari asked, half rising from her chair.

‘Yes, but she seems in good spirits.’

Cullen was staring at the baby. ‘I should be going,’ he said, but there was something rather weak about it.

‘Would you like to hold her?’ Nalari asked and Cullen whirled to look at the young mage, eyes wide.

‘Um,’ he said eloquently. ‘I’m not…’

‘You were the first one to ever hold her,’ Nalari said evenly. ‘I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you again.’

Cullen swallowed carefully while Dorian looked on.

‘Oh, well. If you don’t mind?’

‘I don’t mind at all,’ Nalari said, her eyes dancing with a smile.

Dorian offered Dawn very carefully to Cullen when the Commander stood and held out his arms, more than a little nervous. ‘There you go,’ the mage said. Dawn watched curiously, her eyes not quite focusing on either of them, but she made no sound of protest as she was slowly, painstakingly passed over. Cullen let out a little breath when she was fully in his arms and something twisted in Dorian’s stomach, impossibly affected by the youthful, clean-swept expression of _wonder_ on Cullen’s face.

‘Hello,’ he said to the baby. ‘Little Dawn.’

Dorian poured Nalari a glass of water and sat down. She seemed rather pleased with herself as she accepted the drink. Cullen walked away, following Dorian’s path around the room and the two mages did their best not to watch.

‘Did you finish that book?’ Dorian asked her, mostly to fill the silence.

‘I did,’ she told him. ‘I enjoyed it a lot more than the last. The others have already tore into the collection you brought them.’

‘I hope not _physically_ tore,’ Dorian winced.

Dawn gave a feeble, gentle kind of cry and Dorian glanced over at her and Cullen. The blond softly shushed her a few times, drawing the sound out as he rocked her and looked over at Nalari for direction.

‘She’s fine,’ Nalari said. ‘Maybe you could sing to her.’

Dorian was about to laugh, because Cullen Stanton Rutherford didn’t _sing_ and the suggestion was frankly ludicrous but Cullen just _nodded_ and then began to softly hum under his breath, moving towards the closed glass doors. Dorian’s mouth fell open unsubtly when Cullen began to very quietly _sing_ to Dawn, some kind of lullaby judging by the sound of it, but not one Dorian recognised. It was about a dog (of course it was about a dog) and a journey through strange lands.

And Nalari seemed even more pleased with herself. The two fell into pleasant chatter, mostly to cover Cullen’s singing so he didn’t become self-conscious but all the while Dorian was highly _aware_ of Cullen, like he was standing right beside him, like they were touching.

Dorian was making Nalari laugh when someone else knocked. The mage got up quickly, telling the very last of the story as he opened the door, expecting Pennetell or another runner perhaps.

But it was Keenan.

‘Ah, Keenan,’ Dorian greeted happily, vestiges of laughter still bright in his tone. It took a moment for the mage to sober and take in the scene. ‘Uh, would you…?’

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ Keenan said, a shade more impersonal than Dorian was used to. ‘I just wanted to talk—’

But whatever Keenan wanted to talk about was not meant to grace the air as his eyes widened and latched onto something behind Dorian, the sound of Cullen’s low singing audible. Dorian grimaced slightly and bit his lips into his mouth.

All the blood drained out of Keenan’s face as he stared at Cullen, following the Commander’s movement until he lost sight of him.

When Keenan looked back at Dorian, it _hurt_ to see the betrayal there, present and weighty like a living thing.

‘Keenan,’ Dorian said, taking a step forwards out of the room, but the young mage moved back, shuttering himself instantly.

‘No, I—I shouldn’t have come,’ he said, turning away. ‘Never mind.’

‘No, please,’ Dorian said, following him into the hall. ‘Keenan, _please_.’

Back to Dorian, already making off swiftly, he called out, ‘I’ll come back later.’

Dorian returned to the bedroom, sighing unhappily. ‘That did not go well,’ he said, mostly to himself.

‘Was it Keenan?’ Nalari asked, a pinch of concern about her lovely features. ‘I haven’t seen him in days, how was he?’

Something sick and cold rolled down Dorian’s spine. ‘What? What do you mean?’

Nalari said, ‘I haven’t seen him properly in days, only in passing. No one has. We… we assumed he was with you most of the time. He’s not been in a good place, I know that much at least.’

Cullen looked up from Dawn, clearly sensing Dorian’s dread and guilt.

_Fuck_. Dorian had to go, had to run after him _now_. Something was very wrong and he hadn’t been there, hadn’t done enough for the boy.

He marched back to the door and yanked it open to find someone already there, but it wasn’t Keenan.

‘Ser Pavus,’ Pennetell greeted politely, measuredly. ‘The Inquisitor requests your presence and the Commander’s in the War Room at your earliest convenience.’

*

Dorian’s sense of dread did not ease the whole way to the War Room and only slightly abated when Cullen took his hand, pressed a kiss to it and then opened the door for him to enter.

And inside was a sight that immediately lifted his spirits.

‘Cole!’ he burst out. Lavellan and Sera were with him, speaking together near the table. The mage didn’t _run_ to the spirit but it was a near thing. Cole looked at Dorian, hatless and paler than ever but he managed something like a genuine smile. Dorian took the boy up in his arms and enveloped him in a hug which lasted three seconds before he drew back and snapped, ‘Where _the fuck_ have you been?’

‘I returned because the door was open again,’ Cole explained tranquil as ever. ‘I could not come inside until the door was open and while I was away, it closed behind me.’

‘I’m glad to see you returned to us,’ Cullen said, coming to stand beside Dorian. ‘Sera, Inquisitor,’ he added politely.

‘Where were you?’ Dorian demanded, a thin tremor of something making his voice slightly unstable. He didn’t realise how _worried_ he’d actually been until the boy was standing right in front of him again, gangly and odd as ever.

‘I was searching,’ Cole said dreamily. ‘I went very far and then, I went to search for the monster.’

Dorian shot Cullen a look; a kind of disbelieving _glare_ and Cullen had the good grace to colour slightly. ‘I didn’t tell him to—’

‘No, I _wanted_ to see it,’ Cole said. ‘Stronger and closer I felt it swimming for months now and I feared for you both. I wanted to know it, to _see. _I searched and then I became stuck.’

‘Stuck?’ Dorian echoed indignantly. ‘Where? Are you all right?’

‘He seems fine,’ Lavellan said quickly, watching the mage and the Commander very closely. ‘He says he had trouble finding his way back into Skyhold.’

Cullen’s brow furrowed. ‘Why?’

Cole looked at Cullen and then blinked. ‘Oh, but look how it shines now! A bridge that was once a thread, a lake is now the sea and all the salt makes clean the darkness!’

‘Yeah, that and Dorian looks like he’s meant to,’ Sera added with a sage nod. ‘Tache back n’ all that.’

‘Cole,’ Dorian pressed. ‘Tell us what happened.’

‘I couldn’t get back inside,’ Cole said. ‘I was looking for the monster out there, but it was inside too and while I was searching, it grew stronger and made a wall I could not pass through. Not until this morning. That wall has dissolved now, only dust remains and within grains, a deep and dark kind of blue, the worst kind. Single and watchful.’

Lavellan sighed. ‘Did something… _happen_ this morning?’ she asked them both.

Sera snorted a laugh and made no attempt to conceal it.

Dorian and Cullen looked at each other. ‘Well,’ Cullen hedged. ‘Perhaps we should explain.’

*

‘You were cursed this _whole time_?’ Sera asked for the third time. ‘All these years? There was a reason for Commander I’ve-Got-A-Stick-Up-My-Righteous-Backside?’

Cullen seemed mildly affronted. ‘I don’t think I was ever _righteous.__’_

Lavellan was massaging her temples. ‘This is mad.’

‘That’s what I said,’ Dorian muttered.

‘It’s no different than what we had before,’ Cullen argued, a little defensively. ‘Essentially.’

Dorian gave him the side eye but otherwise remained silent.

‘Cullen, for your curse to physically keep Cole _out_ of Skyhold, to cause him to become stuck, shapeless and formless… that’s truly worrying.’

The Commander seemed distressed. ‘I had no idea.’

‘I believe you,’ Lavellan assured him. ‘Of course I do, but this is unlike anything I’ve heard of now. Your bond with Dorian seems to have broken the curse, though?’

‘It’s still there,’ Cullen said, speaking carefully, choosing each word. ‘But it’s…’ he sighed and considered. ‘It’s powerless and weak. It’s not _touching_ me anymore.’

Dorian dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand, imagining what that cold, despair-filled void must have felt like when it _was_ touching him.

‘Well, it’s weakened enough to allow Cole back into Skyhold at the very least,’ Lavellan said, pacing a little. ‘And this,’ she gestured between them. ‘Will obviously have to be contained. Until we can devote time and resources to it, to finding this master of Hawke’s, the best we can hope for is to not cause a stir among allies we desperately need right now.’

Cullen straightened. ‘So, we’re going to war, then.’

He and Lavellan had the same look about them, grim determination and necessary strength.

‘We are,’ she confirmed. ‘Our destination is the Arbor Wilds and we will be going ahead of our armies, all of us. All but Josephine, anyway. Everyone who can fight is coming with us this time. It’s the final push.’ She looked at Dorian, who keenly felt that weight upon her young shoulders. He loved her so much then, his best friend, his closest confidante. Wished he could take that burden and shoulder it himself, give some measure of respite the way she’d given to them that morning.

‘We’ll make it count, Inquisitor,’ Cullen said.

She smiled at him wearily. ‘I think, perhaps given the state of things, you could call me by my name, Cullen.’

It was a momentous thing for the Commander, Dorian knew. The man who so relied upon rules and propriety, upon the hierarchy he would die to defend.

‘Very well. We’ll make you proud, _Ellana_.’

‘I could have asked for no finer Commander,’ she told him quietly, sincerely. ‘No finer friend.’

_‘Aww_,’ Sera said, beaming goofily while Cole watched curiously, oddly silent for once. The elf wrapped her arm around Dorian’s shoulders. ‘Gonna bring me to bloody tears in a minute like a frickin’ _melt_.’

Ellana Lavellan found her centre. ‘Don’t melt just yet,’ she said. ‘There’s work to be done first, but, before we commence with the planning… Dorian, would you accompany me to Hawke’s cell please?’

*


	23. Brave Faces

_Dorian was eight years old when he was first given the book with a blue cover. He scanned the front, absorbing the title quickly and then immediately losing interest. Neither the word _watchful_ nor _ambler_ were of any real meaning to him. He had better, shinier gifts to open and play with. He delighted in ripping open the silken bows and shredding the thin, expensive coloured paper to reveal something beautiful and precious, other more interesting books among such gifts. _

_The Watchful Ambler went on his bookshelf in Dorian_ _’s bedroom at home at his mother’s insistence and there it stayed for almost a year, unread and unexplored. _

_Dorian was very nearly nine the first time he was expelled from a Circle and as punishment, he was forced to stay in his room for an entire week while his parents scrambled to execute flawless reputational damage control. Five times a day, servants brought him trays laden with everything he liked best. Some brought him toys, but he wasn't interested in them, hadn_ _’t been for a while now. He demanded new books, the ones in his room had all been read before. He screamed his demand through the gaps of a magically barred door but it was no use. When it sunk in that he truly couldn’t leave, something new and terrifying started growing inside his chest, right beneath his ribs. A sickly, serpentine sensation, tightening around his heart. It crushed all the air from his lungs, turned his mouth dry and left his head fuzzy. The feelings came and went but each time they came back, they were worse. _

_The essence of his punishment was intended to be isolation, not whatever was happening in his torso. For the first time since the _incident_ in the Circle, Dorian deeply regretted his actions. The Circle, however dull, had meant at least some measure of freedom and it boasted an impressive library. There were whole sections he hadn__’t gotten through yet and now, trapped inside for an entire week with nothing but sweets and stupid _toys _and the occasional overwhelming sensation that he was dying, Dorian began to devolve. _

_He__’d never been able to voluntarily reread a book, not once in his short life. __It infuriated his parents to no end. __Books were like _food_, once consumed, there was nothing left to gain nourishment from. He absorbed them and afterwards, he had no need for them again unless it was to seek a point of reference. _

_Furious and vengeful, Dorian trashed his room on the second day and he refused to allow the servants to clean it. So they crept inside while he slept and painstakingly tidied everything. He awoke to a sensation that best resembled being gutted. He didn_ _’t understand the feeling, not really, except to realise that he wasn’t allowed to make mess and that rule literally spanned through the entirety of his life. _

_So, on the third day, he began to tear apart what books his mother had forced him to keep - precious, rare volumes from family friends and important people. He methodically ripped them apart, covers and spines first then the luscious, crisp pages within. They tore and it was bliss, horrible, sickening _bliss_ to destroy things that he loved so much, but he was trapped and he couldn__’t _run_ and he hated everyone and everything. _

_He picked up that blue book from amongst a snowstorm of literary wreckage, snarling to think of the day he__’d received it, of the dull title. He had no idea who it was even from, so many people attended his parties. He wanted to rent it apart, his hands shook with the _need_ to decimate it. _

_But_ _… it was unread. The one book in his prison cell of a bedroom that he’d never read. The anger turned to sorrow in an instant, all that fury inversing and imploding. He clutched the book to his chest as if it was his only friend in the whole world. It would probably be boring, likely something he would toss aside in a few hours but for now, it was all he had. _

_Endless possibilities within an unfamiliar cover. _

_He kicked aside the heavy, ruined tomes and volumes, holding _The Watchful Ambler_ tightly as he walked and there, upon his bed, he sat down, brushed his tears away and started to read. _

_*_

Hawke looked better than the last time Dorian had seen him, but that really wasn't saying much. He wasn’t drooling and slurring anymore, eyes rolling in his head as dark truths were pulled from him. Leliana was true to her word; he was alive and it wasn’t exactly _noticeable_ that he’d been tortured relentlessly with potions that drew agonising truths from him, twisted his mind, but compared to the man Lavellan had introduced almost six months ago, he was a pale shadow.

Not broken, though.

When he saw Dorian, he spat at him. The spit didn’t go far, couldn’t touch the mage but Dorian felt it all the same. He was no stranger to being spat on, it had been all the rage once in the castle. This was the first time, however, he wondered if he didn’t deserve it just a bit.

Hawke didn't say anything, didn’t hurl vicious threats like before. His glare was sufficient for that.

‘Hawke,’ Lavellan greeted calmly. ‘How are you feeling?’

The Champion of Kirkwall didn’t answer for so long that Dorian glanced at Lavellan, wondering how to proceed but she seemed certain he would speak and, at length, he did.

_‘Peachy_.’

‘Do you need water?’

Hawke sneered, baring his teeth. ‘No. Your little _Nightingale_ has been taking good care of me ever since they mind-raped me.’

Lavellan sat on the stool, wincing ever so slightly. Dorian frowned, but didn’t ask if she was all right, not in front of Hawke. ‘They used potions on you,’ she said.

‘Yeah. Nice touch, the aftercare,’ Hawke said, eyes sliding to Dorian, glittering with malevolent, breath-taking hatred. ‘Kiss the cuts better.’

Dorian couldn’t be certain, but he thought he saw Hawke’s gaze drop to his mouth.

‘Leliana wrote a detailed report of what was extracted from you.’

‘I fucking _bet,_’ he hissed. ‘What _bits_ have you come to ask about? Which _juicy_ detail caught your interest?’

Lavellan was blank, placid. ‘None of it.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Varric told me about you long ago,’ she said. ‘About your true name. Your relationship with your brother. Your instability. I considered it for weeks while I allowed you to roam inside our castle. I made the wrong choice. You were not trustworthy, Hawke. I should have been strong enough to turn you away.’

Hawke’s eyes narrowed. ‘Hindsight’s _crystal_ clear, huh?’

‘I failed everyone in allowing your presence here, in keeping your secret,’ she said, so level and implacable that Dorian couldn’t help but shiver somewhat. Ellana was incredibly commanding when she needed to be. ‘I offered friendship and you repaid it with betrayal.’

He laughed spitefully. ‘Poor, sad _little girl_ with the weight of Thedas on her back. You have no idea how much worse it’s going to get! You’ll be _lucky_ to die out there! Die and become a symbol, rather than live to see them write about you as a disappointment. A bitter, ugly disappointment. That’s all you have to look forward to, _Inquisitor_. The world will turn on you. They’ll try to control you, destroy you.’ He leaned forward, straining against the chains as far as they would go. ‘The only difference between you and me… is _time_!’

Dorian’s fingers itched to hurl _something _at him. He feared such words affecting her, he feared her believing any of the poison coming from the Champion’s mouth.

His fears were unfounded.

‘No,’ she said, leaning forward slightly, unafraid and masterful. ‘The difference, Hawke, is that I have _friends_.’

A range of emotions swept over that pale, gaunt face. Derisive first, followed swiftly by anger and then finally a kind of seething resentment and… disappointment.

‘For now,’ he muttered, looking away, hauling himself back. ‘I wouldn’t go getting attached to your Commander though,’ he added casually, cuttingly.

‘No one is taking Cullen,’ Dorian said before he could stop himself.

Hawke’s gaze slipped to his, fluid and _vicious_. ‘You’re so _stupid_. He was right, all of you are so fucking _naive. _It’s revolting. Every single thing you do, every _pathetic_ little show of power, last stand… it’s walking you right into the mouth of the beast.’ He chuckled grimly. ‘You’re all so fucked.’

Lavellan was watching him with a small frown, like he was a puzzle, a complex lock to be picked. ‘You’ve told us everything you know,’ she said quietly. ‘But from what I read, you don’t actually _know_ a lot, do you?

‘I know he has Fenris!’ the chained man snarled, switching from amusement to fury jarringly fast. ‘He took the one thing I… the one thing that means anything anymore and he used it to _weaponize me_! That’s all I am now,’ he uttered bitterly. ‘A fucking weapon.’

Her eyes narrowed around the edges, zeroing in on Hawke in a way that gave Dorian prickles of anticipation, desperate to know what she was seeing in his outbursts that the mage was not.

‘No,’ she said calmly, sounding almost fascinated. ‘You know just about enough, I’d say, to give us cause to go seeking this man out.’

Hawke was still, had no recourse. He stared back at her.

‘You’re not the weapon, are you?’ Ellana Lavellan whispered. ‘You’re the _lure_.’

*

He and Ellana barely exchanged more than five words when she was done with Hawke. Dorian didn't have _time_ to fully consider the implication of what she’d said, about Hawke being… no. He had to find Keenan, had to talk to him.

‘Dorian, we need to discuss this,’ she called after him as he made his excuses. He didn’t realise he was practically running until her voice faded.

‘Later!’ he called back to her. ‘I promise!’

Keenan was not in the dorms and he wasn’t with Nalari. Dorian did his best to keep himself calm and cheery when he checked in with the new mother and little Dawn, but he was certain she picked up on something nonetheless.

‘Saffy saw him in the gardens a few times,’ she offered, rubbing Dawn’s back. ‘Maybe try there?’

But he wasn’t there either. Dorian looked around at the open space, snow slightly receding towards the edges as two women walked up and down the length of the garden, pointing and discussing various aspects about what was to be changed. Dorian realised they were planning the changes that Cullen and Nalari had discussed. He watched them for a moment, listening to the alterations they outlined, about what was to be built, how it would be sustained.

‘Whoever thought,’ one of them commented, rather wistfully. ‘You’d see the day Commander Cullen sought to turn Skyhold into a refuge for lost mages.’

‘Skyhold is for all of us,’ the other said, crouching low and digging her fingers into the earth. ‘Hmm, we’ll likely require a good deal more planters than estimated.’

‘I know it’s for all of us, but I heard what he’s drawing up with the Inquisitor and the Spymaster, they—oh, good day, Ser Pavus.’ The woman, Henrietta, Dorian thought, flushed faintly and seemed flustered while the other didn’t even notice, busy playing with soil.

‘Good day,’ he greeted respectfully. ‘Making grand plans for our garden?’

‘Yes Ser,’ she said, gesturing to the clipboard. ‘Commander Cullen is having us approximate the necessary requisitions.’

Dorian kept his expression neutral as he nodded. ‘I see. Well, I won’t keep you. Take care not to get frostbite on those fingertips.’

He was halfway to regretting not pushing them for more information as he turned, but then he saw Keenan. The boy was stood frozen on the outskirts of the garden, mouth somewhat agape.

‘Um,’ he said gracelessly.

‘Keenan,’ Dorian said quickly, relieved beyond measure. ‘Bloody void, there you are. Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you!’

He seemed wary. ‘You have?’

‘Yes, look, please can we go somewhere and talk? The _Anywhere You Want_ kind?’

The mild attempt at humour fell quite flat. Keenan was staring at Dorian, barely moving in fact. He seemed afraid.

‘Are you all right?’

The young mage shook himself. ‘Yeah, yeah, sorry. I was—’

‘You don’t need to explain yourself to me.’

Something softened in the mage’s expression, something like _sadness_.

‘Right, yeah. OK, we can go talk. Sure.’

He walked side by side with Dorian and they headed into the Great Hall. Dorian wasn’t sure why, but he felt like taking Keenan somewhere private for a chat just wasn’t the right way to go. Like the boy would interpret it as punishment. They sat at the end of the furthest table, no one else close by but the room was pleasantly filled with chatter anyway. They sat opposite one another and Dorian decided to wait.

‘I was praying,’ Keenan said eventually, his hands clasped before him on the table. ‘That’s where I was.’

Slowly, Dorian nodded. ‘That’s fine. You don’t need to—’

‘Been feeling a bit lost,’ he added quickly, guardedly. ‘So if you haven’t seen me around then, yeah. I’ve been praying.’

It was a lie and not an especially good one. Dorian wondered at why Keenan, who was an exceptional liar when necessary, felt the need to offer him a shoddy lie, but Dorian said nothing of it.

‘All right.’

Keenan’s fingers were still and steady, but Dorian noticed that his index finger was digging into his knuckle rather hard. Again, he didn’t comment.

‘Nalari doesn’t want to marry me,’ Keenan said after a beat of intense silence. He stared down at his hands. ‘She hasn’t said yet but I… I know she doesn’t feel that way about me and now she doesn’t _need_ to marry me.’

Against his better judgement, Dorian kept his mouth _shut_ and forced the silence to stretch on so that Keenan would fill it. The boy clearly needed to talk and Dorian’s well-meant attempts to reassure and comfort him would only stifle him.

He knew he was right when Keenan continued. ‘I’ve loved her for as long as I’ve known her. It was always selfish of me to want her but when… when there was a _reason_ for her to marry me, I was… I think I was happy.’

Remaining composed, Dorian took in what he could about the young mage. Keenan was _rarely_ so open, so honest and though Dorian thought that what he was telling him might actually be true, the mage wasn’t sure _why_ he was telling him this. Something felt deeply _off_.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dorian said.

Keenan’s expression darkened slightly, like he’d almost forgotten Dorian was even _there_. ‘For what?’

‘For that, and for not telling you about—’

‘You and Cullen,’ Keenan interrupted tightly. ‘I knew you’d start fucking him again.’

‘It must have been hard for you to see him holding Dawn,’ Dorian ventured carefully, but not gently. Keenan did not like to be treated gently, like a child.

When the mage’s jaw ground hard, Dorian knew he’d hit pay dirt.

‘I can’t believe Nalari let him,’ he said, expression curt and barely controlled.

‘She’s a good person.’

‘I know she is. Don’t talk to me about her like you know her better than I do.’

‘I’m not. I’m simply saying that her capacity for kindness is quite boundless.’

‘She shouldn’t trust him to hold Dawn,’ Keenan said, shaking his head and Dorian wanted to place his hands over the ones on the table, offer comfort.

‘It was momentary,’ Dorian said. ‘And it was only once, Keenan.’

‘She loves you,’ Keenan said, his voice trembling ever so slightly. ‘Nalari loves you, they all do. Saffy, Landon, Pick, Marcus, fucking _Finn_ wants to become a Maker damned Mortalitasi if you can believe that! They want to leave with you, follow you to Tevinter! Nalari loves you and you… you love _him_.’

Dorian understood quickly. ‘Keenan, however much regard they feel for me, it’s _nothing_ compared to what they feel for you.’

The boy scowled. ‘You’re wrong.’

‘How can you say that? They _worship _you. When he’s not waxing poetic about Saffy, you’re _all_ Landon talks about. How brave and strong you are, how he wants to be just like you! When Pick talks about fighting, you’re the standard he uses to measure strength by. Bastian can’t sleep unless you’re in the room. Nalari worries about you all the time, even little Dawn relaxes when you’re nearby. You have given yourself a thousand times for them and they know it, every single inch of it. They love you, Keenan. They love you and so do I.’

Throughout the fierce tirade, Keenan stared at Dorian, mouth in a thin line, expression rooted in control. Dorian fell silent and Keenan swallowed hard.

‘But they… they want to leave.’

‘They have opportunities,’ Dorian said. ‘They have chances to live their lives in a way they never expected before.’

Keenan closed his eyes and said softly, ‘They don’t need me anymore.’

‘They will always need you and even if they don’t, that will _never_ mean that you’re alone or unwanted or unloved.’ Dorian gave in and placed his hands over Keenan’s, covering them tightly, thumb swiping over the knuckles and Keenan’s expression crumpled ever so slightly. ‘And even if none of _that_ were true,’ Dorian insisted firmly. ‘You will always, _always_ have me.’

For a moment, Dorian was sure it had worked. That he’d gotten through to Keenan. There was something in the way the young mage looked at him, a kind of fragile, blossoming hope twined with regret but then a shadow passed over his face and Keenan withdrew his hands.

‘No,’ he said. ‘_Cullen_ has you.’

‘That—that doesn’t affect my ability or my desire to be there for you, Keenan.’

The boy withdrew and stood slowly. ‘Actually, it does, but thanks anyway. It means something that you tried.’

*

Dorian couldn’t shake the sick feeling the whole way out of the Hall and when Bull and Blackwall jumped him, dragging him into the Herald’s Rest, he didn’t have the energy to resist. They plied him with drink that he didn’t touch and demanded to know what had the haughtiest mage in all of the South looking so glum.

So, Dorian told them many things, all but what had happened with Keenan.

‘That’s a fuck-ton of shit to go down, Vint,’ Bull commented, taking a slug of his drink as Blackwall sat beside him and nodded in sombre agreement. ‘Seriously, don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone attract trouble quite like you.’

Dorian remained morose and his drink remained untouched. The atmosphere in the Herald’s Rest was livelier than it had been for months which was mostly thanks to Bull bringing out some heretofore undisclosed _stash_ of what was practically a personal brewery. The generosity didn’t go unnoticed, especially not by Dorian, who prided himself on his shrewd ability to see to the very core of kind gestures. If _Bull_ thought people were going to die then really, it didn’t bode well, did it?

This was the part of war that no one ever talked about. Sitting around, filling the silence, taking what might be last looks. A static, buzzing feeling in his stomach, a general sense of tightness in the chest while fingertips, tapping on the metal of a tankard, were determinedly numb.

‘He’s done well,’ Blackwall told Bull with a decisive nod. ‘And even with all this shit about magic and whatnot, if he’s happy with Cullen, that’s all that matters.’

Dorian huffed. ‘What about whether or not Cullen is happy with _me_?’

Blackwall shot the mage an incredulous kind of look. ‘Anyone with an eyeball in their head can see he’s happy with you, you Maker damned idiot.’

‘Well,’ Dorian sniffed, determined to be contrary. ‘It’s all still very… complicated.’

‘Yeah,’ Bull said, wiping his mouth. ‘Don’t want that, you. Not good with complicated shit, are ya? Straightforward and simple, that’s the Vint way.’

It wasn’t quite _withering_, the glare Dorian gave Bull, crossing his arms, but he tried his very best. ‘I miss Krem. Krem could reign you in.’

Bull sighed longingly. ‘I miss him too, miss ‘em all but we’ll meet on the battlefield in the Wilds. Heard they kicked ass and took no names with our lady Seeker at the helm.’

Blackwall put his drink down and wiped his mouth. ‘All right,’ he said, hands raised. ‘I need advice.’

Dorian sighed, eyes pitching skyward. ‘Just _do it_, man. Maker knows you might not get another chance.’

‘Yeah,’ Bull agreed sagely. ‘She’s not coming with, so better make hay while the sun shines.’

‘I’m not… it’s not about _making hay!__’ _Blackwall spluttered indignantly. ‘Lady Josephine deserves far better than anything _remotely_ to do with hay!’

Dorian leaned forward, grinning slightly. ‘Then what? Need a good line, do you? I’ve several myself, but they might be a tad too racy for you, my friend.’

Blackwall huffed. ‘No, that’s not it. I’ve… look, there’s something I need to come clean about to Lavellan first and then after, if my head’s still attached to my shoulders then maybe I could ask Josephine to dinner one day.’

Bull seemed interested. ‘Huh, you’re finally gonna tell her, then?’

Blackwall’s eyes popped out of his head. ‘Wh-what? Do you _know_?’

‘I know a lot more than people think. I was a spy, remember? Secrets are kind of my thing.’ The Qunari finished off his tankard and waved his huge hand in the air, indicating he’d like another.

‘Is anyone going to fill me in or is this a private party?’

‘I have to tell Lavellan first,’ Blackwall said slowly, completely ignoring Dorian, but he seemed uncertain now. ‘How _the fuck_ did you know?’

‘Look,’ Bull chuckled. ‘No one cares what your name is. You’ve proven yourself time and again and given what’s been happening while we were away, I’d be pretty fucking amazed if Lady Nightingale doesn’t already know too. She already knew about Hawke, had Vivienne buried deep by the time Fiona was ready to betray us and leave. If the Nightingale knows, then it’s a good bet Lavellan does too. Go to her and bare yourself. Tell her your name, see if she doesn’t respect you all the more for it.’

Dorian raised his hand, thoroughly confused. ‘So his name _isn__’t_ Blackwall?’

Not-Blackwall was staring at nothing, bloodless and pale, but was slowly overtaken with determination. He nodded to himself. ‘You’re right.’

Bull wasn’t even smug. ‘I usually am.’

‘I’ll go now,’ Blackwall said, downing the last of his drink. ‘And… and if she lets me stay, I’ll go right to Lady Josephine.’

‘I’d still really like to know what’s—’

‘Shut up, Vint.’

Blackwall got up from the table, patting Bull’s shoulder as he left.

Dorian watched him go and shook his head.

‘Well, it’s always lovely to be in the loop, eh?’

‘You’ll hear soon enough. Lavellan has been waiting a while to see if he’d go to her willingly. It’s good to get things sorted before we march to war and all that.’

‘Oh, here it comes.’

‘Hey, I have nothing to say.’

‘Nothing to say except…?’

‘Except you should probably marry him before we leave. He’d like that, all nice and proper. Rings too. Lavellan’s got a ton in that box in the Undercroft.’

Dorian blinked hard. ‘The _fuck_?’

‘You should marry him,’ Bull repeated slowly, like he was intensely stupid.

‘I should marry him,’ Dorian echoed as if the words were in a different language.

‘Yes,’ Bull agreed. ‘You should. He loves you, you love him. He’s the kind that believes in marriage, I reckon. Would wear the ring proudly. Nothin’ fancy, but we could nice the place up a bit if you wanted to do it here in the castle.’

Dorian made an incoherent noise of panicked splutter. ‘That’s…NO!’

He smirked, that damned Qunari. ‘Bet he’d fuck you real good after you pledged yourself to him in front of everyone.’

And Dorian _did not _blush from root to stem, he really did not.

‘I feel like I’m in the fucking Fade,’ Dorian said weakly, looking around with wide eyes. ‘When I agreed to have a drink with you—’

‘Which you still haven’t’

‘—this wasn't precisely what I had in mind!’

‘Look,’ Bull sighed, leaning his elbows on the table. ‘I reckon you already get it, but not everyone is gonna make it back from this one. It’s _big_, this war. We got all the allies, all the little markers on that table and up until now, we’ve all been real lucky. But luck, as you know, only gets you so far. This isn’t Adamant. This isn’t the Fallow Mire. You love him, go marry him.’

It rendered Dorian fairly mute and Bull eventually took pity on him. He ruffled Dorian’s hair and said, ‘C’mon, I’ll walk you home, how’s that, pretty boy?’

Dorian was too thunderstruck to do anything but go along.

The fresh air was nice, he had to admit. Overall, he’d always preferred warmth and comfort, but this… bracing and crisp, incredibly _fresh_, he liked it. Would likely miss it if he survived and managed to travel _elsewhere_.

He dared to hope that Cullen wouldn’t miss the snow too much.

‘Hey,’ Bull said when they were halfway across the courtyard. ‘You don’t have to listen to me. What do I know, right? All I’m sayin’ is that sometimes you can be your own worst enemy about these things.’

‘He wouldn’t… there’s no way he’d…’ Dorian tried, but it didn't feel _accurate_, that denial. There was a small, rather hysterical part of him that felt certain if he told Cullen about Bull’s suggestion, even jokingly, the Commander would smoothly nod and ask when Dorian would like to perform the ceremony.

Bull sighed. ‘There’s always a hundred reasons _not_ to do something.’

They trudged through the snow, the sky bright and partially clear above them. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he offered and Bull clapped his back, causing him to stumble slightly. ‘If you don’t knock the idea clean out of my head, that is!’

‘You do that, Vint. Meantime, brave face, all right? Lotta people worried and they’re right to be, but they look to us to see how to act. Chin up, brave face.’

And Dorian tried, he really did.

*

_Dorian was so enraptured that he forgot to eat. He didn_ _’t want to sleep. He stayed with the book, curled up on his bed and he lost himself. _

_When servants came to take back what they hoped would be empty plates, they pleaded with him to tell them what he would prefer to eat, assured him that whatever it was, they would get it for him. _

_Dorian wasn_ _’t hungry and he told them as much, didn’t look up from the book that was slowly taking him apart and rebuilding him anew. _

_It took him less than a day to finish it and Dorian found that when he turned the final page, he couldn_ _’t quite catch his breath. His eyes burned and he was shaking. He was… desperately sad to have reached the end. _

_He stared down at the book, at the innocuous blue cover and he stroked it. _

_Maybe_ _… maybe he could read it again. He had nothing but time, after all and there were sure to be parts he’d missed, little specks of detail he hadn’t been quite clever enough to catch the first time around. _

_So, for the first time in his life, Dorian Pavus flipped to the front of a book he_ _’d already read, and began again. _

*

Dorian sought Cullen out and when he found him, shuffling through papers in those Maker-forsaken quarters of his, he didn’t hesitate to grab him and kiss him. Cullen looked surprised, but didn’t pull away. He returned the kiss quickly, eagerly, sliding his tongue into Dorian’s mouth like it belonged there and for the first time that day, the mage felt _safe_.

And then someone cleared their throat behind him.

Dorian froze, eyes widening and he felt Cullen smile. The Commander placed a sweet, gentle kiss on the mage’s lips before he drew away.

‘Hello, Dorian,’ he greeted like butter wouldn’t melt in that beautiful, scarred mouth. ‘I was just finishing up. One moment and I’ll be with you.’

Dorian nodded and moved back, clearing his throat. Pennetell was hovering by the middle door, seemingly fascinated with the bundle of scrolls in her arms. Cullen didn’t seem to rush his work. He scanned through a couple of scrolls and wrote a few scribbled notes in his small, compact handwriting, ridiculously elegant for a soldier and handed them over to Pennetell.

‘Let me know which ones she wants to address first. If I can personally burn the marriage requests, that would be superb.’

That word, _marriage_, sent a shock of something quite electric through the mage but neither Cullen nor Pennetell seem to notice. The runner nodded professionally and left with a customary, ‘Commander, Ser Pavus.’

‘She’s very good,’ Dorian said once she was well out of earshot. ‘Though she has Jim’s propensity for interrupting us.’

Cullen was still writing when he glanced up to smirk rather wickedly at Dorian. ‘In all fairness,’ he said smoothly. ‘You most definitely interrupted _her _there. A little impatient, are we?’

He finished with a quick flick of his quill and Dorian’s heart surged, the two of them moving together, practically colliding into each other. This time it was the kind of kiss that rattled Dorian’s teeth, his bones, his fucking soul. They collided hard, desperate to crash into one another, to _meld_.

‘I hate that you operate from here,’ Dorian murmured as Cullen walked him into the nearby wall, pressing against him urgently, mouth trailing down the mage’s jaw to softly bite his throat.

‘It’s my office,’ Cullen said, voice somehow lusty and derisive all at once. ‘I can hardly operate from your bedroom, can I?’

Dorian’s heart leapt up into his throat when Cullen’s palm flattened against his stomach and slid under the waistline of his trousers, _seeking_.

‘You can do whatever you want in there.’

Cullen cocked an eyebrow, slightly challenging. ‘Oh really?’

‘Well, within the limits of _reason_,’ Dorian said, the final word stretched out into a breathy sigh as Cullen’s palm found what it was looking for.

His hand moved, pressed hard against Dorian’s cock, nosing into the flesh of the mage’s neck. ‘What if what I want _isn__’t_ within reason? What if I want things from you that would make you tremble?’

Dorian’s head fell back with a painful thud against the stones, making his vision blur slightly as waves of deep, liquid pleasure began to roll through his bones. ‘I’m… already trembling.’

‘Not like how I _could_ make you,’ Cullen told him. ‘You drive me fucking _crazy,_ Dorian. You always have. I want to fuck you where everyone can see, make you mine in front of the whole world, in front of the Chantry doors so they can see my beautiful mage writhing on my cock.’

Dorian bit his bottom lip to stop from crying out, to stop a sound escaping from him that would likely resemble a _whimper_ more than a manly growl. The air shifted between them, a sense of shared understanding of what was about to happen. Cullen fumbled with the laces of his own trousers while Dorian shoved his own down around his ankles, not bothering with his boots, knowing Cullen would prefer it this way, material bunched tightly, making it impossible to spread wider.

Cullen lifted the hem of Dorian’s shirt and when he removed it, he threw it far away. ‘Why do you wear these things?’ he muttered, spinning Dorian abruptly and pushing him face first into the wall. ‘Dull colours with _barely_ any fancy buckles at all?’ Before Dorian could respond, the former Templar slipped one hand gently, carefully around Dorian’s neck, the other pressing between the crease of his arse. ‘Haven’t I _told you_ how beautiful you are?’

Dorian made an incoherent noise when Cullen drew on the mage’s magic, on that deeply satisfied, very _happy_ magic that welled deeply within Dorian and stretched to Cullen through ropes of resplendent iron. The pull of it was minimal and when he felt Cullen’s slick digit slipping into him, he knew what it had been used for. Cullen sunk his teeth into the back of Dorian’s neck.

‘I want to mark you for all time,’ Cullen babbled, pushing those fingers deeper, twisting and seeking once more. He added a third much too quickly, forearm pressing on Dorian’s windpipe just the right amount. ‘Make you wear the scar, wear my mark for all to see and know that my mouth fits there and no one else’s.’

The corners of Dorian’s lips curled, brow lifting. ‘So possessive, Commander.’

‘Because you’re mine,’ he promised Dorian, drawing on his magic again for the same purpose, increasing the slick to almost obscene levels, perhaps revelling in the power a little too much. ‘You’re mine and if anyone else thinks they can have you, I’ll kill them.’

With what little leeway the mage had to breathe let alone speak, he whispered, ‘Would you tie me down to keep me with you?’

‘You know I would. Touch yourself for me, my love. You’re going to come so fucking hard for me.’

Dorian complied eagerly. ‘Would you rope up my wrists and leave me on your bed all day while you worked down here?’

‘I’d tie you to my desk, keep you naked and spread open for me, so everyone who came in here would see it and _know_.’

Fucking _void,_ Dorian was so close and every filthy thing filling the air was making him so much hotter.

‘If I ran, would you chase me?’

Cullen growled and removed his fingers swiftly, leaving Dorian feeling momentarily _lost_ right up until he felt the blunt, thick head of Cullen’s cock pressing there and another delicious _tug_ as Cullen used more magic to slick himself. It was already dripping down Dorian’s thighs but that hardly mattered.

He pushed inside slow and forceful, making Dorian keen. ‘I’d hunt you to the ends of Thedas and beyond. There’s nowhere you could run to that I wouldn’t find you.’

Dorian’s eyes crossed when Cullen pushed fully inside, using his free hand to brace himself on the wall as the other moved over his desperate, leaking cock. The sensation was so _much_, so deep. Cullen gave him no time to adjust, simply began fucking into him with long, even strokes, bottoming out every time.

‘What would you do when you f-found me?’

‘Make you _mine,__’_ Cullen snarled against Dorian’s ear and fuck, he sounded _gone_. ‘Fuck proof of my ownership deep into you, make you wear my mark, keep you hidden from the world forever. You can’t run from me, my beautiful mage. I’m inside you, I’ll _always_ be inside you. Fuck,’ he bit off, tightening his grip. ‘I’d _breed_ you if I could.’

Dorian came so fucking hard he saw white and judging by the broken, strangled roar Cullen let out, the Commander wasn’t far behind him. Cullen pumped a few times, flooding the mage with his come, the noises absolutely _obscene_. All manner of squelching and slickness mingling in the air with breathless panting and gasping, the smell of sex simply everywhere.

Dorian pressed his forehead against the stones, ice cold and smooth under his skin. He tried to reign himself in but it was so difficult with Cullen these days. Even when it was like this – filthy and exaggerated, saying things neither of them truly _meant_ \- Dorian found it hard to simply turn and crack wise with Cullen, make light of it. He felt positively _infected_ by the man, by every shred of sentiment they shared, no matter the origin or the purpose.

Cullen slid out and turned him around, immediately seeking out his mouth with deep, wet kisses. Dorian was still utterly breathless, lungs aching as remnants of the bright, sweet pleasure continued to _zing_ around his body.

‘You’re so fucking perfect,’ Cullen praised hoarsely, holding Dorian’s face while he kissed him. ‘What you do to me, Dorian, _fuck_.’

Dorian kissed him back, wrapping his arms tightly around his neck, wanting to keep Cullen this close forever. They kissed for what felt like longer than they’d had sex and eventually, Dorian’s arse began to feel uncomfortably cold against the stones of the wall and some small measure of reality returned.

They were almost dressed by the time someone knocked again. Cullen shot Dorian a cheeky grin and said, ‘Well, that time she _definitely_ interrupted you, my love.’

*

‘Cassandra is routing the bulk of the army, those not injured or too weary from travelling, through the bottom curve of the Frostbacks,’ Lavellan said. ‘She suggested that we wait and travel together.’

Dorian looked up at her from the map. ‘You don’t want to do that, do you?’

‘I don’t,’ she admitted.

‘Tell me why.’

She moved markers across the map, the ones representing Cassandra and the armies.

‘Our army is vast and I have since dispatched calls to arms to all our allies across Ferelden and Orlais. The movement will be enormous. We will have more than enough to crush whatever forces we find in the Wilds.’

He sensed her hesitation. ‘But?’

_‘But_,’ she said. ‘The journey there leaves us exposed. If I were Corypheus, I would fly overhead on my great dragon and burn whatever I liked of my enemies, all lined up so conveniently. Anything less would be remiss.’

Dorian leaned back, crossing his arms. ‘So, what are you thinking?’

‘I think we need to stay a dozen steps ahead here because this bastard moves _fast_ and with him, a dozen turns into one before you know it. I want to split the forces into three. A staggered one here, hanging back by two miles; ancillary forces mostly. These will be the weakest ones, the majority of our army who march with Cassandra. They’re tired and exhausted, but we can’t risk sending them back here and marching only with the expectation of allied forces arriving. Here,’ she gestured closer to the Wilds. ‘The secondary tier. Perimeter control, advance look out. Corypheus has spies, agents and creatures of his own that don’t consist of his main forces. He’s unpredictable and as such, we need to do whatever is necessary to limit the chaos. Cullen has told me a great deal about Samson and his men. The red lyrium is a danger to all who go near it and so again, the secondary tier must act as containment for the Red Templars as well.’ There was something slightly _bitter_ when she spoke of the last part but she was staring down at the map intently so Dorian did not press it.

‘The third?’ Dorian said, touching the marker she had not yet explained.

Lavellan breathed tightly, nose furling slightly. ‘My instinct says to use them as a distraction.’

Slowly, Dorian nodded. ‘Draw Corypheus’s forces away enough to allow us access to the Temple.’

‘But also protecting the forest,’ Lavellan added, staring down. ‘I’ve spoken with Morrigan about this at great length. She was initially quite cagey, withholding certain details. What I now know makes me wary of rampaging forth and blundering into a fight we can easily win.’

‘Why does the forest matter?’

‘Every single piece of information I can find about this area, about this singular location within the Arbor Wilds, informs me of its importance in both history and to the elven people. It is sacred land and the temple within is said to be guarded by sentinels.’

‘So,’ Dorian said slowly. ‘You want to try an approach that _doesn__’t_ result in all-out war?’

‘Oh no,’ she said, smiling grimly. ‘It’s war, however we paint it. No matter how I move these markers, people will die. But this way,’ she said, nodding to herself. ‘This way is the best way, I truly believe.’

‘What of the forces used as a distraction?’

‘They can still easily win,’ she said. ‘With auxiliary forces not far behind and a strong perimeter, we can _contain_ this war. We have the most control this way.’

Dorian scratched his nose. ‘Ellana, why are we here alone?’

She stiffened slightly.

‘Cullen has requested that I leave you behind.’

Anger flared, painfully fucking _indignant_. ‘Excuse me? When?’

‘After we spoke with Hawke. I went to him and told him everything, told him what I think Hawke is doing, albeit unknowingly. He didn’t seem to hear me, not really. He _was_ quite insistent, however, that I leave you here in Skyhold. He gave good reasons,’ she added, rubbing her eyes. ‘The castle needs a mage, look what would have happened without you here during the Deep White, how great you are with the other mages… all that. He’s completely right but I can’t grant his request.’ She smiled faintly for a moment. ‘Couldn’t grant his last one either, when he demanded I send you away from here to protect you from himself.’

Dorian’s lips parted. ‘What?’

‘Remember? Months ago when you two were still pretending you hated one another? He came to me and requested—’

‘That you relieve me of my position within the Inquisition, I very much _remember_, but I didn’t know it… I thought he just wanted rid of me.’

‘Andraste preserve us, is that what you really thought?’

‘You didn’t tell me otherwise!’

‘I thought it was pretty obvious, myself,’ she said seeming bemused. ‘He almost tore you apart on the ramparts that first time, or so I heard. He was afraid of hurting you, told me so himself. _Really _hurting you. Oh, don’t get me wrong though, he also called you an arrogant prick,’ she added lightly. ‘I think control meant a lot to him back then.’

‘Right,’ Dorian said, not knowing what else to say. ‘So you called me here to tell me that, then?’

‘And to ask your opinion about the plan, of course.’

Dorian scoffed doubtfully. ‘I’m _hardly_ the expert on matters of war.’

‘Neither am I,’ she said softly, staring down at the pieces. ‘I’m twenty-one years old. I don’t know what I’m doing beyond trying to keep the maximum amount of people alive for as long as possible.’

‘And you’re doing a fucking amazing job,’ he told her, his best friend, strong, fierce little elf that she was. ‘And when we _all_ come back alive from this, I for one look forward to pillaging what little remains of your precious wine stash.’

She smiled genuinely for a moment and Dorian couldn’t help but mirror it. ‘I think it’s mostly gone. One or two good bottles I hid right at the back, maybe.’

‘Damn, must have missed those.’

‘I _did_ mean to say, if you wanted to stay behind, I would think no less of you. I know you’re not a coward, you’re braver than most people will ever know. If you wanted to stay here I know it would be to protect everyone.’

The answer was already there on the tip of his tongue.

‘Where Cullen goes, I go too.’

She smiled again. ‘Such _sentiment_.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s not sentiment, only truth.’

‘Blackwall came to me earlier,’ she said, gracefully giving the mage a reprieve. ‘Admitted something to me that I’d known for a while now. It was… incredible to see him accept it, his true self. His real name. Shrug off the deeds of the past and look only forward. His name is Thom Rainier and he will be remaining behind with Josephine and Vivienne to ensure the continued safety of the castle. The others are all coming, Leliana included. She is a formidable asset and high time she was allowed to shine on the front lines.’

‘I’m proud to stand beside her, beside _you_, my dearest friend.’

‘That means a lot,’ she said and he didn’t miss the way she swallowed slightly. ‘Come on, let’s get some air. Bloody stuffy in here sometimes.’

*

That night, Dorian started a fight with Cullen. He demanded to know who Cullen thought he _was_, attempting to side-line the mage, leave him behind like he was luggage. Cullen was smoothly defensive, pointing out that he was looking out for the mages, for the castle. He had endless reasons, as Lavellan had pointed out, and they were all _valid_, but they weren’t the true reason.

Dorian pushed Cullen hard, the fight turning sharp and cutting between them. Harsh words and things taken out of context but before Cullen could storm out of Dorian’s bedroom, the mage grabbed his arm and pulled him back, desperately seeking _truth_ in those honey brown eyes and asking, ‘Just tell me it’s not because you think you’re going to die.’

Cullen’s jaw clenched, throat working. Dorian let go abruptly, betrayed to his core.

‘_Coward_,’ the mage spat and that was the end of that.

*

‘I won’t apologise for trying to protect you,’ Cullen said the following day. ‘I don’t think I need to and I won’t insult you. I _do_ apologise for going behind your back to Lavellan. I should have spoken to you about it before.’

Dorian was guarded and wary, still burning with anger and things left, if not _un_said, then at the very least, poorly said.

‘I’m not some simpering housewife.’

‘I would never think that of you.’

‘I don’t _need_ your protection!’

Cullen sighed and shook his head. ‘You don’t need it, but I can’t help wanting to _offer_ it. You’re mine, Dorian. I… I cannot in good conscience risk losing you without at least attempting to keep you safe first.’

It took a lot for Dorian to swallow past the lump in his throat and say, ‘You don’t know that Skyhold will even _be_ safe!’

‘It will be safer than this battle.’

‘How safe was it the day Hawke broke in here and locked us all up? Trapped you in a cage that left you unable to _move_ let alone fight back?’

Cullen winced. ‘Don’t.’

‘You can’t bypass me like that. My fate must be my own, you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘Do you really?’

Irritable, but clearly defeated, Cullen said, ‘I won’t do it again, all right? I just thought… I wanted you to be safe here.’

Dorian finished returning the last few books to his greatly neglected library. ‘Yes, I noticed. Making the garden into a self-sustaining source of food. I heard the architects discussing your plans.’

‘Yes,’ Cullen said toeing the stone floor. ‘I wanted to set about making the changes as soon as possible.’

‘Apparently so,’ Dorian said, barely able to keep his voice level. Inside him, a throbbing, itching kind of fury was seeking attention, demanding to be _scratched_. ‘Making it so that those who are _left behind_ can use Skyhold for as long as they need. Making it into a refuge for mages, perhaps.’

‘That’s how it should be,’ Cullen said neutrally. ‘The Inquisitor has said many times that—’

Dorian whirled around and threw a book at him. Cullen, military reflexes and all, caught it perfectly which did nothing to salve the mage’s anger.

‘You think I don’t know what you’re doing?’ he demanded. ‘Making a nice little _sanctuary_ for me and the others, a place in which I’m meant to carry on without you?’

Cullen carefully placed the book down on the table. ‘Dorian, there has _always_ been the possibility of this. It was there in Adamant, it’s everywhere this war touches. People die. Good soldiers die.’

‘You’re not just a good soldier and I don’t give you anything resembling permission to fucking die so don’t you _dare_!’

‘I know it’s difficult for you. I went about it wrong, I should have… should have talked to you about it first. I’m sorry.’

Abruptly, all the wind from Dorian’s furious sails simply vanished. Cullen was only trying to ensure the safety of his mages, their continued way of life.

‘Well,’ Dorian said thickly, wrapping his arms tight across his chest. ‘Lavellan refused anyway, so bad luck.’

‘I knew she would,’ Cullen sighed. ‘She loves you and she wants you by her side. You’re an asset to the Inquisition and one hell of a fighter.’

Dorian narrowed his eyes. ‘Don’t try to butter me up.’

‘I’m being honest. Do I wish you could stay here, safe and distanced from what we’re about to go through? Of course. Will we have a better chance of winning if you come with us? Absolutely. That doesn’t make it any less difficult.’

‘Maker, Cullen, how do you think I feel?’ Dorian said quietly, shaking his head. ‘You’re the Commander, you’re on the front of every single line. Risking yourself constantly and _now_ the target of some madman using Hawke to draw you in. I have to deal with your mortality every single day. I felt you in the throes of a fever that almost took you. I held you in the snow and thought I’d failed you, that you were going to die without ever hearing me apologise for what I did to you. Don’t stand there and tell me how much easier things would be if I was wrapped in cotton wool, left behind to protect the children. I am yours yes, but you are fucking _mine_ in return and where you go, I go too.’

They weren’t standing very far apart in truth, a few feet maybe, but when Cullen gently pulled Dorian into his arms, the mage felt like a chasm had been sealed, a dark, gaping rift closed at last.

‘Where you go, I go,’ Cullen echoed, his voice stripped and bare, like he was clinging to the words. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, pressing a kiss to Dorian’s neck as they embraced. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve never… I didn’t know what to do.’

Dorian understood. It was impossible _not_ to. Cullen hadn’t felt this way for so long, hadn’t felt _happy_ for over a decade. Of course he wanted to protect it. Dorian stroked his back, idly played with the Commander’s hair for a few, precious seconds before they parted.

‘I’m sorry too that I can’t alleviate your concerns, I’m sure it would be easier if I—’

‘No,’ Cullen said sternly, stroking his face with an intense, reverent adoration. ‘No. There’s nothing of you I would change, so don’t even say it. My perfect, stubborn, strong, _beautiful_ mage. You’re everything to me. I’m glad you’re coming too. Parting from you would be agonising.’

Dorian kissed him then, sweet and gentle, the gesture meant to convey what words could not. Between them, their magic swirled happily. It had been distinctly displeased for the entirety of last night.

‘Cullen, we need to talk about what Lavellan said.’

The Commander sighed and rubbed his nose against Dorian’s. ‘Which part? She’s said many things the last few days.’

‘The part about Hawke being a lure.’

‘It’s not important right now,’ Cullen told him, thumb caressing Dorian’s scar. ‘After we deal with this threat, we can decide how to proceed. For now, Corypheus remains the priority.’

Dorian drew back to fix Cullen with a level stare. ‘And if it was me this _master_ was after?’

Cullen held his gaze with a hint of steel. ‘Well, he’s not.’

The mage rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, but _I__’m_ stubborn, am I?’

*

Dorian decided that under different circumstances, he might actually have _liked_ Morrigan. She was arch and seasoned, she watched everyone around her and assessed them easily, much in the way Leliana did, but there was an element of chaos about her and circumstances being what they were, he did _not_ like her.

He especially didn’t like the way she spoke to Cullen.

There was something almost _teasing_ when she addressed him, the way she said _Commander_ as if it was a mild, playful insult. She became a part of _all_ their war table meetings and Dorian came to dread her presence increasingly as time wore on. Leliana and Cullen gave very little away in terms of being affected, but Dorian knew them both well enough to recognise when they didn’t like someone.

‘The mages can align here, they can maintain shields while under protection from the flanks,’ Cullen said the following day, hours into a strategy meeting while Dorian did his very best not to fall asleep having long ago given up trying to ascertain why _his_ presence was even necessary. ‘An additional line here to protect the ballistae and trebuchets, recalibrate them if necessary.’

‘The secondary tier,’ Morrigan agreed, touching the map and Dorian bristled, wanting to tell her to _get off_ because that wasn’t her map and it never would be, but really, that was seriously petty, even for Dorian. ‘Maintain the perimeter and watch for the dragon. This is the only use for the siege weaponry?’

Cullen seemed displeased. ‘Yes.’

Morrigan smirked. ‘You’d rather tear up the forest, infringe upon thousands of years of protected lands?’

Dorian could see how much Cullen wanted to say _yes_, _if it made the battle easier, absolutely_, but he held her countenance easily and didn’t falter.

‘Not at all, Lady Morrigan,’ he said.

Lavellan looked between the two and her eyes fluttered in a _not_-roll. Leliana swept in quickly, as she so often did.

‘We must also address the shortage of healers,’ the Spymaster said. ‘It might be possible to recruit new ones along the way, send scouts to neighbouring towns but even so, there will be a severe lack which will result in untreated wounds and unnecessary deaths.’

Morrigan cocked her hip and lifted her brow. ‘Why not bring along the pretty little blond, then? I hear nothing but tales of her prowess throughout the castle.’

Dorian went still, Cullen shook his head slightly, staring at Morrigan and Leliana almost winced, but not quite. Even Lavellan, who did not really _know_ Nalari and had only spoken with her once after returning, didn’t seem impressed by the suggestion.’

‘She has a new-born babe,’ Cullen pointed out like it should have been obvious. ‘And she herself is little more than a child. Prowess aside, which I grant is formidable, she is under the protection of the Inquisition and as such, remains here.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen the baby,’ Morrigan spoke casually, running her finger along the line of the table. ‘I’m astonished you’ve allowed her to keep it here, to be frank, _Commander_.’

Cullen’s non reaction was total in the extreme. He stared like she was fulfilling every expectation he had of her. ‘The Circles have been disbanded. Why would we need to separate them?’

‘And when a new Divine is selected and the Circles inevitably return, what then? Will she thank you for allowing her to become attached to it?’

Oh, it was a thing to behold the way Cullen leaned across the table slightly, pressing his palms flat to the surface of the map that Morrigan had been toying with.

‘Anyone who tries to take that baby from her,’ he said in a deceptively calm, hushed kind of way. ‘Is going to die violently, Circles or no. _Chantry_ or no.’

Lavellan sighed. ‘Let’s stay on—’

‘Well, well,’ Morrigan crowed subtly. ‘How the wheels have turned.’

_‘Morrigan_,’ Leliana warned. ‘Perhaps you should recognise that eleven years is a long time and people are capable of change.’

‘_People_, yes,’ Morrigan purred, her yellow eyes affixed to the Commander. ‘But for a Templar to stand here, explicitly stating his protection for a young mage and her baby in such a way _is_ rather stirring, Leliana. Even you can’t deny that.’ Morrigan chuckled and added in a much lower voice. ‘If you weren’t quite so wrapped up in the blood mage, _Commander_, one might question your _ties_ to the pretty blond and her darling baby.’

Dorian wasn’t even aware he was moving until Lavellan grabbed his arm, fingers digging in tightly.

Morrigan laughed, clearly pleased. ‘I jest, of course,’ she said easily, though Cullen had yet to blink and Leliana had not moved from his side. ‘I apologise, dear friends. All in jest. I am _thrilled_ to see how far you’ve come, Cullen. On your knees begging for unarmed mages to be slaughtered and now… their sworn protector. How strange the turns of fate.’ She smiled at Dorian. ‘How _very_ strange.’

After that, Dorian refused to attend the meetings unless his presence was absolutely imperative. It was for the best, lest something very unfortunate happen to Morrigan.

*

‘I’m putting measures in place,’ Lavellan told Dorian as she and Sera sat with him and Cullen at the table in his bedroom, sharing the first meal that consisted of actual _meat_ in many days. The results of the slowly easing pathways, allowing for hunters to venture out. ‘To protect the mages in the event of my death.’

Dorian had been expecting it. The way Sera held her hand when she first started speaking, filling the comfortable post-meal lull. That didn’t make it hurt any less, cause him any less distress at the very idea that she might not survive all this.

Cullen’s hand slid onto Dorian’s knee, rubbing absently in a much-appreciated gesture of comfort.

‘Ellana, must we really?’

‘It needs to be addressed,’ she told him, smiling in a wobbly way that made his heart clench. ‘Leliana and I have spoken about this at length. If we succeed in doing what we set out to do, regardless of the outcome in terms of my survival, I would like to see the Inquisition reduced to a core movement, mandated to protect as many as possible, but not only mages. The castle is vast, after all, and without an army filling the barracks, there would be plenty of room. Those who seek shelter from persecution, those who have no home to call their own.’ She looked at Cullen. ‘A place for those Templars who wish to free themselves of lyrium as you have done. For everyone who needs it. Skyhold was our shelter when we required it most. We need only retain a small portion of our core forces to hold it, to ensure safety and security.’

Dorian didn’t know what to say. Cullen took a sip of water from the mage’s glass, he didn’t have one of his own and despite himself, Dorian smiled at it, that small level of trust, completely unnoticed by anyone else.

‘And,’ Lavellan went on heavily. ‘If I die and the Inquisition is able to continue as a core operation, I would like _you_ to take over, Dorian.’

The mage blinked, her last three words hitting him like a slap. ‘What?’

‘You, Dorian,’ she repeated. ‘I want you to take over.’

‘N-no,’ he said. ‘You mean Cullen.’

‘Leliana suggested Cullen, yes,’ she went on gently. ‘And I listened to all the reasons why. I then spoke with Cullen and he agrees with me. You’re the perfect choice.’

Dorian didn’t splutter, but it was a very near thing. ‘I’m… no. No fucking _way_, Ellana! No. This is ridiculous.’

Patiently, she asked, ‘How so?’

Dorian shot Cullen a deep and furious glare.

‘How about the fact that I’m of _Tevinter_? That the entirety of the South is nothing but prejudiced against me before even knowing me! I can’t be the face of anything!’

‘I don’t see why not,’ Cullen said smoothly. ‘You’re pretty enough.’

Sera cracked a wide grin, burying it in her hand as Dorian went ahead and glared some more.

‘No one will agree to it, no one will follow me!’

‘Every single person in this castle followed you the entire time I was away. They respect you, they _believe_ in you. I’ve spoken to them. What you’ve done for the mages is a large part of it, but it’s more than that, Dorian. You question yourself, you question _everything_. You care and you put others first and when you make mistakes, you try to mend them. I know you would have all the support you needed,’ she added, glancing at Cullen.

Dorian sat back. ‘I don’t want it.’

Lavellan looked down at her hand, dormant for the time being, the hand of a seemingly normal elf. ‘Neither did I, but here we are. If we _can_ make the world a better place, then we _must_. My greatest fear is that all the good we’ve accomplished… fades with me, should I fall. I cannot allow that. Perhaps it is selfish, to carve a legacy and have you carry it in the possibility of my absence, but there it is.’

Sera wrapped her arm around her lover, leaning on her shoulder, brows pinched with sadness. Sera was never sad, never.

‘What’s wrong?’ Dorian asked quickly, dread curling up his spine. He became aware in a sudden and terrible rush that everyone else at the table knew something he _didn__’t_ and it sickened him. ‘What the void is going on?’

Lavellan took a shaky breath, biting her bottom lip. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I couldn’t tell you yet. I couldn’t bring myself to. I had to be certain, first. I had to speak with Varric, the expert,’ she added with a sad chuckle.

Dorian couldn’t feel his fingertips. ‘Certain of what?’

With a shaky breath, Lavellan lifted the hem of her shirt, raised it to expose her midsection which was heavily bandaged. As soon as she peeled the bandages away, Dorian saw layers of Fade touched imperial vestment cotton beneath the bandages and he put his hand over his mouth.

‘No,’ he said hoarsely. ‘No.’

Her pale skin beneath the wrap was infected with bright red, angry looking spider veins; thin, poisonous roots spanning out in a circle from one small scar, dark red and poorly healed. Now that it was exposed, he could almost taste it in the air; the acrid, foul tang of red lyrium.

‘No,’ he said again, because it wasn’t possible, he couldn’t come to terms with it. ‘No, this isn’t right.’

Cullen took his hand and held it, the only source of gravity to be found as Dorian stared through wet, blurred eyes at the injury she’d hidden from him until then.

‘They’d made swords of it,’ she said, her voice sounding very far away. ‘One broke off, splintered inside me. Varric says even if there weren’t pieces still inside, it wouldn’t matter. Once it touches your insides, It’s only a matter of time.’

Dorian made himself look away. ‘How much time?’

‘A year, perhaps, until the transformation begins. There are measures I can take to slow the progress and I will consider all of them, but I won’t die as one of those things. I just won’t.’

When Dorian looked back, it was Sera he sought out. The elf was a natural source of bracing reality, the one to cut through any sadness and make him see the funny side of things. She stared at him, wide eyes filled with weight, with terrible acceptance. Dorian could see it, then. She would be bright for Lavellan, she would keep her weightless for as long as possible. There would be days when they fought side by side, laughing and making light of the fact that soon, Lavellan would fall prey to an insidious corruption.

_You_ _’re not dead yet, Tadwinks, so how about sharing the cloaking powder?_

He could see it so _clearly_ now. Bull extolling the virtues of taking happiness wherever possible. Telling Dorian that death was inevitable. Brave face and all that.

‘How could you not tell me?’

A frisson of something ran through Lavellen and Sera held her a little closer. ‘I wanted to be sure first,’ she told him. ‘And you’re… you mean so much to me, Dorian. I wanted a few more days of things being normal. Even if normal is _this_. Waging war and calculating minimum losses.’

He turned fractionally towards Cullen to ask, but before the words could come out, Lavellan cut over him.

‘I told him this afternoon,’ she said. ‘When we spoke about making arrangements. I warned him very strictly not to tell you anything so please, no more misunderstandings, all right?’ she added smiling gently, _trying_. She was _fucking trying_ to make it not so bad. To make him smile and see that the world would still be a good place even without her in it.

Dorian cleared his throat. ‘Cullen, could you…?’

The Commander understood right away. He got up and dropped a kiss to Dorian’s hair before leaving with Sera.

Once they were alone, Dorian fixed Lavellan with the full weight of his glare. ‘Don’t do this,’ he said. ‘I forbid you to do this.’

‘Dorian—’

‘Don’t sit there and make _speeches_ about how I’ll be a great leader or whatever _the fuck_ it is you’re saying. Don’t make out that life will go on and everything will be all right!’

Her shoulder sagged. ‘What would you have me do?’

Dorian shoved the chair back as he stood, the wood screeching against the stone floor. ‘I’d have you _fight it_, Ellana! Where’s my girl?’ he demanded, voice trembling. ‘Where’s my scrappy girl who fights tooth and nail for every single thing?’

She looked off to the side, a strange bitterness about her. ‘You think I want this?’

‘Then _fight_ it! That’s what we do! We take bad things and we—we beat the ever-loving fuck out of them!’

‘Not always.’

‘_Yes _always! That’s who we are! That’s who you are! I won’t stand by as you give in to something we barely know anything about yet!’

‘Varric knows all there is to know, Dorian. It’s irreversible.’

His throat constricted, caught in something awful and coiling. ‘I won’t let you die.’

‘I’m not asking you to. I’m telling you what’s happened to me and I’m _asking_ for your help. You think I want to be sitting here arguing with you about _dying_?’ she said in a rigid way, fraying at the edges. ‘I want to live. I want to _leave_. I want to go with Sera and see all the places that I read about. I want to go with you to Tevinter. I want to see you and Cullen change the world in your own way. I want to see everyone that I love be _happy_ and I want to know that the good we started here will carry on, regardless of which of us carries it.’ She spoke through a partly clenched jaw, eyes brimming with tears. ‘I don’t want to die. I’ve barely begun to live and I’m scared of what will happen to me, to my body… but I _have_ to plan for it. I have to be ready and most of all, everyone that I love has to be ready too. I need you to be strong for me. I _need_ you to agree to this, all of it.’

Dorian swore in Tevene, turning away completely. ‘I won’t.’

‘I’m begging you.’

He put both hands over his mouth. ‘If I go along with this, it’s… it’s like I’m giving you leave to go.’

‘No. I will fight this and I will do everything I can to buy time.’

He closed his eyes, tears spilling over his cheeks. _‘If_ I agree to everything you’ve laid out.’

After a long, drawn out beat of silence, he looked back at her. ‘I’ll agree,’ he said hesitantly, guardedly. ‘If you let me research it. See if there’s any way to save you from the lyrium.’

Her exhale caught and shattered in her throat as she drew a shaking hand over her eyes. ‘Of course you can,’ she said, laughing weakly. ‘By all means, please do _save my bloody life_, Dorian. I’m hardly going to stop you.’

She didn’t want to die. She was terrified and it just about broke the mage’s heart in two. He went to her and took her in his arms as gently as possible.

‘I’m going to save you,’ he promised, stroking her hair. ‘I swear it.’

‘If anyone can,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sure it’s you.’

*

‘_Have you learned your lesson?__’_

_Dorian looked up, blinking owlishly. _ _‘Hmm?’_

_His father stood in the doorway, watching the young mage carefully. _ _‘I said, have you learned your lesson?’_

_Carefully, Dorian set the book side. He was keenly aware of his father eyeing it and he felt_ _… oddly protective of it. ‘Yes,’ he lied smoothly. ‘Yes, I did.’_

_Halward took a step forward. _ _‘What lesson did you learn?’_

_Dorian stared right back and remained silent. _

_‘I _said_—__’_

_‘I heard you, Father. The lesson I learned had little to do with what you were trying to teach me, I’m afraid.’_

_Magister Halward didn_ _’t seem impressed. ‘Always so clever, Dorian,’ he said. ‘Sharp wit and cutting tongue are pretty parlour tricks. Rarely indicative of a man in control of himself.’_

_Dorian looked back down at his book. _ _‘So noted.’_

_‘You finally read it, I see? The book, _The Watchful Ambler_.__’ _

_‘Yes,’ Dorian said non-commitally. ‘I enjoyed it.’_

_‘I knew you would,’ Halward said. It was soft, almost apologetic. ‘Your mother said it was too adult for you but I thought… well. I’m glad.’_

_It was difficult to remain silent because Dorian had so much to say then. He wanted to tell his father that locking him up for a week had caused his chest to tighten and his breathing to almost entirely halt. That he felt panicked for the first time, locked inside that one small room with nothing new to read. That it was cruelty beyond measure. _

_But admitting such things was admitting that yes, Halward had beat him. Had found a weakness and _pressed_ it to his advantage. _

_So he opened the book once more, starting again from the very first page. His father stood there in the doorway for a long time and Dorian was aware of him peripherally, right up until the moment he walked away, leaving the door open and unlocked. _

_And if it felt like _winning_, that was hardly Dorian__’s fault. _

_*_

Cullen stayed with Dorian that evening and quietly, the pair spoke of everything. Of Lavellan and her red lyrium, of Keenan’s withdrawal from Dorian, of Hawke. Of every bad thing that Dorian could think of and Cullen listened to all of it.

‘Cole,’ Dorian said, because he could feel the very specific kind of warmth that boy emanated and to the mage, it was like a _scent_. ‘Don’t lurk, my friend. Come sit with us.’

Cullen didn’t seem to realise Cole was in the room with them, but he wasn’t especially alarmed when the boy materialised in the furthest corner near the bookshelf.

‘Have you been there all this time?’ he asked the spirit, pulling out a chair for Cole beside him.

‘Not all this time, no,’ the spirit answered. ‘Just long enough to hear things I already knew. Magic and flesh and red should not touch the blue inside. Blue without air, blue and pure still when unshed, blood is so much. Blood is us and your magic is you.’

Cullen looked at Dorian with fond exasperation. ‘Did _you_ know about Lavellan?’ he asked without any trace of accusation.

‘I knew, yes,’ the boy said sadly. ‘But she asked that I respect her… privacy.’

Dorian let his head fall into his hands. Cullen rubbed his shoulders soothingly, granting Dorian leave to be sad while he remained strong in his stead.

‘Can I stay here tonight?’ Cole asked after a moment of deeply rooted melancholy. ‘It is warm in here and I like the light of the bridge. I’ve been caught outside for many days now, head above water, don’t look down.’

‘Of course,’ Cullen said, getting to his feet, sharing a meaningful look with the mage. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

Dorian was about to argue _vehemently_ against such a thing when Cole did it for him.

‘No!’ the boy said loudly, causing them to flinch. Cole was so rarely loud. ‘No, you can’t go back there, Cullen! Don’t listen, don’t _do it_!’

Dorian reached for Cole, concerned. ‘What do you mean?’

Cole seemed distressed. ‘Oh, don’t ask me that, Dorian! Things always get tangled when you ask me that! I don’t _know_ what I mean except when I’m saying it but… but Cullen shouldn’t go back there. It’s so cold and dark and he _promised_, but a promise made must be broken. They should be allowed to break. Eleven years is a long time and people are capable of change.’

Cullen didn’t seem to know what to do, looking to Dorian for guidance.

‘He’ll stay with us,’ Dorian assured the spirit. ‘He’s not going back there, all right?’

Cole pressed a shaking hand to his heart, bottom lip trembling. ‘People need to look after themselves better,’ he said tremulously. ‘The kindest wear the least armour. They are soft and sweet and they prick and bleed the easiest. Please don’t do it, Cullen. You promised, but you can stop now. You can _stop_. Dorian said so.’

‘I won’t go back to my office,’ Cullen said, seeking to offer calm. ‘It’s no hardship, believe me.’

Cole looked up at him, sighing gratefully. ‘Well, all right then. I will stay and make sure the doors are water-tight. Mirrors are melted sand, that’s how you make glass, but still water can travel to and fro. Water turned steam, turned air. I am the air if carried and the stars if burned. He’s always been kind to me, maybe this is a mistake.’

‘I’m sorry, Cole,’ Dorian said, reaching for his hand and pressing his own over the top of it. ‘It’s been a long time since you’ve been able to talk and have me just listen. I’m so sorry.’

‘It is not your fault, Dorian. None of this is your fault.’

The mage smiled sadly. ‘You’re always very kind.’

‘Kindness is water; you can freeze it and make it sharp, melt it back down again if you know how to light a candle. Much can be wrought, see what you’ve wrought, Templar.’

Cullen froze, his gaze locked on Cole as he remained still. ‘Cole,’ he said softly, but there was a thin thread of urgency in it. ‘What does—’

Dorian touched Cullen’s arm. ‘Don’t ask him that,’ he said quietly, watching Cole carefully. ‘Just let him talk.’

Cullen sat down slowly, taking his seat beside Dorian once more as Cole held Dorian hand and let his mouth run away with him.

‘I’ll show you what kindness has wrought, I’ll show you the vast empire of blood we will make in the space of your sweetness and you’ll be treated best of all. Kindness rewarded, balanced accordingly and the rats will turn fat this moon. Merriment and dark justice to see the soft cut the sharp.’

Dorian felt more than saw Cullen draw in a deep, shocked breath that shook him right to his core. Whatever the void Cole was talking about, it was painful for Cullen to hear but… he wasn’t telling Cole to stop.

‘Dolls on strings, pour the blood inside and make them dance, make them sing and scream and bleed anew. He keeps it, that one, like a leaky cup. A cup now empty, poison all gone now, inside instead. Keep it down, keep beneath the surface. Stay with me, Cullen.’

_‘Stop_.’

Dorian had been so entranced by Cole and the almost hypnotic tale of nonsense he was weaving that he didn't notice Cullen or the fact that the man beside him had gone from still to absolutely fucking _rigid_ with something best resembling terror. The word came out choked and when Dorian looked, Cullen was so pale he was practically translucent.

Fuck.

‘Cullen,’ he said quickly, touching him to offer comfort but for the first time ever, Cullen actually flinched away. He flinched so much that it scared Dorian; it was a visceral, whole-body reaction, like Dorian meant to hurt him. Cullen’s eyes were wide and the mage could see how it took every bit of strength the former Templar had to reign himself in, to keep himself at the table and not _flee_.

‘I’m sorry,’ he told Dorian as the mage’s hand hovered uselessly in the air, uncertain and hesitant. Cole looked up from the table, blinking with confusion.

‘It’s fine,’ Dorian said and meant it. He cared only about Cullen, about what agonies he was suffering as Cole had splayed out his past in Kinloch Hold. Dorian should have known better than to let him, especially with Cullen there. ‘It’s my fault, I’m so sorry.’

Cullen recovered fast, his control was, and had always been, relatively masterful. ‘No, I’m… it was silly. I apologise.’ Cullen tried to smile but it was watery and it couldn’t hold. ‘I’m just tired. We should get some sleep. We have drills in the morning.’

‘Did I hurt someone?’ Cole asked. ‘I didn’t mean to. I never mean to.’

Cullen was already on his feet and when he gave Cole a far brighter, stronger smile, doubtlessly requiring extraordinary effort, Dorian couldn’t help but love Cullen all the more. He made such effort with the people Dorian cared for, it was perhaps one of the most beautiful things about him.

‘No, I’m not hurt,’ Cullen said and he patted Cole shoulder gently, reassuringly. ‘You talk as much as you want. I have to go anyway, there’s still much to do before the sun rises tomorrow. Will you stay and take care of Dorian for me?’

Dorian, who emphatically did not _need_ to be taken care of, understood. Cullen could not hear about his past, could not hear things from various viewpoints of dead people. Dorian was uncertain, but he thought perhaps Cole was somehow assuming Uldred’s point of view, or worse, towards the end, Jassen’s. Cole meant well, wanted to shine a light in dark places, but Cullen was not ready and he couldn’t bear it.

And though Dorian wanted him to stay more than anything, Cole had been locked out of the castle for days, had been stretched thin and almost lost himself because of something Cullen had ordered. He needed to be with Dorian, he needed the mage and Cullen was cognisant of such a fact.

‘Yes, I will,’ Cole promised solemnly. ‘I will keep him dry, don’t worry.’

Cullen laughed, but there was something slightly strangled about it. When he looked at Dorian, the mage felt a deep stab of regret. He could see the pain stirred up inside him; a well of agony, now rippling and moving once more.

‘Sleep well,’ he bade Dorian and when he didn’t move to kiss the mage good night, Dorian simply nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He _understood_ what it felt like to be so overcome with horror that to touch another was to potentially infect them, he knew how that felt so he didn’t press it.

‘You too,’ he said and watched Cullen leave, despite knowing neither of them would be sleeping.

‘I am sorry,’ Cole said softly when the door closed. ‘I didn’t mean to. It’s all swirling around inside me, inside everyone.’

‘Don’t apologise, Cole,’ Dorian said wearily, glancing longingly at his massive, plush bed. ‘Come, we can get comfortable and you can talk all night, how’s that?’

*

When the sun rose, Cole was gone and Dorian woke up alone. He wasn’t sure when he’d fallen asleep, but he was glad to be awake. He tried to shake off the touch of the nightmares that had plagued him, but they left a greasy, cold after-touch all over him. Fingerprints inside his mind and no matter how much he wanted to be free of them, of the terrible things he’d seen and felt, they followed him all the way out of his bedroom and clung hard for most of the day.

When he met Cullen in the courtyard, most of the snow melted by Saffy and Landon, the two groups were ready and waiting for him. Cullen clearly hadn’t slept at all, though it was only noticeable due to the shadows beneath his otherwise light and lovely eyes. Cullen was never slow or dull when he lost sleep.

‘Morning, Dorian,’ he greeted, slightly more professional in front of the others.

Dorian put on his best smile, his bravest face. ‘Morning, Commander,’ he managed and they got on with what was necessary.

*

Varric was clearly expecting Dorian after drills and Dorian wasn’t especially surprised to find the dwarf already well on his way to being drunk. It was cold atop the ramparts, Dorian knew from vast experience, but the skies were clearing and in the streaming sunshine, it was almost bearable.

The wind was another story, however.

Dorian shivered and came to stand with the dwarf, leaning against the stone wall.

‘Last of the decent ale,’ Varric said, offering the mage his tankard. ‘Bull’s stuff.’

Dorian shook his head and stared out at the view; snow and scattered patches of brown and green. ‘It’s true then?’

Varric sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Sparkler. I know she means a lot to you.’

Dorian _hated_ that Varric sounded so completely resigned. ‘When was she injured?’

‘It doesn’t matter how long ago it was. It’s in her system now. You’ve seen this shit. It grows wherever it wants and it _wants_ to be everywhere. It’ll spread and spread through her until… until she’s one of those things.’

Dorian clasped his hands together, elbows digging painfully against the rough edge of the battlements. ‘How long can she delay it?’

‘Honestly, there’s no way of knowing. The more she moves around, the more blood she has pumping, the quicker it’ll move along. You know our Inquisitor better than most. Do you think she’s gonna sit this next battle out?’

‘What about potions? Spells? Fucking good luck charms?’

‘I know more about this shit than most,’ Varric sighed. ‘Once it’s inside, it’s not coming out.’

It was hard to hear, that frank, honest truth. He hadn’t held out much hope for anything different, but that didn’t make it any easier.

They stood there in silence for a little while and when Dorian eventually took a swig, simply to be friendly, of Bull’s special home brew, his magic stirred within.

_We do not like this substance_, it pointed out rather primly. _You are meant to be sharp and ready, not dull and slow. _

Dorian rolled his eyes, staring moodily at mountains and determined to be contrary as fuck, had another drink.

His magic scowled and somehow, through the link, he could feel Cullen’s awareness of such. It was beyond weird, to actually _feel_ Cullen paying attention to the magic between them. Cullen’s focus was a strange thing. He was… purposefully distracted, worrying about a hundred different things to keep himself from thinking about the things Cole had mentioned, but when he felt the magic stir, irritated at Dorian’s day drinking, he simply reached inward and performed some kind of baffling mental _caress _which had the magic writhing happily and stretching like a pleased cat in the sun.

‘Hey, look,’ Varric said after a while, bringing Dorian back to himself sharply. ‘As you’re here and all, I wanted to apologise for not telling you about Hawke before this. I knew he was a prick and he was… he was always _different_, but I thought he was my friend. I really did. I didn’t know he was capable of anything like this.’

Dorian felt heavy, weighed down like he was made of stone. ‘It’s fine,’ he told the dwarf.

‘No, it’s not. I let myself believe in him and it was bullshit. He saved so many lives in Kirkwall that I always told myself there was still some good in him somewhere, deep down.’ Varric shook his head. ‘I even let myself believe that I could redeem him, right up until he caught Curly. I watched Hawke force feed him lyrium. I’ve never… seen him that way.’ He sobered for a moment. ‘Cullen. He didn’t beg, men like him rarely do but I could see how much it hurt him to have all his progress in kicking the habit undone in a single, vicious move.’

Dorian’s mood, already dark, edged a shade closer to black. He imagined Cullen in chains, Hawke crouching over him. Mocking, teasing, inflicting pain and torment as he liked.

‘How’s he doing with it?’

‘What?’

‘The lyrium? How is he coping?’

Dorian nodded once, understanding. ‘Oh, yes. It’s gone now.’

‘Gone? Kid, I don’t mean to undercut his previous success but lyrium is never really gone, it takes years to fade away enough to become manageable and even then, there are always traces left behind.’

‘Hmm,’ Dorian said quite distractedly, his focus still mostly on Hawke and all the things he could have done to Cullen, things that Cullen would never _volunteer_ to tell Dorian. Maybe he should ask, maybe they should—

‘Wait.’ He pushed away from the wall, hands raised, eyes wide.

‘What is it?’

Dorian didn't move, mind whirling ahead of him. ‘Lyrium,’ he said a touch breathlessly. ‘The lyrium in Cullen, we… I burned through it. I used him as a conduit for my magic and it eradicated all traces of it. It used the lyrium up, incinerated it and left him clean.’

He turned to Varric slowly and the dwarf’s eyes widened to match his own.

‘Well, _fuck_.’

*

Solas was distinctly unimpressed to be set upon in such rude fashion but Dorian could not have cared any less.

‘If I gave you the impression that my time was not _valuable_ and that we were in fact something resembling friends, I sincerely apologise,’ he groused at Dorian, glaring from his teacup. ‘Because neither was true.’

‘Oh, who _wants_ your friendship?’ Dorian snapped, hand on heart to catch his breath. ‘You know about Lavellan?’

Solas glared. ‘I was _there, _Tevinter. What do you think?’

‘Right, so,’ Dorian leaned on his desk, head down. Maybe running there flat out hadn’t been the _best_ idea. ‘When Cullen got… sorry… back from Hawke… fuck… he was—’

‘It might work, yes,’ Solas cut across neatly as Dorian lifted his head, jaw practically on the floor.

‘You…’

‘Know more than you realise?’ Solas quipped, blowing over the hot surface of his tea. ‘Imagine that.’

Dorian pushed away. ‘If you already know, then why haven’t you _done_ it?’

‘For several reasons. What you told me of yourself and Cullen, the bond you share forged by pushing your magic into him is intriguing to say the least. It’s not _new_ but the way Cullen is able to receive and, as I now sense, genuinely house your magic… that is most unusual. Cullen is able to do this without any apparent side effects because he was a Templar. His body has been conditioned by the substance, in essence. A way was made to channel magic through a human. You know this. Lavellan has no such _way_. Pushing my magic into her could, at best, resemble the kind of barbarism that takes place in Tevinter and, at worst, kill her prematurely. I cannot see how her body would be able to withstand the full force of undiluted magic even if it _could_ eradicate the red lyrium.’

‘You said it might work.’

‘It _might_ work if we use Commander Cullen.’

Dorian gasped. ‘Because he’s the conduit. He could filter the magic, control what goes into her?’

‘Theoretically,’ Solas allowed. _‘However_, the risk would still be substantial. You’ve seen what magic does to humans. Had we more time, I would suggest she start taking lyrium to at least acclimate her body to—’

‘We don’t have time though, do we?’

Solas smiled grimly. ‘Less even than you realise and yet, we will have to wait until the threat posed by the Elder One has fully passed.’

The Tevinter mage took a step back. _‘Why_?’

‘Because even if successful, the process would likely incapacitate her for a while afterwards. She would be weak and it could interfere with the anchor. We need her to win this war.’

A cold, nasty sensation akin to a trickle of icy water, ran down Dorian’s spine. ‘I can go to her right now and do this without you.’

Solas held his gaze. ‘You could. I won’t stop you, nor would I think to, but when she asks what the effects might be and realises she wouldn’t be able to travel to the Arbor Wilds, what do you think she’ll say then?’

Worse than the feeling of helplessness was the realisation that Solas was right. Lavellan wouldn’t risk the battle of the Wilds for anything… and he _knew_ it. ‘You _bastard,__’_ Dorian snarled. ‘She’s not your Maker damned weapon! She’s entitled to _live_, to want better for herself than this endless fucking war!’

‘No war is endless and I am not saying never, I am simply saying not _now_.’

Dorian shoved Solas’s table as hard as he could. It was heavy and it didn’t go far, but it dislodged a set of papers, quills fluttering down and an inkwell tumbled to the floor, glass shattering and the dark liquid exploding wetly. It wasn’t satisfying, not at all.

‘When you’re dying,’ Dorian said, voice dangerously unstable as his chest began to constrict in familiar fashion. ‘Anything less than _now_… is never!’

‘Dorian.’

Cullen’s voice was calm, not raised in the slightest but Dorian jumped slightly anyway, felt as though he’d been caught out doing something bad. Solas remained entirely unmoved as Dorian saw the Commander standing in the doorway that led out towards his office.

‘Commander,’ Solas greeted, rising smoothly from his seat. ‘Perhaps you should speak with Dorian,’ he suggested coolly. ‘If anyone here understands priorities during a time of war, I would hope it’s you.’

Cullen said nothing as Solas left, taking his fucking tea with him. When the apostate was well out of ear shot, Cullen gave Dorian a brief, thorough once over. ‘You’re not all right.’

Dorian shook his head. ‘No, I’m not. This is too much. I can’t…’

‘It’s fine,’ he said, crossing the distance between them swiftly. ‘Everything will be fine.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Dorian whispered, screwing his eyes tight shut as Cullen drew him into his arms, locking him carefully into a safe space. This close, he felt like he could breathe again. Surrounded by Cullen’s body heat and strength, the smell of him, the security of his proximity. ‘I’m sorry.’

Cullen stroked his hair, his back. ‘You’re safe. I’m here.’

Dorian exhaled and opened his eyes.

‘We can save her,’ he said weakly. ‘I know we can.’

*

The days passed quickly after that and time began to lose true meaning. Dorian felt lightheaded more often than not, _exhausted_ more often than not. It was hard to get out of bed in the morning, even when Cullen stayed over which, again, was more often than not. Stress induced disconnection, panic made worse by dread, endless fucking plans and details and all of it for some terrible, monstrous _push _in the coming days. People were going to die, they would leave Skyhold and they wouldn’t return.

Before Adamant, Dorian hadn’t understood, not really. He’d laughed and joked with the mages who went with them. With Olan, with the others who he’d trained and then Olan had not returned. His things were left in his tent and Dorian brought them back to Skyhold, owner-less.

Now that Dorian knew what such a thing entailed, his anxiety was at an all time high. He found himself deeply regretting not doing as Cullen had begged and staying put. He didn’t _want _to go, not really. Skyhold was safe from screaming and falling masonry, fire and dragons, blood and breakage. Skyhold was their sanctuary. Dorian had never liked being cooped up, had railed against it as a child but now… now he wished he’d listened.

It didn’t matter how he felt, though. He was needed. Lavellan needed him, the _world_ needed him and he would answer the call, no matter how terrified he was deep down.

Lavellan had seemed tentatively hopeful when Dorian told her of the idea to remove the lyrium but, like Solas had smugly predicted, she refused to consider it until they were certain she was no longer needed for the task that had united them in the first place. It wasn’t that Dorian blamed her, had expected nothing less really, it was more that Leliana’s dire warning months ago ran through his mind every now and then of how Lavellan was the type to self-sacrifice.

And with every day that passed, his anxiety creeping in just a little more, Cullen became stronger and more supportive. They didn't speak of what Cole had said but Cullen seemed to have shaken away the worst of it. Dorian didn’t know what he would have done without him at this point. He tried not to imagine the state of things between them had he not made that stupid window. Would they still be avoiding one another, staring away, denying every good thing in the world because… because _believing_ that someone was capable of love was hard?

It didn't bear thinking about. If Adamant had taught Dorian anything, it was that life was precious. Time was precious.

Cullen was everything Dorian wanted and more. They had little time to be together and most nights, they were too tired from the day’s exertions to do anything besides eat and sleep, curled up in one another.

Dorian didn’t care. Burrowing into Cullen’s chest was the best feeling in the world. He didn’t need anything else.

The nightmares worsened dramatically, though. He never spoke of it, especially not to Cullen, but ever since he’d bled for the letter, Dorian’s nightmares had _changed_. There was an intensity about them now, a sickening level of reality that had his body caught in the throes of genuine panic. Sometimes he dreamed of truly terrible things. Of Cullen crying, of Cullen being simply broken apart as he cried for Dorian. Of Cullen apologising to the mage and Dorian… trying to comfort him as he died in burning agony, torn apart from the inside out.

He worried that these dreams were prophetic. There was no logical reason to suspect that they _were, _beyond the gnawing fear in his gut, but he worried all the same. He hadn’t told Cullen about his own curse, that it was still very much present and alive in his blood, just waiting for the perfect time to strike. It was always there, that knowledge. Like a low, soft minor key playing relentlessly.

Two days before they were due to leave, Dorian received a letter from his father, mail coming in steadily now due to the passing of the storm. Halward wrote to say that he would be in the South for matters of business over the next few months and that, all being well with Dorian, he would like to visit Skyhold to see his son. The letter _did_ contain a small note towards the end that said if Dorian found this unacceptable or would not be present, he could write back and refuse and Halward would (apparently) respect his decision. He asked after Dorian in a way that was unusual. He asked about Dorian’s day to day life, about the people in Skyhold with him. Things that Magister Halward Pavus did not usually ask after.

Dorian didn’t write back anything and he put the letter inside a book, instead. It felt hidden there, safe and entirely out of mind.

Their last night in Skyhold, Dorian turned to Cullen as they bathed together. ‘Maybe,’ he said, twisting to see the man behind him. ‘Maybe when we get back…’

They sat together, blissfully submerged in deep, perfectly hot scented water and Cullen was washing his hair from behind, taking his time because there were no baths like this to be had on the road, riding and camping together as they went ahead of their armies.

‘Maybe what?’ Cullen asked, massaging the delicately scented soaps into the mage’s hair.

Dorian wanted to say it, he wanted to be brave. _Say it, just fucking say it. Maybe we should get married. Say it you coward! _He heard it so perfectly in his own mind but the words refused to budge, would not become reality.

‘Hmm, never mind,’ he said, facing back the other way and sighing as Cullen dropped a kiss to his shoulder.

‘When we get back, we can do whatever you want.’

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘What do _you_ want?’

Cullen was silent for a while before he answered. ‘I haven’t thought about that for a long time. I think, although it’s difficult for me to admit, that I want many things now. How strange.’

‘To want many things?’

‘To want _anything.__’_

The mage sighed, settling back into Cullen a little more. ‘Tell me.’

‘I would like to see Skyhold become a great deal more self-sufficient,’ he said, ignoring the nearby jug and instead using a little of Dorian’s magic to raise the water in an imperfect, relatively controlled stream and rinse the mage’s hair of soapy suds. It felt wonderful and Dorian didn’t even mind when the water cascaded messily over his face. ‘I would like to see the castle flowing with supplies once more. Additional healers, our soldiers returned safely.’

Dorian didn’t point out that those were hardly selfish wants. This was how Cullen needed to start, his jumping point before he could even _discuss_ things he wanted for himself.

‘I would like to take you somewhere that I visited as a child,’ he spoke, his soft, beautiful voice doing more to ease Dorian’s worries than even his hands. ‘It’s small, a little place I frequented sometimes when things were… noisy. I think,’ he added, voice dropping. ‘If I took you there, I might want to give you something.’

Dorian cracked one eye. ‘What would you give me?’

Cullen half smiled, quite wryly. ‘Well, it would obviously be a surprise, wouldn’t it?’

‘Oh. I see. That sounds lovely. It’s not an especially snowy place, is it?’

‘Not especially. It’s nice, I think you’d like it, though you’d likely become bored after ten minutes.’

Dorian grinned. ‘You could keep me entertained.’

‘Behave yourself, my love,’ Cullen chided, rubbing something oily and expensive into the skin of Dorian’s damp, warm shoulders. Dorian let out a broken, high pitched little whine of pleasure and Cullen went on. ‘Then I think I would like you to meet my family. My sisters, Mia and Rosalie, still live on the family farm not too far from where I plan to take you.’

Dorian was quiet for a moment. ‘I’d like that.’

Cullen’s movements faltered. ‘You would?’

‘You sound shocked.’

‘Well, I was… I was speaking hypothetically. You asked what I wanted, I wasn’t laying out terms or demands.’

‘Everything you said sounds positively lovely. What’s this _thing_ you have to give me? Is it shiny?’

‘So greedy,’ Cullen teased, pressing well slicked thumbs deep into the knots of Dorian’s lower shoulders, eliciting a groan from the mage. ‘It might be shiny, yes. You’ll just have to wait and see.’

Dorian smiled, playing gently with Cullen’s knees under the water. Cullen worked on removing the physical manifestations of Dorian’s stress for a while and they fell into comfortable silence, Cullen occasionally re-heating the water with magic, mostly for the novelty. He was getting better at it, day by day using magic more frequently and soon a _conversation_ would come due, about how Cullen was essentially becoming a _mage_, but it could wait. Everything could wait, apparently. War came first and like fuck was Dorian going to ruin their last night of comfort and happiness by bringing up difficult issues and drawing attention to something that, while a tiny bit troubling, made Cullen happy.

So the mage let himself fill with calm. Let himself float with Cullen to ground him.

And when he spoke it, it felt the most natural thing in the world.

‘I love you, Cullen,’ he said, eyes closed and perfectly relaxed. ‘I love you so much.’

This time, Cullen’s hands didn’t falter, they stilled completely. Dorian didn’t turn, he didn't open his eyes. He let it sit there, that statement, truer than any words uttered before in his life. If this was the moment his curse had been waiting for then so be it. There were worse times to die.

But die he did not and it only took ten seconds or so for Cullen to exhale shakily and wrap his arms around Dorian, pressing kisses into the side of his neck, getting massage oil on his face and lips, but he didn’t seem to care.

‘We’ll make it back,’ he promised Dorian then. ‘I swear on everything I hold true, you and I will make it back together.’

And Dorian found that in those moments, he genuinely _believed_ it.

*

Blackwall, or _Rainier_ as Dorian struggled to think of him, and Vivienne were not happy at being left behind and neither were any of Dorian’s mages, three in particular. Pick was painfully disappointed not to be brought along to witness the kind of carnage that children of his age tended to long for. Saffy insisted (quite accurately) that she would be immensely useful and her skill as a battlemage was improving daily. Keenan’s reaction was… different.

He begged to go with Dorian. Begged with an intensity the mage had not yet witnessed from Keenan. It bordered on desperation but no matter how many times Dorian asked _why_, Keenan being the only one Dorian _did_ consider bringing, the younger mage fell silent and eventually gave up.

Those unhappy to be left behind still made every effort to be cheerful and steadfast when bidding everyone else farewell. Cullen’s last words to Rainier were about Hawke, making it clear the Champion was to be checked on frequently and never once be freed from his collar, even if it seemed as though he was dying.

‘If he’s choking, let him choke,’ he told Rainier. ‘Believe me, he’s a sly bastard and he won’t hesitate to expose weakness where he finds it.’

Dorian hugged his mages, Nalari and Dawn last. It brought tears to his eyes, but the mage remained steadfast and cheery, promising to bring her back something nice, which made everyone laugh. Laughter was sorely needed that morning.

But once they were out on the road, the journey finally underway, Dorian felt his spirits lifting. Maybe it was an end to waiting around or the change of scenery. Whatever it was, he was glad of it and this time, everyone was on horseback which made things a hundred times better. Going ahead of the armies, nimble and lightweight, just the eight of them, well, _nine_ including Morrigan.

The snows were clearing at last, returning to far more acceptable _This-is-Ferelden-Get-Over-It_ type levels. Dorian breathed it in, let the newfound energy keep him buoyant as Cullen smiled back at him from atop his horse, perhaps sensing the mage’s change in mood.

He didn’t even mind when, two hours later, it started to rain.

*

_Dorian was nine by the time he was accepted into another Circle. He made promises, dozens of them, about how it would never happen again. He would listen, he would obey. Even as he was making them, Dorian knew they would be broken again at some point. Only the _when_ and _how_ were uncertain._

_His birthday party had been ridiculously lavish. It could have been born of guilt for the punishment his parents inflicted upon him, but most likely he knew it was simple damage control. _

Come and see how we _chose_ a new Circle for our incredibly gifted son! _Hardly any children attended but that didn__’t matter. Dorian was used to parties where he had no one to talk to. He got through it by imagining he was the character from _The Watchful Ambler, _Shay. He let himself slip away into the book without ever touching it, even sometimes mumbling a few lines under his breath by heart until he was finally excused from the party he hadn__’t wanted in the first place. _

_When the time came to go to his new Circle, he wanted, more than anything, to leave the book behind. He knew his father was watching, waiting to see if Dorian had truly formed some kind of attachment to the gift he_ _’d bought for his son. It felt like a test and it probably was. Dorian’s instincts to leave it behind, to never go near it again were likely dead on. _

_But he couldn_ _’t. He couldn’t leave it behind and he didn’t even try to fight it. When he placed it in his luggage, right in the middle of his beautifully folded clothes to prevent damage, his father was watching in the doorway, just as he’d done before. _

_‘I’m glad you liked it,’ he told his son. ‘But you don’t need to take it with you.’_

_‘It’s one book,’ Dorian found himself saying, letting the servants close the case for him. _

_‘I just mean to say,’ Halward began carefully, but before he could finish, Dorian’s mother called up the stairs to hurry them along. ‘Well, never mind. Have a good term,’ he said and what Dorian heard was _be good_. _

_And so when Dorian said, _ _‘Can’t make any promises,’ his answer went both ways. _

*

Their first night of camp, Dorian couldn’t keep himself away from Cullen. He felt _alive_ and even though he knew it was probably just adrenaline, his body refused to acknowledge such a thing, blood running hot, heart beating fast every time he so much as glanced at Cullen while they others set up camp, making a fire as the rain mercifully died down.

‘I miss the rain,’ Cole commented sadly. ‘When will it come back? It makes my hat soft and cold.’

Everyone laughed at that, Sera deftly nicking a piece of freshly caught and cooked rabbit from Dorian’s metal plate. Cullen, sat on Dorian’s other side upon a shared log, automatically replaced it with a piece of his own and Dorian didn't even sigh.

‘I wouldn’t worry, kid,’ Varric said. ‘Skies tell a tale of a wet ride there whole way there.’

‘If it is of use to anyone, I can make hoods and hats deflect the raindrops,’ Solas offered quietly, sitting closest to Morrigan who remained wisely silent, sat on a small log, staring pensively into the fire.

Bull huffed. ‘What about horns? Can you make them waterproof?’

‘Come come, Tal Vashoth,’ Leliana purred. ‘A little rain has you worried?’

‘Considering that I don’t know what the top of _your _head even looks like, you wear that hood so much, you’re hardly one to talk. No one likes the rain, ‘cept Cole here.’

Cullen shrugged. ‘I don’t mind it. Warm rain is downright pleasant.’

‘There are warm rains in the Imperium,’ Dorian commented.

‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ he answered, stabbing a potato before Sera could nab it. ‘I’ll take you to Marothius. It rains there a lot, but it’s very warm otherwise, quite humid. Mountains and trees and nothing to do but be outdoors. You’ll like it there.’

‘Nice upgrade from the ramparts,’ Lavellan muttered, grinning and the camp circle dissolved into barely contained laughter, even Morrigan’s lips curling slightly.

Dorian pretended to be indignant while Cullen remained carefully stoic, as if he hadn’t heard it. When a warm thigh gently nudged his own, Dorian didn’t feel especially hungry anymore, not for food anyway. He didn’t need to touch the bond between them to know what Cullen was feeling, that he mirrored every part of Dorian’s desire and need to be close, to connect, to be inside one another.

‘Hmm,’ Cullen commented, putting his plate down and getting to his feet easily and quickly. ‘I’ll do a perimeter check.’

He walked off without looking back and Sera was actively giggling into her hand while Lavellan nudged her to _shush. _

‘Gee,’ Varric said. _‘Someone_ should go with him, don’t you think?’

‘Who should it be, though?’ Lavellan chimed in, pretending to frown in consideration. ‘Hard to say. Any ideas, Dorian?’

The Tevinter mage gave them all a deeply unimpressed sigh and shook his head, even as he got to his feet. ‘Children, all of you.’

Solas rolled his eyes to be included in such an insult but Morrigan didn’t seem to mind. When she looked at Dorian then, she offered him a kind of smile that was gentler than anything he’d seen previous. Not an apology, of course, but something… well, something almost _nice_.

‘I’ll bet it’s a _thorough_ check,’ he heard Varric teasing as the mage walked away from the fire and those circled around it. ‘Probably take at least twenty minutes.’

‘Try an hour,’ came Leliana’s amused, dry voice as it faded away and Dorian walked through the wet, squashy grass in the direction Cullen had gone.

He knew he was going the right way, could vaguely _sense_ where Cullen was but that didn’t mean his heart wasn’t absolutely pounding in his chest, excitement thrumming through him. It was deeply dark, pitch black all around him and in the air, he tasted the sharp, delicious tang of further rain in the distance.

He’d wandered into a small clump of trees, the grass giving way to firmer ground and slightly upturned roots. Dorian trod carefully, distinctly under the impression that he was being _hunted _and not necessarily in a bad way.

His breath came shallow and rapid, magic awakening and curling in anticipation of _playing_. It wanted to play or maybe Cullen did. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. Sometimes there _was_ no difference.

‘Cullen?’

Strong arms encased him from behind, seizing him around the midriff. It was sudden and not at all gentle. Dorian gasped and struggled slightly, lips parted as his excitement turned electric, took on a life of its very own.

‘My mage,’ Cullen growled, pressing his mouth over the base of Dorian’s neck, holding him all the tighter. ‘Are you truly mine?’

Dorian shifted and ground back on the hardness he found there, dragging a broken, guttural noise from Cullen’s throat.

‘I’m only yours,’ he panted, blood positively _flooding_ through his veins. ‘If you can catch me.’

Cullen released him abruptly and he staggered slightly, the darkness all before him, left dizzy was an all-consuming need. He found his feet and then waited for Cullen’s assent, even though he knew it was coming, could practically taste how much Cullen wanted this. This freedom in madness, in giving in to base desires and dark longing.

Cullen’s voice was more animal than human when he said, ‘Then you’d better _run_.’

*


	24. Sharp

Running, Dorian decided, was fucking _glorious_.

The ground was unsteady and treacherous, seeking to trip him, to _trick _him but he couldn’t look back because behind him, moving fast, was a hunter.

Dorian _fled_, running as fast as he could, legs pushing hard against the earth beneath him, shoving through thickets and trees, unable to see where he was going, only able to feel his way, crashing almost painfully through the undergrowth of uninhibited nature. Behind him, he heard sounds indicating his pursuer. A crack of twigs, a rustle of leaves.

With every step he took, running away, he felt lighter. All he had to do was run, nothing else. It was his only concern, his only _need_ just then.

Run, escape, survive.

He ran until his lungs began to burn and then he ran some more, careless of distance or becoming lost because he _knew_ it was inevitable that the man pursuing him would catch him. It had always been inevitable.

But that didn’t mean Dorian had to make it easy.

He stopped and doubled back quickly, shrinking down into a dense clump of bushes, making himself small, panting heavily. He put his hand over his mouth, trying to keep quiet as he strained to hear over the thunderous rhythm of his own heart.

Cullen was coming for him, seeking him out.

But he was _quiet_, the man pursuing him. So very quiet and careful.

Dorian listened, breathing shallow when he could. He heard only small sounds, barely indicative of Cullen’s presence at all.

Within and between them, the magic _twirled _happily.

_We love when you play_, it sighed.

There was a small crunch, dead leaves and twigs beneath a boot and Dorian couldn’t contain himself, was verging on some kind of hysterical excitement when he let out a small, barely contained gasp.

The noise ceased and Dorian held his breath, every inch of his skin tingling and aware, his senses overloaded entirely. Fear and desire and crushing, blistering _need_ writhed within him.

And when Cullen spoke, that voice shot right down his spine, jolting him like purest energy fresh from the skies.

‘I hear you breathing, my love,’ Cullen said. ‘You’re so close, hiding away from me. As if you could, as if I won’t find you and make you mine.’

He was closer than Dorian expected, voice emanating from the mage’s direct left. Dorian was shaking, drowning in adrenaline to the extent he almost wanted to _laugh_.

‘Why not surrender yourself to me? I promise to take you gently if you do.’

Dorian closed his eyes and threw a flash of light, a dazzling orb in the direction of Cullen’s voice, hoping to render him night blind. The mage scrambled to his feet under cover of light, keeping his eyes shut until he doused the orb, taking off at great speed.

Cullen let out a growl behind him and Dorian fled once more. He felt the pursuit like it was something snapping at his heels. He ran and ran, revelling in the feeling of being _wanted_ enough to be chased.

He didn’t get far.

Cullen was fast, so much faster than Dorian. When he grabbed Dorian from behind, he swept him off his feet and instead of throwing him to the ground like the mage expected, the Commander sank to his knees, dragging his teeth across Dorian’s jaw, snarling softly.

‘I have you, mage,’ he purred, deep satisfaction rolling in his chest. Dorian looked up at the sky; stars visible between the tops of the trees, the expanse dark blue like the finest, deepest inks.

‘You do,’ Dorian gasped, grinding back and down _hard_, hands reaching behind him to clutch at Cullen’s face and his hair, whatever he could reach. ‘You caught me, my strong, clever Commander.’

Cullen’s hands slipped under his leather straps, beneath his mage armour, seeking skin and sliding across it when successful. Fingers brushed over nipples, over abdominal muscles and sternum, roaming and touching as teeth and lips worshipped the left side of Dorian’s neck, always the same side.

‘No matter where you run,’ Cullen was saying, arms tightening around Dorian to grind him back harder over his lap, over the bulge Dorian sat atop of. ‘I will find you, track you down and keep you for myself.’

‘I know you would,’ Dorian praised, a keen catching in his throat and shattering brokenly when one of Cullen’s clever hands moved down over his clothed cock, drawing a juddering roll of pleasure. ‘You’re always with me. Couldn’t get away from you, not really.’

‘Never could,’ Cullen growled and yanked him around, lifting Dorian like a rag doll so he was fully facing the Commander while astride him. ‘Never will.’

Cullen tried to kiss Dorian then but the mage held him at bay, hands on either side of his face. Cullen struggled, grunting with the effort, but Dorian held fast. Made him be still, made him _wait_.

‘Look at me first,’ Dorian intoned quietly, not knowing quite _why_. ‘Look at what you caught, my beautiful hunter. See me, _see me_.’

Cullen burred with appreciation and dug his fingers into the meat of Dorian’s hips. Dorian moved his thumb delicately, teasingly over Cullen’s lips, parting them slightly, tracing the scar there. He _burned_ to ask how Cullen had come by it, wanted that tiny secret unlocked as they sat in the woods, breathing harshly, surrounded by darkness and damp, rain-soaked nature

‘You’re mine in turn,’ Dorian said then, something taking hold of his heart and not letting go, something almost _cold_, but it felt good. Like a cool hand on a clammy forehead. ‘Mine in every way that matters, aren’t you?’

‘You know I am.’

‘Then swear to me, Cullen,’ Dorian said, bringing their mouths agonisingly close, just shy of contact. ‘Swear that you’ll stay with me.’

Cullen _froze_ and for some reason, the magic within them, previously delighting in their contact, turned still and wary. Dorian thought that maybe he should pay attention to it or ask _why_, but he was losing himself to the feeling, the need to anchor Cullen to him forever, to keep him safe, to keep him near. Without him, Cullen was not safe. Without him, Cullen could drift away, could become lost to sadness and darkness, to blood and guilt. He needed to keep him there. He would do whatever it took.

‘I’ll—’ Cullen’s voice broke, gave out and he shook himself slightly.

‘Say it,’ Dorian pressed, eyes locked onto him like the Commander was _prey_, like Dorian himself was the hunter. ‘Say it, Cullen.’ The mage was caught in it, unable to move, the words coming forth almost without consent but oh, he _felt_ them. They were branded into him and he needed to carve them into Cullen. Make him _stay_, make him safe, make him obey.

Somewhere, something had _shifted_ between them and Dorian didn’t know what or how, but it was fucking _intoxicating_ and with every passing second it became more addictive. He held Cullen’s attention entirely captive but it simply was not enough. He needed more than attention.

There was some level of struggle within Cullen and rather than worry to see it there, rather than regret what words had elicited this doubt, this hesitance, Dorian held him all the tighter, wrapped his legs around Cullen’s waist, inching closer like a snake.

‘Don’t hold back from me,’ Dorian said in a voice he barely recognised, rougher and almost common it was so stripped. ‘I want every part of you. I want the good and the _bad_. Give me the bad, give me all the worst of you. I can take it. You can let go.’

Cullen watched Dorian like he wasn’t sure what was happening and Dorian… he _thrilled_ to see that element of doubt, of insecurity in Cullen. It was good, he told himself, it would bring them closer.

Dorian’s legs were so tight around Cullen’s back they had to hurt, were surely cutting off air and circulation but Dorian needed to be closer, he fucking _needed_ it unlike anything he’d ever felt. Split their skin and fuse them together, make him say it first, though.

‘Say it out loud, Cullen,’ Dorian demanded, the forest spinning with anticipation. ‘Say it and mean it.’

Cullen was trying to edge back now, trying to move Dorian away but his movements were gentle, _stupidly_ gentle, why was he always so careful, so sweet? Dorian resisted easily and took hold of Cullen’s wrists, holding tightly, keeping him locked between his thighs, unable to look away from the man beneath him.

‘Don’t give me silence,’ he breathed, keeping Cullen’s wrists in an iron grip when he tried to pull back. He hoped it would bruise, hoped they would last for days. ‘Give me what I _deserve_. Give me all the worst because that’s the part of you no one else gets.’

The Commander went still and lax, staring at Dorian with an inscrutable expression and Dorian took it as a minor victory. ‘There’s my boy,’ he purred, closing the gap slowly, pressing their chests together. ‘Now just _say it_ for me and you can hurt me all you want.’

It should have been enough to make him stop, the way Cullen was looking at him now. It wasn’t _quite_ fear, not quite disbelief. A terrible, swirling combination of the two and Dorian’s magic was entirely frozen, like it didn’t dare draw attention to itself. The mage could feel how it longed to move back, burrow deeper into safety, but he simply didn't care. His focus was Cullen, it was always Cullen and now he wanted something from him he’d never dared voice before, never even realised he _needed_ before.

‘Dorian, stop.’

‘No.’ He raised Cullen’s wrists slightly, making sure he couldn’t pull away.

‘Dorian—’

‘Say it.’

‘Please.’

‘Say you’ll stay with me.’

‘You have to _stop_.’

‘Say it for me, Cullen. Why won’t you _say it_? Do you think I can live in this world without you? Stay with me, always. Say it! You owe me that much at least!’

Amber eyes widened fractionally and he yanked back hard from Dorian’s bruising grip. ‘No,’ he breathed and now there was nothing _subtle_ about the fear cloying around him, about the way he swallowed, staring at the mage like he was something dangerous.

Dorian’s hands felt painfully empty without Cullen, he needed handfuls of him, he needed _all_ of him. ‘Come back,’ Dorian said, trying to get a solid, merciless hold of him but Cullen was stronger and in his struggle it was he who took hold of Dorian. ‘Don’t leave me alone in this place without you.’

The mage wasn’t certain how it had come to this, to them essentially fighting in such a way. Struggling against each other, Cullen to restrain, Dorian to _take_ and he didn’t know when this had happened, when it had turned around like this but it was impossible to stop. He didn’t _want_ to stop, not really and if he didn’t want to stop, then he shouldn’t.

‘Come back to me, _lover_.’

It became apparent that Cullen had really been _letting _him fight back, barely using any of his actual strength to restrain Dorian because then Cullen’s grip turned to _stone. _Dorian couldn’t move, couldn’t get free and he didn’t like that, this was not how it was meant to be.

‘The fuck did you just call me?’ Cullen demanded, but he didn't sound angry, he sounded afraid.

Dorian didn’t even know, was too angry, too betrayed that Cullen wouldn’t just _say it_ and give him what he wanted. It wasn’t too much to ask, was it? He needed Cullen, he was all he had, he was… no, that wasn’t right, was it?

_Yes. _

Dorian tried to get free, began to struggle in earnest because he just needed to kiss Cullen, yes that was all he needed. In his efforts, he was saying things, things he didn’t mean to say in a voice that he did not recognise, in an accent that did not quite fit and Cullen…

Cullen was stricken.

But still Dorian didn’t stop, he _couldn__’t_. It was useless to fight against Cullen this way, he was too strong.

He should use magic. Yes, that would make him see, that would make him understand. He would use magic against him, blood magic would be best. Blood magic was the strongest.

All he had to do was bite his bottom lip, bleed and speak an incantation. Make use of that precious tribute and then Cullen would do whatever he wanted, whatever he said. That would be _wonderful_.

His magic resisted strongly, but it was _his _magic, it had to obey. It had no choice and Dorian liked that too, he liked taking that choice. He would use it and Cullen would be _his_ now and forever, would never leave him, could never get away.

He was halfway to drawing on the magic when Cullen hit him across the face. Pain exploded sharply, unexpectedly through his cheek, a burst of yellow flashing behind his eyes.

And everything else… it fell away instantly.

Dorian took the measure of himself. He had blood under his fingernails, he was breathing like he’d been running flat out, he was sweating, he was _shaking_.

‘Cullen,’ he said and his throat hurt, it was hoarse and rasping. He didn’t _understand_ what had happened.

Slowly, he brought his gaze to Cullen who was in a similar state, save for the expression of cold and absolute dread etched into every part of that beautiful face. The blood under Dorian’s fingernails was Cullen’s, came from Cullen’s wrists where he’d… _fuck_, no, what was this?

‘What—?’

‘It’s all right,’ Cullen said quickly, looking away for a moment as if to gather himself. Dorian saw in the thin light from above that when Cullen closed his eyes, two tears ran down his ashen face. ‘It’s all right.’

‘No,’ Dorian said as sickness began to bubble up inside him. ‘No it’s not. I hurt you, I… I don’t know what happened.’

‘It’s not your fault.’

Dorian slowly moved off of him. ‘I couldn’t stop.’

‘I know.’

As soon as Dorian was off his lap, Cullen got to his knees quickly. ‘I’ll do the perimeter check. Go back to camp.’

‘What? No, I can’t! Cullen, what _happened_?’

‘Please,’ Cullen said, determinedly not looking at Dorian. ‘I just need a moment alone. _Please_.’

The word threatened all kinds of nausea, remembering how good it had felt to _ignore_ it when Cullen said it before.

‘I… yes, of course… I just don’t understand.’

Cullen dropped his face into his hands and shook his head. ‘It’s my curse,’ he said miserably, _wretchedly_. ‘It’s infected you.’

*

Dorian made his way back to camp, following the stars like Cullen had showed him. His legs were wobbly and unsteady, head buzzing like he was drunk. He didn’t understand, it was too much.

The camp was quiet and everyone was in their tents, save for Solas and Sera, the pair sat opposite one another speaking quietly, the fire between them.

Sera looked up and gave Dorian a friendly, albeit tired smile, thankfully sparing him any salacious comments about what may or may not have happened in the woods. Solas, however, frowned at Dorian and seemed to immediately sense that something was wrong.

‘What happened?’ he asked, devoid of preamble.

Sera squinted at Dorian and frowned with concern. ‘Yeah, you look… not great, Ree.’

‘I’m fine,’ he said, holding his hand up, _begging _the Maker to take pity on him and let him get inside the tent without having to answer any more questions. ‘Good night.’

Neither elf said anything, but Dorian didn’t miss the way Solas’s gaze dropped to his fingernails.

Inside the tent, he undressed quickly, changing into warm, soft bedclothes complete with thick woollen socks and then he sat on the bedroll, knees hunched close to his chest. He felt… small. Stripped bare and completely ashamed of himself. He still didn’t understand, not really. Cullen had told him to wait for him in the tent so that was what he did. It was hard to think clearly beyond wanting Cullen to come and explain everything to him, make him see that somehow this was all fine.

Within, he felt numb. His insides were cold and coated with something that prevented him from _feeling_ how disgusted his magic was, how it sought to abandon him entirely then.

He rested his face on his knee and waited.

It didn’t take long before but Cullen joined him inside the tent, Dorian heard low voices coming from outside. Solas speaking with Cullen, sounding distinctly displeased too. Dorian couldn’t make out what they were saying but it wasn’t _friendly_ that was for sure.

When Cullen walked inside the tent, lowering his head to avoid the low roof, he didn’t look at Dorian. He undressed perfunctorily, barely stripping down at all, shrugging out of metal and leather but leaving all else.

Dorian wanted to say something but all his clever words had abandoned him. He sat there, still and silent, waiting for Cullen to guide him, to see how to proceed.

‘I’m sorry I hit you,’ was what he said at length. It was sad, full of regret and yet, Dorian couldn’t bring himself to mirror any of it.

‘I’m glad you did. I wouldn’t have stopped otherwise.’

Cullen was painfully on edge. ‘Be honest with me,’ he said finally, quiet and terse. ‘I know you have nightmares, but lately… you’ve said things in your sleep. Tell me what you’ve been dreaming about.’

He bent down on both knees in front of Dorian, finally looking him in the eye. Dorian saw the fear there, tightly restrained and just about under control. It was the kind of look Cullen usually wore before he went into battle, a type of armour almost. He sat back on his haunches, waiting for Dorian.

‘I…’ the mage instinctively did not want to tell him. The words caught, half formed in his throat, but he pushed them out, _forced_ them into being. ‘Sometimes I dream of you.’

Cullen nodded, jaw clenched tight.

Dorian took a deep, careful breath and went on. ‘I dream about you, crying and grieving for me. For when my curse takes me.’

‘Can you see it clearly in your mind?’

Dorian nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Do I have my scar, in your dreams?’

‘Your scar?’ Dorian echoed, but looked at it anyway, that vertical line marring Cullen’s lips. _‘This_ scar?’

Cullen was deadly serious, watching Dorian so carefully that it made the mage want to squirm a little. ‘Yes.’

Dorian looked off to the side, thinking. He didn't like to dredge the images to the forefront of his mind, they were awful. Cullen’s sheer grief, his suffering as Dorian was torn apart from the inside by blood magic and evil. Cullen’s tear-stained face, broken apologies tumbling from his perfect… un-marked lips.

A painful breath was kicked from Dorian’s chest. It was all the confirmation Cullen seemed to need. The Commander closed his eyes and for a moment, his strength seemed to genuinely waver.

‘I don’t understand,’ the mage said and fucking void, but it was true.

‘Dorian, there are things I need to tell you.’

Sour, acidic fear churned in Dorian’s stomach and even though he wanted to, he didn’t dare touch the man before him. ‘You can tell me anything.’

Cullen took Dorian’s hand between his own and pressed a brief, dry kiss to the skin there.

‘This is difficult,’ he said, barely audible despite how close they were. ‘I never considered that something like this could happen. I didn’t even really know it _was_ a curse, not until you told me but… I knew something was very wrong with me. I’ve always known that. I never should have let myself get close to you,’ Cullen said, a shadow of self-loathing moving through him then. ‘I should have known it would infect you eventually. You’re so _bright_, of course it would be attracted to you, a darkness like this.’

Dorian felt lost, emotions ripping through him like a great and terrible undertow, dragging him deeper and deeper. ‘Cullen,’ he croaked. ‘I tried to hurt you. I wanted to… to _really_ hurt you.’

Cullen held Dorian’s hand for another moment before he placed it gently down and reigned himself in. ‘I used to have the nightmares you’ve been having lately. I had them so often I gave up trying to sleep. My body adjusted,’ he explained somewhat distantly. ‘Sometimes I would pass out, maybe once or twice a week but never for long. These nightmares were constant and they were…’ he shuddered, jaw tightened as he spoke through gritted teeth. _‘Visceral_. They were more than dreams, they were memories, you see, but not mine.’

Dorian lifted his hand and gently touched his fingertips to Cullen’s scar, thinking of a time _before_ he’d obtained it, of the place where every bad thing to befall Cullen had begun. Of the person he’d hurt in that place, the man whose face he couldn’t remember, but name he would never forget.

_‘Jassen_?’

Cullen closed his eyes hard, lips pursed. ‘What you’re seeing, at least part of it, is Jassen’s memories, what I did to him.’

Dorian swallowed and thought of the nightmares. Not _all_ of them involved Cullen, some of them were simply of torment, of laughing blood mages, their faces interchangeable and the pain levels varying. Sometimes he saw his father, sometimes he saw others. He saw Allendas, he saw a man who so resembled Keenan, he saw a bald man who called him a name the mage could never recall when he awoke.

‘I can’t…’ he said. ‘It’s hard to hold onto the images.’

‘I know. I’ve had the same dreams for years. I’ve seen what you’re seeing for so long, I just gave up. I didn’t read anything into it. It’s less than I deserved for what I did to him. I accepted it. But when I met you, things began to change. The dreams started to shift, they became _less_ intense whenever I couldn’t keep myself awake. Something inside me was furious that you were making me…’ he floundered momentarily, searching for the word. Dorian placed his hand gently on his cheek.

‘Happy?’

‘Yes, I think so.’ He shifted uncomfortably, brow furrowing. ‘This is hard to admit and it sounds ridiculous but… I never really hated anyone, not truly, not before Jassen died. I didn’t hate the mages in Kinloch and when I search myself, I didn’t hate them after, except that suddenly, I _did_. I hated them so much I could taste it. It was a burning thing, like a hand in my chest squeezing and twisting. I was weak and broken and I gave into it. I let myself hate them all in a way I’d always resisted until then. All my years in training, so many of the other recruits, girls and boys who’d been there far longer than me, they already despised mages without ever having met one.’

Dorian rubbed his thumb over the curve of Cullen’s cheekbone, listening raptly.

Cullen took a careful, trembling breath. ‘When I told you that you were nothing like Jassen, that was the truth of it. Maker, it still _hurts_ to speak ill of him.’

‘It’s all right,’ Dorian said simply because he didn’t know what else _to_ say.

‘Jassen hated mages more than anyone I’ve ever known. When I first met him, I was barely thirteen. He was a great deal farther along than I was, they _all_ were. Trained for years while I was dallying on my parents’ farm. Jassen was kind to me, he showed me everything. We were best friends right away but he loathed mages and all magic and it was the kind of loathing that would later _manifest_. After a while, I stopped asking him why and I just let it go. So many of the recruits felt the same way he did, as did most of the instructors.’ He leaned into Dorian’s touch and, eyes tightly closed, expression somewhat pained, he whispered, ‘Secretly though, I always loved magic. I never feared it like they did, never hated mages. I wanted to _protect_ them. That was what I wanted more than anything. When I met you, I _remembered_.’

He looked at Dorian then, beseeching.

‘I remembered how I felt before Kinloch. You made me remember who I was and I could _feel_ something fighting against that memory.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Cullen tried and failed to gather himself. ‘I don’t remember what my last words to Jassen were, but I remember his to me. There’s no way I could ever forget. The last time I saw him, I swore I would kill myself before I hurt him again.’ Cullen was trembling, head to toe shaking and Dorian couldn’t help but mirror his fear that time, internalise it like absorbing the very air in his lungs. ‘I was leaving when he looked at me, all the way into me like he sometimes did and he said, _stay with me, Cullen.__’_

The words reverberated through Dorian, a sharp, painful echo of recognition and warning.

‘I believe…’ Cullen said in a low, unsteady voice. ‘That he kept some part of me with him when he died. I think somehow his death forged a curse inside me and it kept us connected, despite his passing. Like I never left that place, like I could never get away from him and what I did but also…’ his expression darkened. ‘The things that Jassen did too. His hatred for mages stayed with me, I think.’

Dorian’s instincts prickled. ‘What things?’

‘They called me the soft one, but Jassen… Jassen was the _sharp one_ and for very good reason_._’

The mage’s lips parted, a kind of vibration running through his consciousness. He could see the bald man sneering down at him, pushing something inside of him that did _not_ belong there and calling him… calling him…

He reached blindly for Cullen, for something to take hold of. ‘Fasta vass,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t know what I was seeing.’

‘I should have told you,’ Cullen said. ‘I should have told you about this as soon as I realised it might actually be a curse and not just ten years of grief and depression.’

‘You loved him but he was… he was cruel to them, to the mages of Kinloch?

Cullen’s face briefly crumpled for a moment. ‘I loved him so much. I was young and…’ he took a shuddering breath. _‘Stupidly_ naive. I was weak in all ways_. _I looked the other way from the things he did, the things they all did, but none so awful as Jassen. He was the kindest, most loving man you could ever meet so long as you weren’t a mage. He did terrible things to them. I was a fool and a coward. When he died, I was so lost in grief for him, for what they’d made me do that I believed every single thing he’d ever done to them was justified. I _felt_ it inside me. That he was right to hurt them the way he did, to deprive them of basic human rights to… to _terrorise_ them like he did.’ He looked upwards, biting his lips into his mouth. ‘But now I can see that it was _him_. That he never really left me. That I stayed with him and he with me. Jassen _is_ my curse.’

Dorian shook himself, trying to process everything but it was slow going. It didn’t quite resonate, wouldn’t sink in.

‘But _you_,’ Cullen said, his expression brightening helplessly as he looked at Dorian. ‘You were my light, like someone showing me the sun after so long in the dark. It hit me hard when we met, too bright at first and too painful. I didn’t know what to make of it. I think now, with everything I know, it might have been some part of me seeking freedom from this.’

‘What are you saying?’

Cullen’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m saying that you have, at least partly, taken my curse, Dorian. I feel _free_ for the first time in so long and you… you’re weighed down with everything I carried out of Kinloch Hold. What you said to me in the woods, do you remember?’

Dorian’s head was muddled, barely able to understand what was happening now let alone remember precise details from when he was… _not himself_. ‘I told you to stay with me, but beyond that, no. I… what did I say?’

The flinch was very slight, but Dorian knew Cullen well enough to catch it. ‘It was clearly him, that’s all that matters. It wasn’t you. You would never say those things to me,’ Cullen said, pale and incredibly stricken. ‘You carry my curse. I am so sorry, Dorian.’

Dorian thought back to when he had travelled inside Cullen, his magic dragging him deep within to show him the dark water beneath. He remembered touching it, reaching in and something _pulling_, but… it was more than that.

‘Cullen,’ he said. ‘These dreams I’ve had of you, they’re not recent. It seems recent to you because we haven’t— because you were away for a long time. They’re not recent.’

Amber eyes searched grey. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that this might be—’ the words died in his throat when a bloodcurdling scream pierced the air outside the tent. Cullen whirled around, hand flying to his sword on the ground. It was a woman who had screamed.

The pair scrambled to their feet and Cullen opened the flap of the tent, peeling it back to reveal darkness and a slowly dying fire.

He went ahead of Dorian, throwing a hand behind him to warn the mage to slow his approach. Dorian grabbed his staff and proceeded carefully but when Cullen’s eyes looked to the right and he immediately sheathed his sword, Dorian ran to follow him.

It was Sera who had screamed.

Cullen ran into the tent, the others emerging from their own, alert and weapons raised. Dorian dashed in after Cullen and Leliana was close behind.

‘Ellie won’t wake up,’ Sera was saying, shaking Lavellan who was, indeed, unresponsive. She shook her shoulders, patted her face frantically, but Lavellan remained peaceful and blissfully unaware.

‘All right,’ Cullen said gently. ‘Hold the door open, Sera. Dorian help me.’

The two of them carefully lifted Lavellan out of the dark tent towards the dwindling light of the fire which Dorian instantly rekindled, throwing up a few orbs of light for good measure. ‘Ellana,’ Dorian called, touching her face. She was cooler than she ought to be, her skin clammy and shockingly pale in the light. Cullen looked up at Dorian and then at Leliana, the three of them sharing a moment of dead-weight shock and horror before Cullen shook himself.

‘She’s still breathing,’ he said, nodding to himself. ‘Solas!’

The apostate crouched obediently beside him, touching her carefully. His eyes closed as he concentrated and Dorian could feel the vague magical effect of him _assessing_ her. ‘Her body is failing. There is a piece of it, the red lyrium, in her… her heart.’

Dorian took her cold hand in his. ‘Help her then!’ he snapped. ‘Heal her, _now_!’

Solas went to work and Cullen looked up at Dorian intently as Leliana moved to Sera, seeking to comfort her but also to keep her back. The mage knew exactly what Cullen was thinking and when the Commander’s eyes dropped, they went right to her side, the place where red lyrium had pierced her young, fragile body.

‘She will not stabilise,’ Solas said and he sounded alarmed. ‘There is a splinter of red lyrium in her heart. It has put her into a comatose state. Her body is… failing, slowly shutting down.’

‘She seemed fine earlier,’ Leliana said quietly, frowning intensely.

Cullen lifted Lavellan’s shirt gently peeling back the layers of thin bandages and healing materials while Sera clung to Leliana, watching with a hand over her mouth.

‘Is she…?’ the blond elf choked. Dorian had never seen her cry, never seen anything _like_ this expression on her usually light and mischievous features.

‘No,’ Cullen said with absolute determination, glancing up at Dorian briefly. ‘She’s not going to die, Sera. Stay calm, all right? Everyone stay calm. Bull, Varric, establish twelve and six o clock. Morrigan, raise a shield and maintain it. Cole?’

The boy appeared right beside Cullen. ‘Yes?’ he asked earnestly.

‘Can you feel her?’

‘She is… weak. Sharp and cutting, shard of red made to grow and twist. slipped into her heart. It is growing and she will not. Cullen,’ Cole said, wide eyes latching onto the Commander. ‘She’s _dying._’

‘That should _not_ be so,’ Solas said in an almost argumentative way. ‘She was in fine health before we left, I checked her myself. The lyrium in her system, it is _splinters_. Hair’s breadth pieces, it should not be causing her this level of—’

‘WELL IT CLEARLY FUCKING IS!’ Dorian burst out.

‘Dorian,’ Cullen said tightly and for a moment, the mage was sure Cullen was about to warn him not to yell like that at Solas but what he actually said was, ‘We need to do this _now_.’

Solas blanched. ‘No. _No_, absolutely not! She will be weakened beyond redemption, she will not be able to travel to the Wilds, let alone fight when we get there!’

‘We’ll fight for her,’ Cullen said with implacable calm, removing the bandages entirely. ‘The way she’s fought for us a hundred times and more. We’ll fight in her stead.’

‘We cannot win this war without her!’

‘She’s _dying_,’ Cullen said, face like absolute stone. ‘If you’ve a better plan, now is certainly the time for it.’

Dorian had absolutely no patience for the slow, sad way Solas looked down at Ellana Lavellan nor did he especially care when the elf uttered, ‘Without her, we’ll lose.’

‘No, we won’t,’ Leliana said as Sera clung to her robes, wide eyes fixed on her unconscious lover by the fire. ‘We already have her plan in place. Her insight, everything you would have her utilise save for the anchor and her skill on the battlefield. We can do this.’

Solas looked to Dorian and swallowed his hesitation down at last. ‘What do you need of me?’

‘Heal her as we go,’ Dorian said, nerves rolling through his body like electricity. ‘We’ll try this in increments.’

The apostate nodded. ‘An intelligent approach, but we still do not know what effect it will have upon her.’

‘Better than letting her die slow,’ Sera said quietly. ‘She would never want that.’

‘What can I do?’ Cole asked, young voice trembling, but he sounded determined. ‘I want to help.’

‘Go and help Varric,’ Cullen said giving the boy a small, brief smile and grasping his shoulder. ‘We’re dangerously exposed here. If we’re attacked, there’s no telling what will happen. Keep us safe.’

‘I will keep us safe,’ the boy echoed, getting to his feet. ‘All of us.’

Cullen looked up at Dorian again, touching the place on Lavellan’s abdomen. ‘I’ll push it into her here, through her wound.’

‘Push _what_ into her?’ Leliana asked as she and Sera knelt by Lavellan’s knees, close to Dorian. ‘What form of magic?’

‘It has to be something that moves through her, something that would burn the red lyrium. Lightning I suppose,’ Cullen suggested distractedly.

Dorian nodded and within, his magic shifted, wary and hesitant. It did not want to go inside this host, this wrong body.

‘Small doses at first, like I said.’

‘Won’t that hurt her?’ Sera asked worriedly.

‘Any damage she takes from the lightning, exit wounds and such, I can easily heal,’ Solas assured her, going so far as to offer something resembling a sombre smile. ‘And I will keep her unconscious throughout, so she won’t feel it.’

Cullen placed his hand over the red scar on Lavellan’s lower abdomen and the pair made eye contact. Dorian’s magic flared and came to life at his command. He nodded to Cullen who then _pulled_.

They hadn’t yet done this, not this way. Heating water and generating slick were entirely different from weaponizing energy and the physical force of Cullen _taking_ from him was painful, sent the muscles of the mage’s body spasming around his chest and upper arms. He winced but held fast and as Cullen’s hand glowed ultraviolet, Dorian’s teeth were set on edge by a low-level kind of _screeching_, like chalk ground over glass. Cullen pushed the small amount of magic into Lavellan and it was _wrong, _so very wrong. Solas winced too, couldn’t help it. The sound of magic protesting was painful, no matter who it belonged to.

Lavellan’s back jolted into a high arch but she remained asleep thanks to Solas. Thin rivulets of lightning burst from her fingertips, darting off harmlessly into the air, fizzling into nothing.

_We are not made to fit_, the magic ground out, but it couldn’t refuse when Dorian called upon it again, more this time. Cullen pulled it into himself through the bond and pressed it deeply into Lavellan’s body once more.

More lighting, thicker forks this time. Her fingertips were blackened and the smell of burned skin filled Dorian’s nose.

He looked to Solas who shook his head.

Cullen’s jaw tightened. They needed more.

When he took it this time, enough to potentially kill someone with if weaponised properly, something inside Dorian which had been aching and groaning in protest, a kind of _barrier_, simply broke. The pain vanished and there was a thick, rushing sensation and Cullen no longer had to pull at all.

Solas seemed alarmed. ‘What did you—?’

Cullen plunged the amethyst energy into the Inquisitor and it tore through her, taking the same pathway each time now, making a crude kind of _way_. It burst from her palms instead of her fingers now. It was the most unnatural thing Dorian had ever felt. Her body was simply not _made_ for this and it only made him realise how he had never, not once, thought such a thing about Cullen.

_We do not like the red_, the magic warned. _It resists us. It denies us. We do not like it at all. _

Dorian barely refrained from _yelling_ at it like some kind of madman.

‘There is no change,’ Solas said softly, astonished. ‘Your magic has not touched it.’

Cullen wiped sweat from his brow. The effort of controlling what he pushed into her was incredibly taxing, Dorian could feel it. _‘_How can there be no change?’

‘Use more,’ Dorian said, voice cracking slightly. ‘We can use more, can’t we?’

‘You’ll stop her heart.’

‘I can restart it,’ Cullen said. ‘I know how to—’

‘You don’t understand,’ Solas interrupted tersely. ‘You could cause her heart to _explode_. This magic is running through her veins, all of them. Too much could rupture her beyond repair.’

‘If we can’t use _more_ magic then I don’t see how we… oh _fuck_,’ Dorian said, trailing off breathlessly as a sickly, cold trickling sensation ran down his spine.

Cullen seemed to understand immediately. ‘Andraste preserve us.’

Solas’s brow lifted. ‘Blood magic?’

Sera dropped her face into her hand and Leliana was utterly still, looking at Dorian with something like pain in her expression.

‘I…’ Dorian’s throat closed and he shut his eyes for a brief moment. ‘Cullen, I understand if you—’

‘Do it,’ the Commander said, placing his hand over her side once more. He was grim and so fucking determined that it broke what little remained of Dorian’s heart.

‘Here,’ Cullen said, pulling a small, sharp dagger from his boot. ‘Your lip won’t be enough.’

Dorian was afraid. He was _sick_ with fear, positively riddled with it. This would not be a droplet, this would be a _purpose_ driven flood and fuck, they didn’t even know if it would work. His fear for himself didn’t come close to the sheer terror he felt on behalf of Cullen. The last time Cullen had been imbued with magic like this, he was in Kinloch Hold, enthralled and forced to go against his very nature in committing violent acts of cruelty and sadism.

‘_Do it_, I’m ready,’ Cullen said like he could read all of Dorian’s hesitation. He probably could, the mage realised, just like he, in turn, could read Cullen’s trepidation as it was crushed down by sheer resolve to save the life of the woman who had brought them together once, who had fought to _keep_ them all together because she knew that they were the only ones who could save the world.

Dorian’s magic surged, the attitude of it shifting in an instant. Hesitance gone, reluctance _gone_. Now it was excited, focused and eager. He opened his palm and dragged the small, razor sharp blade across the skin there, pressing down hard. The skin split and immediately, blood came to the surface like overflowing wine.

The incantation was ready and waiting on Dorian’s lips and he did not dare let himself think about anything beyond saving her, beyond the next few minutes. He would die for her, for Ellana and anything less than dying for her required no second thought or so he told himself.

He said the ancient words, so forbidden and yet freely taught in academic circles throughout all of Tevinter, and the temperature of his magic went from warm to an _inferno_.

All the blood of his body felt like it was suddenly very _full_ of something, like it was expanding. He bled and he let the offering infuse his magic, the air turning sour and sharp, like breathing in powdered glass.

His magic bloated, it grew and twisted into something enormous and strong but it retained its shape and colour, albeit far brighter than before. Dorian couldn’t help but make a small noise, a kind of grunt as he fought to _reign_ it in and hold it, waiting for Cullen to take it.

Commander Cullen, former Knight Commander of the Templar Order, drew upon Dorian’s blood magic and took it into himself, sliding it within that hollow inside, the place that was _Dorian__’s_, only Dorian’s. There wasn’t time to consider how it felt, the sensations running rampant through them both, but Dorian knew the feeling was anything but _chaste_. He felt hot under the skin, like his bones were molten gold and any second now, his body would simply cease and all that he was would be free. Free to float with the wind, move with the water and take Cullen right along with him.

When Cullen pushed the magic into Lavellan, her entire body lit up. It was a small amount of magic, quality over quantity. Something different was happening this time as Dorian followed his magic where it went from Cullen into the elven woman on the grass beneath the night sky. The magic was so _strong_, it felt unstoppable; raw and entirely self-sustaining. It did not require the Fade, it barely needed_ Dorian. _It took root deeply in Cullen and he had to fight what measure of it went into Lavellan.

‘It’s _working_,’ Solas said, teeth gritted with the effort of keeping her unconscious, of healing her all the while to control the worst of the damage. The lightning erupting from her palms came in great, tearing gouts, sent skyward where it crackled and lit up the sky above them like it’s true born counterparts. ‘Keep going!’

Dorian didn’t want to keep going because he could _feel_ what it was doing to Cullen. The magic that instinctively wanted _into_ Cullen no longer required a connection to the Fade to sustain. It plunged into him deeper than necessary, trying to make him _home_ and when he pushed it into Lavellan, it obeyed easily now, delighted and monstrously strong. It went right to the source of the sharp, vile red, able and swift.

Cullen’s body was under _siege_ from the magic and Dorian could hardly stand it. Pain radiated from him as surely as the dark purple lightning from Lavellan’s hands. It was invasive, _penetrative_ and possessive. It wanted him like Dorian had wanted Cullen in the woods earlier, only the motive differed.

‘Almost!’ Solas was saying. Cullen threw back his head and screamed, but his hand never moved from her body, he never stopped drawing on that blistering, momentous magic, fuelled by blood and distorted _good intent_. He took it into himself and made it safe for her. He was the dam, he was the conduit.

And it was tearing him apart, causing him to crack at the seams.

‘It’s gone,’ Solas declared loudly. ‘She is responding, you can stop!’

The magic did not want to stop.

When Dorian went to close the barrier, to prevent the flow between himself and Cullen he found nothing there to close. It had broken, shattered apart and this magic did not require the Fade for its power, not at all. Cullen’s voice had given out moments ago, the sudden silence ringing in Dorian’s ears. Dorian tried to get to his knees but he was overcome with a sudden dizziness. His palm was still bleeding profusely, he realised, making him lightheaded.

Cullen managed to wrench himself away from Lavellan. The hand shaped burn mark left there upon her skin was deeply black. Dorian crawled around Solas, trying to get to Cullen as his magic, running wild and free with the sheer potency of _blood_, continued to smash into Cullen, desperate to stay with him this time, determined to carve somewhere bigger and deeper within his _worthy_ body.

Solas had the presence of mind to take Dorian’s hand and heal it, the very bare minimum needed to stop the bleeding. Lavellan was no longer lit up with third-hand magic and Solas was working to heal her. Cullen’s head was low, hands braced on the grass as the magic continued to run through him.

When Dorian touched him, he received a sharp, violently static shock like a warning almost, but he didn’t let that stop him. He found bare skin, burrowing under the collar of Cullen’s shirt and he began to draw the magic back into himself where it belonged.

It was unwilling. _We need him_, it said in a deep, towering voice. _We will stay. He is ours._

Dorian squeezed his eyes tight shut and used every ounce of his strength to bring it back to where it belonged. ‘No, he fucking _isn__’t_!’

The magic was strong, powered by ancient and forbidden fuel, but it was ultimately beholden to Dorian. It was still _Dorian__’s_, no matter how deeply it longed to be Cullen’s. He pulled and it begrudgingly returned, fading slowly as it lost its purpose. It had nowhere to go but home, now that Cullen refused to shape it, to wield it any longer. Faintly, though, he detected a hint of satisfaction as it was housed within him once more. As though it had _accomplished_ more than helping to save Lavellan’s life.

Distantly, Dorian heard Sera crying and he turned, heart lurching violently with fear but what he saw immediately soothed the pain. She was clutching Lavellan’s hand, kissing it over and over and the Inquisitor moved her head back and forth slowly, like she was waking from a deep sleep.

Dorian looked back at Cullen to tell him it had worked but before the words had a chance to form, Cullen collapsed and lost consciousness.

*

‘And you’re sure?’

‘That it was a set-up? Absolutely. They were nearby, waiting for us to be distracted. Curly was dead on, we would have been caught with our breeches down and it was exactly what they were waiting for. Luckily,’ Varric sighed, taking a deep swig from a waterskin. ‘The kid and I made a crack team while Tiny tore apart any that got past us or through Morrigan’s barrier.’

‘They had a mage of their own,’ Morrigan said, hovering her hands over Lavellan as she examined her. Lavellan who was, thankfully, sitting upright, wrapped in a blanket. ‘A powerful one, but I didn’t see who it was. They kept their distance.’

‘How many demons?’ Leliana asked, pulling on a kind of armour Dorian had never seen her wear before. She leaned on a log and laced up her boots.

‘Thirty, maybe?’ Bull said while Solas healed a nasty cut on his back. ‘I dunno, to be honest. Kid tore ‘em to fucking pieces.’

‘Kept safe,’ Cole said, standing away from the fire, staring at the tent where Cullen was inside, unconscious and resting. ‘I tried my very best.’

‘You did great,’ Dorian told him, not trusting himself to look at the tent.

‘Cole,’ Leliana said, strapping a set of knives onto her thigh. ‘With me. We’ll scout the area.’

‘There’s none left alive,’ Bull told her.

‘That we know of,’ she muttered and Cole turned from the tent, following her into the darkness.

Lavellan had been entirely silent since she’d regained consciousness. Sera had explained the basics and the raven-haired elf had nodded along, but not yet spoken.

In the silence that followed Leliana’s departure with Cole, she raised her bloodshot eyes to Dorian and said, ‘Cullen,’ in a voice that sounded fairly wrecked. ‘He’s OK?’

There was nothing left in Dorian besides honesty. ‘We don’t know yet.’

Sera had her arm around the Inquisitor, holding her up.

‘Wh’appened?’ she rasped. ‘With the lyrium?’

Solas had finished healing Bull and he walked over to kneel beside her.

‘We do not know,’ he said, usually placid expression etched with concern. ‘You seemed fine barely an hour before. Did anything unusual occur?’

She glanced at Sera, the pair frowning and she shook her head.

‘Did you feel any pain before you went to sleep?’

‘Chest pains a little, maybe. I’ve had them on and off for a few days though and it was… nothing major. It’s definitely gone?’

Solas and Dorian exchanged subtle looks. ‘The red lyrium is gone, yes.’

‘Completely gone, right?’ Sera said, looking between the two mages.

‘Yes, I can detect no trace of it. When I healed the burn mark on your side, the wound, the red scar, healed along with it which it would not do before, if you recall.’

Lavellan closed her eyes and drew a shaking hand weakly over her mouth. ‘’M so sorry.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said, hoping it sounded stronger than he felt. ‘We weren’t going to let you die.’

Morrigan moved her hands away from Lavellan at last.

‘Well?’ Dorian asked her with a bite of impatience.

Morrigan spoke gravely. ‘Where is her waterskin?’

Varric, who was already on his feet, retrieved it quickly from her and Sera’s tent and handed it to Morrigan. She opened it and smelled it suspiciously.

‘Unless I am mistaken,’ she said slowly. ‘There is lyrium dust lacing the water.’

Sera whipped around. ‘What? No, that’s not possible! I had some too, we always share.’

‘It wouldn’t affect you,’ Dorian said. ‘You wouldn’t even taste it.’

‘Is that sufficient to exacerbate the red lyrium in her system then?’ Solas asked. ‘I would not have thought it was.’

Varric swore fluently.

Solas looked over at him. ‘What is it?’

‘She’s been taking a whole bunch of herbs,’ he explained. ‘To slow the progress of the red lyrium. Rashvine nettle among them.’

‘Shit,’ Sera swore. ‘Rashvine and lyrium dust—’

‘Make for one hell of a lyrium potion,’ Dorian filled in miserably. ‘But even so, would that be enough to cause _this_?’

‘It would be sufficient to cause the red lyrium to react, to invoke an unnatural reaction within her that would accelerate or, at the very least, destabilise the shards within her.’

‘She was poisoned,’ Morrigan said, tossing the waterskin into the bushes nearby. ‘And this attack was orchestrated perfectly, but for what purpose?’

Something tickled and then _itched_ inside Dorian. He needed to go to Cullen, to check on him.

‘He just needs rest,’ Solas said quietly, like he’d read his Maker damned mind. ‘Leave him be another hour.’

Lavellan croaked, ‘You OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ he answered quickly. ‘I feel fine.’

‘Good,’ Morrigan said before anyone could comment on Dorian’s atrocious lie. ‘Then come and assist me in raising a shield over the camp.’

She began to walk away without waiting for him and after a second of internal debate, he got to his feet and followed.

‘That was subtle,’ he commented as he caught up to her.

‘You used a great deal of blood,’ she said once they were clear of the camp, the firelight faded from view. ‘More than necessary.’

‘I didn’t know how to control it,’ Dorian said, his palm stinging with the memory. ‘I didn’t realise.’

‘It’s overwhelming, or so I hear. I’ve nothing against it personally. Blood magic is, to say the very least, sorely misunderstood.’

Dorian scowled, baring his teeth slightly. ‘How _generous_.’

‘The connection between you and Cullen is impressive, if indeed greatly convoluted. I wanted to ask, away from the others, if you are aware that you are succumbing to a blood curse?’

For a moment, Dorian let himself feel the implication of the word _succumbing. _It was a sickly, rotting thing, tainted with inevitability and despair. Then he started to laugh.

Between soft peals of almost hysterical laughter, he managed to ask, ‘Which one?’

Morrigan slanted an eyebrow, maddeningly all knowing. _‘Which_ indeed.’

*

Cullen slept through the night and Dorian didn’t leave his side from within the tent, nor did he sleep a wink himself. He felt irrationally terrified that Cullen would die in his sleep and Dorian would simply never be able to wake him.

Morrigan’s words and generous _information_ sat low and heavy in the back of his mind, but he didn’t allow himself to process any of it, to process anything about that night until Cullen woke up and all was right with the world once more.

Just before dawn, Cullen finally stirred, Dorian’s name on his lips.

‘I’m here,’ the mage said, stroking his face gently. ‘I’m right here.’

Cullen opened his eyes slowly, gazing at Dorian.

‘Ellana?’

‘She’s doing well,’ Dorian said. ‘First thing she asked about was you too. How do you feel?’

Cullen tried to sit but Dorian pushed him down sternly into the pillow. ‘I feel well enough,’ he answered, slanting an eyebrow at Dorian. ‘Is there water?’

Dorian handed it over to him. All the waterskins had been checked and double checked after what happened to Lavellan’s. This was Dorian’s own and it was entirely safe. Cullen took a few deep pulls, throat working and then he broke away, gasping slightly.

‘Is the lyrium gone from her body?’ he asked, sitting up, this time ignoring Dorian’s attempts to keep him rested a moment longer than necessary.

‘Yes, that much is certain.’

‘And what of her health?’

It was dark in the tent, the sun not yet fully risen outside to grant them light enough to see more than the outline of one another’s faces and features.

‘She is enormously weakened,’ Dorian said heavily. ‘Which was to be expected. Solas doesn’t expect her to be recovered enough to fight by the time we arrive there and that’s even _if_ she’s strong enough to travel with us.’

He ran a hand up and down Cullen’s bare back, pretending his fingertips weren’t trembling.

‘And how are _you_?’ Cullen wasted no time in asking.

‘I’m—’

‘Don’t say fine.’

Dorian huffed. ‘Perfectly adequate, then? I don’t feel any _especially_ adverse effects of the blood magic.’

Cullen’s eyes narrowed in the gloom. ‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘I’m not. I feel well enough. I certainly wasn’t rendered unconscious by it, that’s for certain.’

‘The magic,’ Cullen said after a beat of silence. ‘Is it… changed?’

‘No,’ Dorian said, looking down. ‘It was already blood magic before. This was it at full power.’

‘I can’t feel it very much now.’

‘It’s _resting_, in a sense. Like you, I suppose.’

Cullen took his hand. ‘I’m so sorry you had to do that.’

‘Fucking _void_, Cullen. You’re apologising to _me_? How about the fact that you had blood magic moving through your system? That it tried to… tried to take hold inside you and never let go? It almost killed you!’

‘Lower your voice and no it did _not_.’

Dorian gaped. ‘Are you… defending it?’

Cullen pushed forward onto his knees, searching for his clothes. When he couldn’t find them, he lifted his hand and used a small amount of magic to create light. It wasn’t an orb, not like the way Dorian made them. Instead of a smooth ball, he made a kind of flickering flame, a candle without a stem. He made it thoughtlessly, as though it was second nature and it brought Dorian up short, unsure of how to feel.

‘I realise this is a topic from the box clearly marked _Things We Can__’t Talk About Right Now_, but how did you learn that?’

Cullen yanked a clean shirt over his head. ‘Learn what?’

Impatiently, Dorian gestured to the hovering magic flame.

‘I don’t know,’ he answered in an offhand manner, clearly distracted by dressing himself. ‘Does it really matter?’

Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘Back in the box, then.’

After he was dressed, Cullen sighed and grabbed Dorian gently, pressing dry, cracked lips to the mage’s in a swift kiss.

‘I love you,’ he said when they parted. ‘And when we get back to Skyhold, you can train me up in the Nook or whatever you want to do, all right? But we don’t have time for this right now. There are a dozen other far more pressing issues, what we discussed last night among them.’

‘Then don’t use it,’ Dorian blurted out.

Cullen seemed almost hurt at that. ‘Why not?’

‘Because you… you don’t know _how_ to use it, not properly.’

‘I used it fine last night.’

Indignant and unsure why he couldn’t let it go, Dorian followed Cullen out of the tent, barefoot and still wearing nightclothes. The murky pre-dawn light was grey and thin.

‘Yes, you used it,’ Dorian said, treading carefully. ‘And then you blacked out!’

Cullen turned abruptly and in a drastically lower voice than Dorian, said, ‘We use whatever we have, understand?’

‘You’re still _human_, Cullen! You shouldn’t be using magic like this! I care about you, all right? I worry about you and I’m sorry if it’s annoying or if you don’t like to be told that you are actually still human but there it is! Last night you had Maker only knows how much blood magic pumped through your system and I just want you to—’

‘To what? To _stop_?’

‘To _think_ before you use it, that’s all. That’s _all_!’

‘Just a reminder,’ Morrigan purred, strutting gracefully from her tent like it was a spa. ‘That this is a _communal_ camp, not a cavern beneath the earth where your voices won’t carry.’

Cullen rolled his eyes while Dorian told her to go fuck herself in ancient Tevene.

She smirked and sauntered towards the nearby stream.

‘I _am_ thinking,’ Cullen said quietly, looking back at Dorian. ‘I was thinking I needed to see and last night I was thinking that we needed to save Ellana’s life.’ He took both of Dorian’s hands and pressed a kiss to each of them. ‘I’m being careful, all right?’

Dorian knew when he was beaten.

*

‘I’m not going back,’ said Ellana Lavellan to the surprise of absolutely no one. ‘I can’t sit at Skyhold while you all go to war.’

Dorian could tell how much Leliana wanted to say something along the lines of, _why not, we normally do_, but remained wisely silent.

‘Boss, you can't ride a full day’s pace with us,’ Bull pointed out.

‘I agree,’ Sera said, looking at her hands. ‘You should go back.’

Lavellan seemed somewhat betrayed. ‘Sera, I’m not—’

‘You’ll slow us down!’ the elf snapped. ‘Haven’t you hurt yourself enough yet? Put yourself in enough sodding risk? They got that shit out of you at no small cost, mind! Are you really gonna push on like it was nothing!’

Cullen sat on the log opposite Dorian. Everything packed up and ready to go. All that remained was to decide whether or not Lavellan, who could barely walk, was going with them or riding back to Skyhold. It was raining lightly around them, Dorian’s shield keeping them dry from the worst of it.

‘You should go back, Ellana,’ Cullen said softly. ‘We can do this in your stead.’

Lavellan’s eyes widened fractionally, mouth thinning. ‘No. _No_. Celene will be there, Briala and Gaspard. All our soldiers. They’ll be looking for _me_ to lead them.’

‘And we’ll tell them you said _hi_,’ Sera intoned with absolutely no room for argument but oh, Lavellan was going to _make_ room, Dorian could tell.

‘She can’t return to Skyhold,’ Morrigan said, quite predictably.

‘Loathe as I am to agree with the witch,’ Solas sighed. ‘She is right. Without you there, Inquisitor, we cannot be certain of the forces promised by Orlais. There are numerous aspects which rely deeply upon your presence.’

‘Precisely. The point is that while I do appreciate everything you did, all of you, I can't go back.’

‘And what about the fact that someone tried to bloody well _off_ you?’ Sera asked, voice low and trembling.

‘We don’t know that they were trying to kill me,’ Lavellan said, looking to Leliana. ‘What did you find last night?’

‘A powerful mage was nearby, sustaining the attack,’ Leliana explained. ‘Cole sensed it was a blood mage, but we couldn’t get a _precise_ idea of who.’

Cole, who was sat beside Lavellan, stared into the long since dead fire.

‘Cole?’ Lavellan prompted gently.

‘Magic through a vessel, blood cut and running. Through them, then you, then the earth. Everyone is a conduit, a puppet. Everyone’s a container. Enthralled and blurred. No you or me, just _them_. I hold the strings, I make them dance.’

Cullen’s non-reaction was a thing of beauty but Dorian knew he hadn’t fared as well when Lavellan looked at him, a mixture of guilt and regret playing about her delicate features.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,’ the Inquisitor said. ‘I’m not going back.’

‘You can’t ride all day, boss.’

‘So strap me to a Maker damned horse, then!’

‘Hey, come on,’ Varric said, seeking to placate rising tensions. ‘She can ride me with. Two of us barely add up to one of you, Tiny, and your horse manages just fine.’

‘Are we really going to sit here and ignore the fact that she won’t be able to fight?’ Sera went on. ‘That she won’t be able to raise her blades, let alone—’

‘I’ll be fine by the time we get there.’

Sera levelled her with a fierce glare. ‘Oh yeah?’

Ellana glared right back. ‘_Yeah. _I’m the Inquisitor here. Herald of precisely nothing and no one but I’m going and that’s all there is to it.’

‘We can overrule you,’ Cullen said. ‘Leliana and I can overrule you.’

Lavellan tipped her chin. ‘Try it.’

‘All right, let’s just keep this civil,’ Dorian said and Lavellan looked at him quickly.

‘Dorian,’ she said, her back straightening, taking a steadying breath. ‘You’re the one who has to take over if I die. Everyone knows that. I’ll respect whatever decision _you_ make.’

The mage felt the sudden weight of every single person staring at him.

‘Um, what?’

‘You decide,’ she repeated. ‘If you tell me to go back, I will, but if not, I’m coming and I won’t slow anything down, I swear it.’

Dorian positively floundered, words deserting him. They were all staring, his friends. Sera, who had sat with him in a cupboard and held his hand. Varric, who had instantly forgiven him for almost frying his heart in his chest. Bull, who had been there for Dorian time and time again, making sure he slept, keeping him sane. Leliana, one of his closest friends now. Cole, who felt more like a _son_ in a strange way. Solas, who had made him potions and yelled at Cullen last night when he thought Cullen had hurt Dorian. Morrigan who had told Dorian… terrible truths he could not even contemplate.

And Cullen. Cullen who was Dorian’s entire fucking world, sat there, looking down with barely suppressed dread because he knew Dorian just about as well as Lavellan, knew what decision he would make before even the mage did.

He thought of Lavellan speaking with him in the war room. Of how Cullen had asked to keep him behind and she had refused, knowing that Dorian needed to see this through and as well, that _she_ needed him. Maybe for a moment like this.

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘We need her with us.’

*

They rode all morning and stopped when the sun was highest above them. Sera didn’t look at Dorian once and when he tried to talk to her, she ignored him.

‘Don’t take it personally,’ Lavellan said, gingerly accepting his help to get down from Varric’s horse. ‘Once I heal, she’s going to punch a tooth out of my head, I’m sure of it. What about Cullen? He ignoring you too?’

She leaned heavily against him all the way towards the camp area being set up. ‘No, he’s being frosty instead.’

‘Ah,’ she said, wincing as he lowered her onto a semi flat rock. ‘Well, at least we have each other, eh? The greatest sex-less romance Thedas has ever seen.’

Dorian sat beside her. ‘I’m not marrying you, darling. You’re high bloody maintenance.’

She scoffed playfully. ‘Oh, but you’re low, are you? Maker, I couldn’t _afford_ to marry you. You have extravagant taste, Ser Pavus. Isn’t that what causes most relationships to break down? Arguments over coin and children?’

Dorian shrugged. ‘I have plenty of both.’

She cracked a smile at that and mussed up his hair. Sera was making a big show of starting a fire to cook meat, using flints and plenty of aggression.

Cullen walked past and lit the fire for her, very _casually_ and quite purposefully using magic and not once looking in Dorian’s direction.

Lavellan and Dorian shared a glance, sighing in their mutual suffering.

*

It was a slow week. Travelling was painfully monotonous and it seemed to take forever. Moving at high speed during the day had something of the opposite effect, making Dorian feel as though time were stretching on, painfully elongated to torturous standards. They travelled all morning, stopped for lunch, Leliana sent and received messages and they moved on until sundown where they made camp and sat around awkwardly until Varric cracked several jokes.

But even his best and funniest stories couldn’t touch Sera’s bad mood or Cullen’s keen sense of betrayal at Dorian’s decision. Sera’s ire could not be faulted but Cullen’s was a little mystifying to Dorian, truth be told.

‘You love her that much?’ he asked one night before they went into their tents.

Cullen frowned for a moment before he understood. ‘Maybe it’s like Cole said. I’m sick of everyone not taking care of themselves.’

Dorian’s jaw fairly dropped at that. ‘You can fucking _talk_!’ he uttered, far too loud to be ignored by everyone else, though they gave it their all.

The Commander closed his eyes briefly and looked away. ‘What’s the point in saving the world if the people we love are no longer in it?’

*

By the fourth day, Lavellan was able to stay upright on her own horse for the morning portion of the ride and Sera’s mood eased slightly towards Dorian, but not to her partner. That anger seemed set in stone and it gave Dorian a sick, twisty feeling in his gut.

A strange kind of miscommunication was playing tricks with both Dorian and Cullen. At the end of a long day of travelling, one of them would usually attempt to start a conversation about one of the many things they needed to discuss and the other would deny it.

‘We’re not talking about this,’ Dorian said when Cullen asked how he was feeling, about if he could feel any more of Cullen’s curse stirring within him. ‘It can wait.’

‘It’s not relevant,’ Cullen would say when Dorian tried to ask him about the magic, about what the blood magic had done to him. ‘And I’m fine anyway. We should sleep.’

Despite the wall of silence, they slept wrapped up in one another. Cullen’s arms around Dorian, chest pressed to the mage’s back, chin tucked against his shoulder. Dorian let himself feel safe, breathed easy and slipped where dreams would take him.

*

On the fifth day, trouble found them as was its natural wont.

The territory was relatively uncharted. Few travelled beneath the Frostbacks towards the Wilds and the reason for that became apparent in the form of an endless stream of bandits.

In broad daylight they came and they outnumbered them five to one.

Horses dragging to a halt, Dorian and Solas fell back, flanking while the others went ahead to meet the bandits head on, Morrigan transforming into her raven form, scouting overhead to make sure this wasn’t a full-on attack.

Bull, Leliana and Cullen threw themselves into the thick of it while Sera and Varric protected Lavellan with ranged attacks, Cole covering the mages backs.

It was fast and brutal and they were highly skilled, the bandits, but that meant relatively little when faced with the Inquisition. Still, they kept on coming, using the nearby copse of trees as cover.

Dorian was summoning _walking bomb_ when an arrow cut through the air, a whistling whiplash that sliced past his face and nicked the skin a terrifying two inches above his left eye. The instinct to drop his staff and clutch his face was nigh overwhelming but he held fast and carried on, the cut on his temple bleeding swiftly, blood trailing thinly around the barrier of his eyebrow.

His magic had tightened and contracted worriedly when the arrow struck and Cullen had turned when it happened, looking back towards Dorian. The mage knew he’d felt it through the bond.

And Dorian felt, in turn, Cullen’s surge of absolute, awe-inspiring fury.

The Commander threw down his shield and moved _towards_ the onslaught of bandits, ignoring Bull’s warning shouts. With his newly freed hand, Cullen drew the magic into himself, shaping his ire into heat, into _flame._ He threw fire all before him; a wide, streaming arc, like water almost. Pure, purple flame, sizzling the very air and causing shimmers akin to a desert horizon. Even Dorian could feel the heat, far back as he was. The fire incinerated at least twenty of the bandits running towards them from the trees and turned them to _ash_ in a way Dorian had rarely seen before. The last time he’d seen men reduced to ash was fucking Adamant and it was born of a _dragon_.

Those who _weren__’t_ reduced to cinders by all-consuming violet flames had the wherewithal to turn tail and reconsider their attack. Cullen’s fire vanished like it had never existed at all and he watched them run, clearly debating pursuit for a solid moment before he decided against it.

It should have been worrying, terrifying even. The satisfaction playing about Cullen’s face as he looked away from the woods, breathing deeply like he’d been running. The magic sang and swirled, praising him, praising the natural destination of all that obsession and devotion.

Tea drinking epitome of logic and all things sensible, Solas actually _swore. _That was almost enough to break Dorian out of his trance, but not quite. Cullen looked down at his shield on the ground for a long moment as Bull and Leliana got to work killing injured stragglers. Dorian observed, caught in a mildly hypnotic state, as Cullen decided to leave it behind on the dewy, blood-soaked grass.

_He does not need it, _the magic sang. _He will never need it again_.

‘You’re hurt,’ Cullen stated roughly, taking Dorian’s chin in total contrast to his voice; gentle and soft, brow pinched with concern. ‘Stay still, let me see it.’

‘I’m fine, it’s a scratch,’ Dorian said, panting slightly.

Cullen examined the cut intently. ‘Some of their arrows were tipped with poison.’

_‘What_?’ Dorian squeaked. ‘Truly?’

And Cullen, the motherfucker, _grinned_. ‘No, not really.’

Dorian whacked a strong, armoured shoulder with his staff. ‘Go fuck yourself, _Commander_.’

‘Unnecessary, I would think,’ the blond purred, finally releasing Dorian’s face, satisfied that the small cut above his eyebrow wasn’t anything serious. ‘When I have you.’

Solas made a fairly disgusted noise and walked away. Dorian had quite forgotten he was even _there_, such was his focus on the man before him, still vibrating with the heat of the magic he’d wrought.

Dorian was a little dizzy just thinking about it.

He shook his head and swallowed. ‘What you did was…’

Immediately, Cullen winced and looked down, suddenly nervous. ‘I know I shouldn’t—’

But Dorian couldn’t contain himself a moment longer. He took Cullen’s face in his hands and brought them together, kissing him soundly, crushing their lips. The world faded, the people around them simply _faded_. Cullen had taken what was inside of Dorian and used it so fucking _magnificently_. Used it to burn bright and protect them. Used it to kill, to _decimate. _

It shouldn’t have made him feel that way, such a thought. Blood pumping hot and fast, skin itching to connect with Cullen’s, hands begging to plunge into sweat soaked golden curls and _pull_. Dorian poured every ounce of his want into Cullen through the kiss.

It barely lasted three seconds and when they parted, ripping away before anything _more_ decided to happen quite of its own accord, they were both a little breathless.

‘You’re incredible,’ Dorian whispered. ‘Painfully incredible, however fucked up that makes us. You for being this way and me for being helpless but to love it.’

Cullen’s eyes were dark with desire; pupils blown black, lips red and wet.

‘I don’t care if we’re fucked up,’ Cullen told him and _meant it_. ‘I love you and you’re mine, magic and all.’

They kissed again, but it was brief that time. A thing to part with and be continued later, much later, when it was dark and they _weren__’t_ surrounded by friends. Cullen went straight to Lavellan and Dorian was graciously given a few seconds to adjust the front of his trousers, shiny buckles and straps not leaving much to the imagination.

*

Just before sundown, they came upon a deserted shack. Morrigan and Solas raised a combined shield and the nine took shelter inside the wooden building, slowly being taken over by plants as the years passed. It was nice, to sit on an actual _chair. _To eat what they’d hunted inside with a fire in an actual _grate. _Dorian appreciated the small luxuries where possible, smiling to think how _Dorian of Years Past_ would have considered such a place nothing less than a punishment to spend the night in.

‘Can I ask about the magic?’ Bull said halfway through dinner. ‘Or is that some shit we’re all meant to pretend we didn’t see today?’

Cullen was sat on the floor beside Dorian’s chair and the sudden influx of attention made Dorian realise he’d been idly playing with Cullen’s hair.

The mage glanced at Lavellan, who had the only comfortable chair in the room at the insistence of everyone, Sera included. Lavellan nodded once at Dorian and he reluctantly withdrew his hand from where it had been happily engaged at the base of Cullen’s neck.

‘Well, it’s a very long story,’ Dorian began heavily.

‘His magic can exist inside me,’ Cullen said, finishing off the last of his rabbit and rice. ‘I can utilise it because my body was conditioned to accept and manipulate magic to an extent by way of sustained lyrium use.’

Dorian sighed and pitched his eyes skyward. ‘Or a very short one.’

‘No, we all know that already,’ Bull said a tad impatiently. ‘I wanna know about that fire.’

‘What about it?’

‘Uh, how about the fact you incinerated twenty men?’

‘I was protecting—’

‘I’ve never seen anything less than a dragon turn men to ash.’

Cullen shrugged, supremely unconcerned. ‘It’s magic.’

Solas was staring at Cullen, a small frown dented between his eyes.

‘It was undeniably powerful magic,’ the elf said slowly. ‘But you, Commander, seem to act as an accelerant, would you say that’s accurate?’

‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘Look,’ Bull said. ‘No one is judging here. This weird thing between you two is what saved the boss. We’re just curious.’

‘And perhaps a little concerned,’ Varric added with a shrug and a friendly smile.

Cullen smoothly got to his feet, dropping a kiss to Dorian’s hand.

‘Leliana and I will do a sweep,’ Cullen said. ‘I’m sure Dorian can answer these questions far better than I can, him being a mage and all.’

Dorian’s jaw dropped a little. ‘What?’ he spluttered.

But Cullen and Leliana were already halfway out of the shack, speaking in low, hushed tones.

‘All right, Sparkler,’ Varric said when the doors closed after the pair. ‘Spill.’

‘Spill _what _precisely?’

‘Why is your magic so powerful inside of Cullen?’ Bull asked solemnly. ‘I get it about the lyrium and all. I’ve seen Vints pushing magic through a disgraced Templar or two in my time, but it was for torture, what they call _academic study_, at best.’

‘I know,’ Dorian said grimly. ‘I’ve seen it too. I don’t _know_ how this works. All I do know is that my magic, this variation of it ever since I… since I used blood magic, it’s very passionate about being inside Cullen.’

Despite her silence and overall bad mood the last five days, Sera snorted softly and looked away to hide the small hint of a smile. Varric also grinned and shook his head.

‘It is markedly _not_ funny,’ Solas said. ‘I have communed with Dorian’s magic and he is not wrong. It is powerful and deeply purpose driven as magic rarely is. For magic to have what one would consider a _motive_, a reason for existence, is quite rare.’

Morrigan, who had been sitting the furthest away, arms crossed loosely over her chest, shook her head. ‘It is not _motive_,’ she corrected. ‘It is the blood curse.’

Dorian froze and the others turned to look at her.

‘Blood curse?’ Varric echoed curiously.

‘With all due respect,’ Solas said. ‘I disagree. I have felt his magic, arrogant and demanding as it was, I did not detect involvement with Dorian’s blood curse. If anything, his magic is inherently wary of it.’

Dorian _glared_ at Morrigan but she was entirely un-fazed.

‘You are indeed correct, except that I was speaking of the Commander’s blood curse, not Dorian’s.’

‘Wait, _who_ has a blood curse?’ Varric asked, looking between the mages.

‘They both do,’ Morrigan said quite unrepentantly. ‘It is most interesting, or it would be under different circumstances. I cannot help but wonder abstractly if their connection and attraction is not, in fact, entirely driven _by_ the blood curses.’

‘_Cullen_ has a blood curse?’ Bull asked. ‘Is it like yours, Vint?’

Dorian was getting a headache and Maker, he was going to smack Cullen upside his pretty head later for leaving him here with this crap.

‘Sweet Andraste’s _arse_, all right! For anyone who doesn’t already know, six years ago my prick of a Father placed a blood curse on me which apparently meant I would die before I fell in love with another man. Eleven years ago Cullen was cursed, we think accidentally, and the result was that he became mentally trapped in a very dark frame of mind, unable to experience happiness to a certain degree.’

Bull raised his hand in the silence that followed.

‘Uh, sorry to burst your bubble there, but Cullen is very much happy and _you__’re_ very much in love.’

Before Dorian could respond with scathing sarcasm, Morrigan said, ‘And therein lies the rub.’

‘Meaning what?’ Lavellan asked curiously.

Morrigan’s yellow eyes were fixed upon Dorian, amused as always, but he detected a note of genuine fascination there.

‘Curses reside primarily in blood,’ she said slowly. ‘The intent resides there, even if dormant.’

Cole, who had been invisible until then, chose that precise moment to appear in the corner he’d been lurking in. ‘Water and ink combined can never be returned to their selves. I am born of your pain, sharp one. The lake is deep and the waters are dark. Stay with me, Dorian. Stay with me.’

Sera, who was sat nearest to Cole’s corner flinched violently, hand flying to her heart. ‘Shitting _nugfuckery_, Cole!’ she yelped. ‘Can you friggin’ well _breathe louder_ or something next time!’

‘’Well said, Cole,’ Morrigan purred. ‘The curses have indeed become corrupted and combined.’

A sharp prickle of anger moved up Dorian’s spine. ‘This is _hardly_ your business to spread around.’

‘You still haven’t told him then?’

‘Wait, so your blood curses are… what? Shared now?’ Lavellan asked him.

‘We have no way of knowing that,’ Dorian insisted mutinously. ‘And at such a time it hardly matters.’

‘Yes, that is what both your curses would like you to believe,’ Morrigan said and this time she was entirely serious. ‘I told you before that their combined intent is a devastating force to be reckoned with.’

‘Blood sharing would not be enough to combine the curses in such a way,’ Solas said, speaking directly to Morrigan as if Dorian wasn’t even there. ‘You are correct in that they reside primarily in the blood as a matter of ritual, but they certainly are not transferable or contagious.’

Morrigan’s gaze slid to the elven apostate. ‘They would be if Dorian were bound to the anchor.’

‘Shut up,’ Dorian warned her. ‘Don’t you _dare.__’_

‘What anchor?’ Sera asked, looking between them.

‘I very much doubt that any anchor would still be intact eleven years later,’ Solas argued with something bordering on academic fascination, reminding Dorian all too well of the Magisters back home, years ago, when they’d excitedly discussed the theoretical implications of the procedure that Fenris had undergone, among many other gruesome _exhibits_ that night.

Sera frowned. ‘What’s an anchor?’

‘A remnant of the curse when cast, if said curse was especially powerful. Sometimes born of deep emotion, sometimes of the vilest intent. Think of it as overflow, the magic spilling over from the target and into an object. It becomes stuck in the object, sometimes fuelling the curse. Dorian’s curse has no such anchor, I can say confidently.’

Dorian glared at Morrigan, warning her to keep her mouth shut but she was not so inclined.

‘Ah, but Cullen’s curse _does_,’ she said.

‘I would greatly appreciate,’ Dorian said, voice shaking with effort to keep it civil. ‘If you would kindly not discuss such things that have _absolutely nothing to do with you_.’

‘Dorian, you knew this already?’ Lavellan asked.

‘Not until _she_ told me,’ the mage replied, eyes narrowing at Morrigan.

‘Paper and ink, I will bleed for your secrets,’ Cole whispered.

‘Look,’ Dorian said, trying to ignore the stab of worry in his gut. ‘I haven’t told Cullen yet, so if we could all just—’

‘Told Cullen what?’

Ah.

_Of course. _

Dorian ground the heel of his palm into his eye, making the oncoming headache far worse. He swore extensively and fluently as Cullen walked into the room, Leliana close behind.

‘He deserves to know,’ Morrigan said lightly.

Dorian called her an especially foul name in Tevene and she chuckled, unruffled in the extreme.

‘Tell Cullen _what_?’ the Commander repeated a little more forcefully.

‘Right,’ Dorian said, standing up quickly. ‘Let’s go outside, shall we?’

‘No, tell me right now.’

Dorian looked at Cullen and what he saw there fractured his heart. Cullen didn’t _care_ that everyone was looking at them, he didn’t care that they’d been talking about him. He was only concerned for what Dorian had to tell him.

Dorian took a steadying breath. ‘The letter,’ he said. ‘I think it’s the anchor of your curse.’

*

Cullen had been far more accepting of Dorian’s offer to head outside after that and Dorian couldn’t help but be grateful, needing distance from Morrigan’s all seeing yellow eyes.

‘What do you mean, the anchor?’ he asked as they moved a few feet away from the wooden walls of the shack, sounds of the night all around them. Rain was due any minute, Dorian could taste it, metallic tang on the back of his tongue.

‘It’s something Morrigan told me on our first disastrous night in camp. She said she could sense that our curses have become… muddled.’

‘We knew that already,’ Cullen said intently.

‘She said the only way that could happen was if I was somehow compromised by the anchor. She asked a few things, about what I’d used blood magic for.’

‘Jassen’s letter… is the anchor of my curse?’

‘I think so, yes.’

Hands over his mouth, Cullen shook his head. ‘But that—no, I destroyed it and I still didn’t…’ He trailed off, eyes widening slowly. ‘When I destroyed it, I was… I felt….’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, swallowing tightly. ‘Until I remade it, of course.’

He could practically see the wheels whirring in Cullen’s mind.

‘You made it with your blood, though,’ he said. ‘Maker take me, that’s why you’re connected to my curse, isn’t it? You made the letter of _yourself_.’

‘We can’t be sure but Morrigan could sense something that night. She might be an almighty bitch, but I don’t doubt her instincts.’

‘Dorian, what does this mean?’

‘Well,’ the mage said with a shrug. ‘I actually think this is potentially _good_.’

‘How is any of this good?’

‘Because it means that when we return to Skyhold we can destroy the fucking thing. You destroyed it before and you felt better, I know you did. I remember the change that came over you, I just didn’t realise _why_.’

Cullen grimaced. ‘I should have destroyed it as soon as Vivienne gave it to me.’

‘You didn’t know.’

‘I _should_ have known! All those fucking years, helplessly pouring my pain onto the page, feeling like I was drowning but never quite enough to die.’

‘Don’t get angry, please.’

‘I’m… fuck, I’m not angry at you, love.’ The Commander’s shoulder dropped a little, expression filling with regret. ‘I’m angry _for_ you. That this curse has infected you by such means. If I had just spoken to you about the letter, you would never have spilled your blood for it. You wouldn’t be connected to it now.’

‘Let’s have a nice, refreshing dose of reality, shall we?’ Dorian said sharply. ‘I lied about knowing your secrets. I lied knowingly and willingly for _weeks_ afterwards and no one was controlling me when I performed blood magic to cover for my lie. I will not be something else you blame yourself for.’ He moved closer, reaching for Cullen and taking him gently by his cloak. ‘And I’m no stranger to blood curses. I’ve been dealing with my own for a while now, all right? I can handle yours too.’

‘And what about _your_ curse?’ Cullen asked, determined to be bleak. ‘We never talk of it, we don’t refrain from saying such things that might… might cause it to hurt you. Is yours… broken?’ There was a tiny sliver of hope there in that question and Dorian hated to tread upon it.

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘It’s not broken. My curse is still very much active.’

Cullen swallowed and spoke in an unbearably fragile way. ‘But then… don’t you love me?’

‘Oh Maker, save me from beautiful Ferelden idiots,’ Dorian laughed as a genuine tremor of heartache ran through him. ‘Of _course_ I love you, you absolute fucking _moron_! I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything!

‘Then… why?’

‘Why aren’t I dead? I honestly don’t know. I know the curse is still active. My magic can sense it sometimes, it warns me not to vocalise how much I adore you.’

‘Is that what it is? I can feel that sometimes too.’

‘The curse is still there, but for now it doesn’t seem interested in killing me.’

‘But it might still?’

‘I think it’s waiting for something.’

Cullen let out a shaky breath. ‘Then we’ll stop it,’ he said quickly. ‘We can break it, somehow. I’ll do whatever is necessary, I swear to you.’

Dorian laughed softly. ‘Cullen, you—’

‘I _swear_ to you, Dorian. I will not let you die.’

He said it with such fervent belief that Dorian was weak beneath the weight of the sentiment.

‘I believe you,’ he said and didn’t add anything else to it, no caveats, no _buts_. ‘I believe in you more than any deity or doctrine.’

Their hands twined together and the gap between them evaporated.

‘You’re the world,’ Cullen muttered. ‘When did you become the whole world?’

Dorian smiled and pressed a kiss to Cullen’s nose. ‘Probably the day I passed out in your bedroom.’

Cullen chuckled, warm breath fanning over Dorian’s face. ‘That’s probably accurate. I’d never seen someone faint quite like that.’

‘I did not _faint_. I passed out. There’s a clear difference.’

‘Such a beautiful mage, fainting at the very sight of me.’

‘If I _passed out_, it was because I hadn’t slept in days and you weren’t supposed to even be there!’

‘I had to carry you like a princess, you know,’ Cullen said, drawing their linked hands up against his chest. ‘Lay you down on my bed and smooth your hair back. It was so strange, to see you like that. You were so lovely and I felt… oddly protective of you then, even though I hated you.’ Cullen frowned. ‘I _thought_ I hated you, but it wasn’t really _me_.’

The mere allusion to the curse made Dorian internally wince.

‘Can we not speak of… that?’

‘Of course,’ Cullen said quickly. ‘I’m sorry. Maker, your life would be so much less complicated were it not for me.’

Dorian kissed him. ‘Don’t waste a single moment thinking I would be better off without you. My life would be cold and barren were it not for you. I hadn’t been alive, _truly_ alive, for so long until I met you. You’re all my happiness, wrapped up in a man.’

Cullen took a breath, exhaling in a measured kind of way.

‘I would gladly devote every day of my life to making that true.’

And for a long, drawn out moment of sheer madness, Dorian was sure that Cullen was about to do something crazy like _get down on one knee. _There was a kind of electricity in the air that had precious little to do with the distantly approaching rain.

‘But even that would fall short of what you deserve,’ Cullen said hoarsely, looking off to the side.

‘Oh, and what do I deserve?’

Dorian already knew what the answer would be. ‘Everything,’ Cullen answered, proving the mage right. ‘You deserve _everything_ good in the world, my love.’

_More than me,_ was what Dorian heard.

‘Well then,’ Dorian said, inching closer into the warm strength of Cullen’s body, armour and all. ‘You’d better practise your Tevene, Commander. Your mage has a penchant for warm, luxurious places, after all.’

Cullen was already smiling before he looked back at Dorian.

‘My mage?’ he echoed softly, something quite vulnerable in it.

‘Your mage,’ Dorian repeated firmly. ‘Yours for all time, I’m afraid.’

‘What if this mage tires of me?’

‘Do you intend to do anything monumentally stupid, like attempt to leave your mage in a self-sacrificing move because _it__’s for the best?’_

Cullen stroked his hair back, staring with fond intensity. _‘_I don’t think I could.’

‘Then,’ Dorian said, leaning into the touch. ‘Your fears are surely unfounded.’

His eyelashes fluttered slightly, expression unguarded and so exposed. It made Dorian desperate to protect it, no matter the cost. ‘In the past, they’ve not been so unfounded.’

‘That was before you had your very own mage to protect you from your stupidity, though,’ Dorian said wisely. ‘And before you showed this mage how beautiful the world could actually be when brave enough to open one’s heart.’

Silence reigned as the rain began to fall, pattering softly against the frail, rotting wooden porch above them. Cullen’s thumb stroked Dorian’s cheek bone, fingers trailing over the freshly healed cut from earlier in the day.

‘All right then,’ he rumbled after a while. ‘My mage.’

*

The sixth day had Sera and Solas scouting for elfroot to make potions, mostly for Lavellan but also due to a sharp shortage since their journey had been so severely waylaid by bandits.

‘We will arrive at base camp location tomorrow,’ Cullen said, analysing a small map with Leliana. ‘Auxiliary forces should arrive a day or so after us, Cassandra has estimated. They have taken a less dangerous, albeit less speedy route. Perimeter forces the same and the bulk of the frontal forces arrive last, at least three days from now.’

Lavellan was sharpening her blades, sat by the fire. ‘Very good,’ she said quietly. ‘We’re going to need to split up.’

Dorian, who had been rubbing oil into his staff (damned splinters) felt his insides tighten. He’d been expecting it and so had Cullen. They had discussed it at length, the possibility that they would need to venture apart from each other.

Cullen had given Dorian his small blade; the dagger he often kept in his boot. _‘For close calls_,’ he explained and Dorian of course agreed to wear it, to reassure Cullen and nothing more. He would not need it. He had _their_ magic, after all.

Dorian had given Cullen the sending crystal that Leliana had thoughtfully returned to him months ago. ‘_For when if one of us needs to help the other,__’_ he’d said and Cullen wore it around his neck on a black, strong length of twine, Dorian wearing the other. _‘For emergencies _only_,__’ _Cullen had clarified, smiling because he knew Dorian all too well.

‘Yes, I agree,’ Leliana said entirely without inflection. ‘I will take Cole and Varric ahead and we will dispatch of the—’

‘Not Cole,’ Dorian blurted out and then winced, regretting it instantly.

Leliana’s expression softened slightly. ‘Cole is an extremely proficient assassin,’ she explained as if Dorian didn’t already know. ‘Those who go ahead need to do so in subterfuge and stealth. There are few more capable than Cole in this area.’

‘Fine, well I’m coming too then. Let Varric hang back.’

‘Yeah, let Varric hang back,’ the dwarf echoed hauling a log onto the fire. ‘Not like he’s within earshot or anything.’

‘Dorian, you’re not—’

‘I’m capable of subterfuge and I’m good with cloaking magic and shields. I’m coming with you or he’s not going at all.’

Leliana glanced at Cullen who gave her a kind of _I wouldn__’t argue if I were you_ look.

‘I am certain if you spoke with him,’ Leliana said, determined to get her point across. ‘That Cole would assure you himself—’

Cole, who had been sitting right beside Dorian, turned visible.

‘I would like Dorian to come too,’ he said instantly and Dorian made no effort not to look smug. ‘He is warm where we two are cold.’

‘Told you,’ Cullen muttered, grinning slightly.

‘Fine,’ the Spymaster said, evidently displeased but not angry. ‘But you’d better keep up!’

*

Dorian and Cullen didn't say goodbye, they didn’t _say_ anything. They kissed and then they parted, Dorian’s magic whining and protesting within him at the inevitable stretch of distance it was about to endure.

Leliana and Cole were saddled up and ready to leave, the three of them bound to go ahead and kill as many as possible with sneaky underhand tactics. Lavellan was meant to be with them, Dorian knew. He could tell how it pained her to stay back with the others and worse, to require others to _protect _her. Though she could now ride a full day on her own horse, anything more than thirty seconds of sparring had her panting and breathless, pale and dizzy.

No one had said anything, but everyone knew it was unlikely she would be able to fight.

With the taste of Cullen on his lips, Dorian caught up with Leliana and Cole.

*

If Adamant had been violent blundering, a great and unstoppable downhill ride with very little control at all, then Dorian’s first foray into the Wilds was the complete opposite. They left their horses behind in a dense, lush area of foliage and trees and went the rest of the way on foot, adhering to shadows and paths less trodden. Dorian used cloaking magics where Cole and Leliana used trickery and air shimmering powders.

The first camp they came across was small, maybe fifteen in total. Venatori, Red Templars and a few demons. A pleasant mishmash of Corypheus’s forces and an obvious distraction.

‘A _tripfire_,’ Leliana called it, smiling to herself as they moved on from the camp and headed closer to their destination. The next was not a camp at all, but a small gathering of messengers. A kind of _hub_ for sending and receiving birds. The three of them watched the gathering, the sun slowly dipping.

‘This is a key location,’ Leliana said after a while of watching from bushes and undergrowth, all number of creepy things attempting to get to know Dorian better before he swatted them away. ‘They will move soon. We must wait for them to intercept a high tier message and then before they move, we will wipe them out and leave no trace.’

Dorian shivered while Cole played gently with a large spider.

A trio of ravens landed when the sun was almost fully set and Cole had come up with a dazzling array of names for every insect that he’d come into contact with.

‘Here we go,’ Leliana said, tensing up, a slight smile curving the corner of her mouth. ‘Quick and absolutely silent, understood? Dorian, raise a shield to contain any noise or light. Keep it subtle.’

Dorian did so, shooting her a good dose of side-eye. Subtle indeed.

Once the shield was in place, invisible to the naked eyes, she and Cole stole from the undergrowth, moving with silence and speed enough that they best resembled shadows. Cole’s glamour shimmered ever so slightly and Leliana used cloaking powder to move undetected. Dorian remained where he was, set to provide containment while they worked and backup if they needed it.

He watched as throats were slit, the pair working from the outside in. They moved methodically and silently. Dorian barely heard anything and by the time the inner four realised what was happening, it was too late. They yelled and screamed and Dorian thickened his shield, muffled any sound entirely.

Leliana was quiet and neat while Cole was silent and yet somehow explosive. He didn’t slit across the throats in a careful, quick line; he tore them open, sending a shower of blood through the air. It was surprising and Dorian, far from horrified, felt _gratified_ that Cole knew how to look after himself to this extent.

There was a straggler. Dorian caught sight of him across the clearing and neither Leliana nor Cole seemed to have noticed him. The man, mid-forties and well built, crouched low, mouth in a circle of horror as he watched the lethal pair work. Dorian stayed where he was as the man ran towards him, dodging around the carnage, making a flat out run for it unknowingly towards Dorian.

The mage stepped out of the bushes, staff aimed towards him but the man, despite his carriage, was _fast. _Dorian had barely aimed the staff at him before the man screamed loudly, expression distorted with terror driven rage and ploughed into him at full speed.

It knocked Dorian down _hard_, breath smashed from his lungs, head spinning. Above him the man grabbed his staff and threw it, roaring blindly. He raised a meaty fist and astonishingly, dropped a vicious but effective _Silence_ right over the mage.

A Templar then, or he once had been. It struck Dorian deeply, so close to the origin. Dorian’s connection to the Fade was viciously severed, all his natural instincts doused and his magic struggled weakly within him.

He lifted his other fist and smashed it into Dorian’s face once, the bones of his skull reeling like they were shattered and they might well have been for all Dorian knew. He grunted and gurgled, feeling desperately for something, _anything_ to hit the brute with when he remembered the knife Cullen had given him. A small blade, nothing special, but it would do.

He hoisted his leg up, bringing the boot near his hand, fiddling with the clasp and just as that arm, thick as Dorian’s thigh, was hefted high once more, Dorian got a hold of the hilt and swung the blade into the man’s side as hard as he could.

Before he could scream, Leliana appeared and clapped her hand over his mouth as Dorian withdrew the knife and brought it front ways, plunging it into his heart instead. It went in with no resistance whatsoever, a blade through paper and all that red ink spilling forth. Dorian was panting when he yanked the blade free, ensuring death. He wanted to look away from the man’s eyes, wide and horrified, but he didn’t. He forced himself to look, to _see_ the light as it left.

There was no light and he saw nothing _leave_. The eyes turned glassy, unfocused and then the man simply retreated too far inward to be seen anymore.

‘You did well,’ Leliana said, letting the man drop. ‘Your first blood, I think?’

Dorian shook himself, looking down at the blade curiously, horribly detached. There was blood on his fingers, a small, almost artistic spatter up his wrist. He moved his face like it was numb, like he was trying to work feeling back into it.

‘Hmm,’ he commented in a shockingly light tone of voice. ‘By knife, yes.’

Leliana’s hand on his shoulder was rough. ‘Close combat is always hard. It’s… different.’

Dorian cleared his throat and watched Cole’s approach, the boy simply _smothered_ with blood and gore. Dorian had a tiny spray on his hand. It hardly compared but it felt like acid on his skin, like it burned somehow.

‘In and deep to split and splice’ Cole said, looking curiously at Dorian’s hand. ‘I sew you open, not shut.’

Leliana watched Dorian measuredly for a second before ascertaining whatever she needed to. ‘Let’s move. More ahead.’

*

It became apparent pretty fucking quickly that far from Dorian protecting _Cole_, the situation warranted quite the opposite. Dorian’s magic was powerful, brimming within him and desperate to lash out and protect him, cause untold chaos and bright, beautiful destruction but sneaking around and killing from the shadows made that difficult

Cole was really rather made for it.

Still, Dorian’s magic made it so that they took out the messengers, retrieved what intelligence Leliana deemed valuable and all without being detected by what she called _tripfires; _mass gatherings of loud, clunky beings, designed to alert each other of an impending attack.

With the messengers taken out and no way of receiving orders from their Elder One, it was time to begin taking down the operational outposts, slowly and carefully.

‘Only the outer rings,’ Leliana said as they observed from a safe distance. ‘We know Corypheus’s forces will begin to arrive come dawn. It will cause stunning disarray if they have no guidance when they arrive.’

‘But our forces will not arrive until at least two days after.’

‘Even better,’ Leliana said with a grin. ‘Left in disarray to stew and wonder, to question and bicker amongst themselves. I can hardly see the Elder one making his way through the ranks and boosting morale, can you?’

Dorian inclined his head. ‘Do demons respond to _morale_?’

Cole leaned forward ever so slightly, squinting through the bushes. ‘You might be surprised, Dorian,’ he said softly.

‘At this point,’ the mage said, patting him on the back. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘We take out the runners first,’ Leliana said, giving Dorian a hard kind of stare. ‘They’ll be young, possibly human, brought along with the Red Templars.’

‘I won’t falter,’ he told her, searching for mettle and finding only doubt that he could so easily stab some poor teenager who would do nothing but remind him of Keenan or Saffy.

‘Dorian won’t kill them,’ Cole said. ‘They are not the right kind of evil. Not the shade, not the feel. Good does not bleed like evil.’

‘I will do whatever is necessary!’ the mage hissed.

*

‘Look at me, no not at them, look at me, all right? Yes good, that’s good. Look up! No, I’m not going to kill you, silly boy, look at the stars. See that fork there? Yes? That’s north. Follow it and _run_, you will come to a camp. My people are there. Tell them Dorian sent you. Tell them…’ Dorian gasped, losing his breath as the camp erupted into all manner of burning chaos around them, the terrified runner staring up at him from the grass where he’d fallen. Poor boy was all of sixteen, shoved into ill-fitting armour, helmet sliding from side to side as he shook. ‘Tell the Commander that I said he’s an absolute fucking moron, all right? Say that _exactly_. They’ll protect you. _Run_!’

The kid didn’t need to be told twice and when Dorian turned back, Leliana wiped a streak of blood from her chin, shaking her head slightly.

‘Compassion,’ Cole said, yanking his blades from the stomach of a Venatori. ‘Is not sweet, but it can be soft.’

They’d won, but _barely_. Dorian’s shield had faltered somewhere along the way and the fire and screaming had not been well contained.

‘You put us at risk,’ Leliana said, taking a waterskin from a dead man and drinking from it before swilling and spitting first. ‘For someone we don’t even know.’

‘He was a child.’

‘So you say of everyone younger than you!’ the Spymaster declared sharply. ‘One day, one of these _children_ will turn and be holding a blade to your throat, repaying your kindness with bloodshed!’

Dorian reeled, mildly indignant. ‘There was no need for _that_ level of vitriol.’

Leliana offered Cole some water and to Dorian’s surprise, the boy took a long drink. It was perhaps the most human thing Dorian had ever witnessed from him.

‘Wet work is deeply unpleasant, I tried to warn you,’ she said but there was little edge to it, mostly exasperation. ‘Now they will be on guard. It was inevitable, but I _did_ hope for a little more time. No matter.’ She nodded at Dorian, rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck. ‘Call for backup. Give them our position. Tell Cullen to bring me some cheese too. This will be a long night.’

*

‘Lavellan is safe?’ Dorian asked as soon as Cullen drew back for air from their greeting kiss, all possessive lips and teeth and painful brevity.

‘Safe with Solas, Morrigan and Sera,’ the Commander answered, scanning Dorian quickly for injuries, despite the darkness all around them. He made a small flickering flame of purple light and took Dorian’s face carefully, checking everywhere else as if Dorian couldn’t be trusted to be honest about whether or not he was fucking _dying_. ‘You used my dagger,’ he stated, looking up at Dorian quickly, eyes searching and a deep, almost unbelievable source of comfort.

If anyone was going to make Dorian feel better about spilling blood, it was Cullen.

‘You did the right thing,’ he said before Dorian could even explain. ‘I’m proud of you, even if I _am_ a moron, apparently.’

He smirked fondly and turned away, as Dorian allowed himself a relieved smile, pleased that the runner had made it safe and sound.

‘They’re converging,’ Bull informed Leliana when he returned from scouting. ‘They know they’re under attack and they’ve abandoned individual posts, forming one big one, right… _there_,’ he added, pointing to her map. ‘Down there. It’s a good position for them to hold. They figure if we’re a full-frontal attack, we’ll bottleneck. They have archers on a high wall right here. Solid backup.’

‘But they’ve miscalculated,’ Cullen said, leaving Dorian’s side to join them. ‘We are not a frontal attack and in huddling in the dark, they’ve made a key mistake. Fire will be their undoing.’

‘Ooh,’ Varric said. ‘Sounds like your kinda deal, Curly.’

‘Too bright to see, too bright to notice shadows anymore. In darkness, clarity. In flame, blindness. I am the hunter and you the prey.’

‘Exactly, Cole,’ Cullen said. ‘Varric can use flaming arrows to set the tents ablaze and we can flank them here and here. Dorian can take out the archers. Bull, you’re with Leliana and me. We’ll take out the biggest ones first and then fall back, draw them into the fringes, blind and panicked.’

‘What about deserters?’ Bull asked. ‘No way we can hunt down those who run and if they know they’re under attack, won’t they have dispatched messages to warn—’

‘All messengers are dead, all birds are scattered,’ Leliana said, taking another bite of cheese and wiping her mouth with her sleeve. ‘Well, save for Dorian’s newest adopted _child_.’

‘Kid basically pissed his pants when we asked who he was,’ Bull chuckled, adjusting the strap of his pauldron. ‘Shoulda seen him tell Cullen he was a fucking moron.’

‘_Absolute_ fucking moron,’ Cullen corrected smoothly. ‘And he might prove useful. Runners hear a great deal they’re not meant to.’

Varric snorted, locking and loading _Bianca_. ‘I _bet_.’

‘If we can do this, when the bulk of the forces arrive tomorrow, it will be chaos. They will struggle to re-establish operational outposts, they will need to promote from within and by the time _our_ main forces arrive, they will be easy to pick apart.’

‘Don’t get too cocky,’ Dorian warned. ‘Pride goeth, Commander.’ Cullen’s eyes met his, a small but powerful bolt of understanding and recognition running through him.

‘I’ve never heard that saying,’ Varric commented, looking interested.

Dorian grinned, underscored with a shrug. ‘Feel free to steal it.’

‘What about this man who arrives tomorrow?’ Bull was asking. ‘Sampson?’

Cullen sobered quickly. ‘Leave him to me,’ was all he said and no one argued. ‘All right. Any questions?’

‘Yes,’ Cole said, holding his twin blades loosely in his long, blood-stained fingers. ‘Why is Jassen here?’

Cullen so rarely reacted to things, was so often the absolute master of his expression, that when he flinched like Cole had slapped him, a small breath punched from his chest, Dorian felt the shock like it was his own.

‘What?’

Cole was entirely nonchalant, simply curious. ‘Jassen,’ he repeated. ‘Why is he here? He’s dead. He died and it was dark and painless. A good way to go, deeper sleep than any before—’

‘Cole!’ Dorian found himself snapping, louder than he meant to. ‘That’s _enough_!’

No one spoke, looking between the three warily and curiously, all but Leliana who stared only at Cullen.

Cullen breathed, ‘Jassen is here?’

‘He is _helping_,’ Cole said quite calmly. ‘He loves you.’

Dorian stepped forward despite himself. ‘Cole, stop it.’

‘His love for you made manifest.’

‘Cole…’

‘Stay with me, Cullen. You’ll never love anything the way I love you. Forgive me, the way I would _never_ forgive you.’

Dorian was so intent on shutting Cole up he didn’t even realise he was moving towards him until Cullen grabbed his arm, fingers digging into his flesh like a vice and keeping him there. The silence was absolute, deafening. Dorian’s skin was rolling with waves of gooseflesh, with frissons of something cold and terrifying, like he was being _watched_, like he was being _touched_ by something.

‘Uh,’ Bull said. ‘Who the fuck is Jassen?’

The voice of another, perhaps Bull’s solid, reassuring tone, seemed to break Cullen from his trance. He shook himself and quickly released Dorian.

‘No one. Old ghosts, nothing more,’ he said roughly. ‘Let’s go.’

*

The attack went well, right up until it all went horribly _wrong_.

The fire disoriented them exactly like Cullen said it would. Made them panic, made them growl into the night, spinning on the spot in search of attackers while, for the first few seconds at least, there were none. The Red Templars, great beasts, more behemoth than man, swung their weapons blindly, cutting down a few of their own men and Dorian watched it happen, distantly amazed at the power of _fear_ when it had no focus.

The archers lined up against the wall aimed in various directions and when Dorian used lightning, a well-aimed series of shocks to each of them, the others moved in. Dorian used a ranged attack to further incapacitate the archers and to do so, he left the relative safety of his position between a thicket of trees.

The archers who he’d killed lay motionless and useless on the wall while below all manner of fighting went on. Dorian let his magic turn to that naturally darker place, towards his fascination with _death_ and all things morbid and he raised the dead archers, turning their aim upon their own.

Both arms outstretched, it was easier to cast and maintain such a spell with his hands than with a staff, he became puppeteer of the men with bows and arrows and he bade them shoot down their own.

It was a little grim, despite having done it a hundred times before, but Dorian couldn’t deny he liked the feeling of the _control_. It felt oddly familiar somehow. When they ran short of arrows, he had them pitch forward off the wall and fight with whatever they had to hand.

Cullen was using his magic, _their_ magic. He used it to make fire, to rain down a strange kind of lightning, small, vicious jagged spires of it ripping through their enemies and leaving them screaming. Dorian took a moment to admire Cullen’s form, crude though it was.

Which was when a knife pressed against his throat and someone gripped him hard from behind.

His spell ceased quickly, interrupted abruptly as he struggled not to panic. He fought against the arm, strong and secure and just as his magic was shoring up for a most ferocious attack, something cold and _awful_ slipped around his throat, instantly choking him, strangling his magic. Every nerve ending in his body _screamed_ at the violation but the noise was silent, gagged.

The collar was tightened and then locked into place. His magic was trapped behind glass, disconnected and separated from Dorian.

‘Tha’s better,’ came a rough, deeply masculine voice. ‘Now that you’re helpl—’

Dorian plunged Cullen’s dagger into the thigh of his attacker, interrupting his speech but absolutely nothing else. The grip didn’t slacken, the arm around his waist didn’t loosen even fractionally.

‘Well,’ the voice said, sounding almost amused. ‘There was no need for _that_.’

Something hard hit him in the back of the head and the last thing Dorian saw was the burning camp, one golden haired Commander trying and _failing_ to draw from Dorian’s now restrained, shackled magic and turning towards where the mage lost consciousness.

*

Ice cold water sent a shockwave of awareness through his body and Dorian jerked violently awake.

‘Wakey wakey,’ came the same male voice as Dorian fought not to splutter. The water was _freezing _and foul and when he tried to call upon his magic to _destroy_ this man, he remembered the collar. Despair soaked into him, a sick sense of hopelessness as his magic screamed silently, desperate for freedom but unable to do anything to ensure it.

Dorian opened his eyes, stinging against the water. He was in a tent, tied to a chair and in front of him was a deeply ugly man, a man who was sort of… _rotting_ right before him, just very slowly.

‘Raleigh Samson,’ the man introduced himself cheerily, flashing Dorian an array of bright yellow teeth, brown at the edges. ‘Sorry for the rude awakening.’

‘I doubt that,’ Dorian growled, flexing his fingers which were numb and bloodless from the knots about his wrists. ‘The same Samson who wasn’t meant to be here until tomorrow, I presume?’

Crouched before him, Samson inclined his head.

‘Caught wind of your little surprise attack,’ Samson said, watching Dorian with openly rapt attention. ‘The Elder One sees more than you realise.’

Dorian rolled his eyes and struggled slightly against a shooting pain going up his back, a kind of spasm as the muscles of his body protested.

‘Yes, by all means do _bore me to death_ about your master’s prowess and stunning omniscience.’

‘I don’t like that word _“master”_,’ Samson said seriously.

‘Well, I aim to please. What would you prefer instead? Leader? Lord? Boss? _Liege_, perhaps?’

‘Remains to be seen,’ Samson said, eyes dropping to the collar around Dorian’s neck for a moment. ‘Not too tight, is it?’ he asked coolly.

Dorian smirked humourlessly, a sharp thing unto itself. ‘I like it tight.’

‘So I hear.’ Dorian waited and Samson didn’t disappoint. ‘Everyone knows about the Commander and his mage. Never thought I’d see the day, myself. One brutal motherfucker, Cullen could be, to mages at least. But as you said, you like it _rough.__’ _

‘I said tight.’

‘Is there a difference?’

‘Untie me and find out.’

‘Ooh,’ Samson cooed, eyebrow slanting. ‘While that’s tempting, I didn't snatch you to fuck around, Tevinter.’

‘Dazzle me, why don’t you?’

‘Actually,’ Samson said, eyes narrowing slightly. ‘I’d rather have you dazzle _me_. It’s why you’re here after all, even though I’m breaking ranks, putting myself between one hell of a vengeful Commander and pretty fucking terrifying _whatever_ the fuck Corypheus is.’ Samson’s jaw worked and his gaze turned distant, turned inward. ‘I’ve seen some shit in my time,’ he said quietly. ‘Nothing sickens me like lyrium though. A chain around the necks of brave men and woman. A fucking plague in a bottle, slow death by poison.’

He got to his feet, slowly turning and looking out of the tent. Dorian craned his neck to see. It was still night, at least. Nothing visible outside but dense, deepest black. Samson closed the flap and ran a hand through his lank hair.

‘Won’t be long,’ he said. ‘Cullen will come for you soon enough.’

‘What do you want with me then?’

‘Irreversible, that’s what they all said,’ Samson intoned bitterly. ‘Once swallowed, fucking irreversible. Quitting would make you mad, boil your brain and melt your kidneys. Knew a couple of others who tried it, but they never got far. Chantry would find out and that’d be that. Irreversible. I believed it. Thought, well fuck it. If we’re all gonna melt away into nothing, why not go out with a bang, eh?’ he flashed a horrible grin Dorian’s way. ‘The red is unlike anything. Nothing like the blue. It’s… I regret it every day but it’s powerful. It’s a _bang_, for sure.’ He exhaled measuredly. ‘Then a friend of mine got word of something about you two. Something more than where you most recently fucked. We heard about _magic_, about magic burning up Cullen’s lyrium. Started hearing it all over the last few days. Someone is watching you very closely, you know? Someone you trust.’

A rolling shiver ran down Dorian’s spine but he didn’t let it show.

‘Anyway, yesterday morning, I get a report. You know what it said?’

‘Lavellan,’ Dorian said softly. ‘You heard about the red lyrium.’

‘You burned that shit right out of her. _No one_ has been able to do that. This stuff… it’s immovable. It’s fucking _evil._’

Dorian thought very quickly. ‘It took blood magic to remove it and those were mere _splinters_!’

‘But you did it,’ Samson pressed on urgently. ‘It’s possible. Do you realise the implications? Did you ever stop to think beyond Cullen how this might affect the Order?’

‘I… no, I didn’t,’ Dorian said, quite honestly.

Samson didn’t seem surprised nor did he appear resentful. He crouched down again, wincing slightly. Dorian noticed his bandaged thigh, the place where he’d stabbed him.

‘When Cullen comes, I’m going to offer him an alliance,’ Samson said. ‘I don’t want to serve that piece of shit demon, I know what he’ll do to the world and until there was hope, I honestly didn’t care. Let it all burn, I thought, like me and my men. Burn bright and burn _red_. But for there to be even a _chance_ of saving any of us… that’s worth fighting for. Really fighting.’

‘When Cullen comes,’ Dorian said slowly, leaning forward as much as his restrains permitted. ‘He’s going to cut your head clean off your shoulders.’

Samson smirked. ‘I know. That’s why you’re going to tell him not to.’

*

It was a near thing, just as Dorian had predicted. Cullen was fury incarnate and it took Dorian, freed from his restrains in all but collar, putting himself bodily between the two former Templars to stop him from cleaving Samson in two.

Cullen’s dark eyes were locked onto Samson with the utmost loathing. There was no commotion outside, no clanging of weapons, no ominous glow of fire.

‘Here alone,’ Cullen snarled, ignoring Dorian almost entirely. ‘How _brave_.’

Cullen said _brave _but Dorian heard _stupid_.

‘I didn’t hurt your mage,’ Samson said, holding his ground which, considering Cullen’s glare was enough to practically melt skin, Dorian found somewhat admirable. ‘He’s collared, but that was only a precaution.’

At the mention of Dorian, Cullen took the mage’s forearm and yanked him back behind him, instantly shielding him.

‘Take it off,’ Cullen told Dorian.

‘Cullen, _listen_ to him before you fry him,’ Dorian implored, unbuckling the monstrous thing anyway. As soon as the clasp was free, it was like taking a huge breath after being trapped beneath the surface. His magic flooded into his veins once more, connection to the Fade restored.

Cullen pulled immediately, drawing upon it without hesitation, but not to burn. He lifted Samson off his feet, suspending him in the air.

‘Talk fast then,’ Cullen growled, hand thrown before him, fingers splayed wide as he held Samson before him.

Samson huffed a laugh, it sounded a little strangled and Dorian realised it _was_. Cullen was lifting him but also slightly choking him. Cullen’s control was genuinely impressive and not a little frightening, though Dorian’s body certainly wasn’t frightened in the traditional sense.

‘Look at you, Mage hating Rutherford, not only shacked up with one—ack!’ He struggled slightly, arms held at his side by an invisible force as he gurgled around the increased pressure on his windpipe. ‘But using magic like one too!’

Cullen tilted his head, walking towards Samson.

‘I never hated magic and neither did you.’

‘C-could’ve fooled me.’

‘I’d say the same,’ Cullen said quietly as he came to stand a mere foot away from where Samson hovered. ‘Except I know you’re not stupid enough to take Dorian without a reason. Or are you? Is this some desperate bid to die at the hand of someone who knew the real you, Raleigh? If so, I’m happy to oblige.’

Samson closed his eyes and his expression twisted. ‘I fear dying… without a purpose.’

Cullen’s fingers tightened fractionally. ‘As all weak men do.’

‘I command… two thousand men and women,’ he choked, face turning slowly red. ‘Our brothers and sisters who… deserve more than the fucking-_ugh_…the Chantry’s slow death.’

‘Deserters, _traitors_,’ Cullen said, but he did not sound so certain that time.

‘No more traitor than you!’

‘I do not stand beside a creature who would unleash darkness upon all the world!’

‘They stand where…. I tell them!’ Samson gurgled, spit running down his chin as his face turned puce. ‘Kill me if you w-want but they… they deserve… hope!’

Dorian was about to say Cullen’s name in warning when he let Samson drop heavily to the ground, spluttering and dragging in screaming breaths, hand at his throat.

Cullen looked disgusted. ‘What are your terms?’

Samson shook himself and looked up, crooked, yellowy smile in place, blood-shot eyes fixed on Cullen. ‘Proof.’

*

‘My objection is moral, not material.’

Cullen sighed. ‘Samson is strong, it’s very likely he will survive the process.’

Lavellan massaged her temples. ‘Right, actually my objection _is_ material then because I couldn’t give a flying fuck about Samson. I think it’s quite obvious that you two are the ones I care about. Cullen, you were rendered unconscious by removing a couple of splinters of that shit from my body. Samson has been taking red lyrium for, what? Months now? Years?’

‘A little over a year and he does not expect us to remove it completely. Only prove to him that over time, it would be possible.’

She eyed him. ‘And would it?’

Dorian answered, ‘Theoretically, yes.’

‘This,’ Solas declared, quite predictably. ‘Is an unnecessary delay. We cannot risk either Dorian _or_ Cullen being out of commission for the arrival of the enemy forces tomorrow.’

‘My forces arrive first,’ Samson supplied helpfully from where he sat, securely tied, on a nearby log. ‘It’ll be easy to turn them around and point them towards the others.’

‘We do not need them,’ Solas insisted. ‘The Templars who followed him are deeply corrupt.’

‘They are _people_ still,’ Cullen said sternly.

‘As are the Venatori. As were the Wardens who followed Clarel. As are all fallible men and women. We cannot take a single risk in allowing Corypheus to get to the Well of Sorrows before we do!’

‘He was relying on me to clear the path for him,’ Samson said with a little shrug. ‘Sure will be difficult for him to make any progress without me and my men.’

‘Without your _beasts_, yes,’ Solas fairly snarled.

‘Is this some shit we’re gonna vote on or what?’ Bull asked, sitting with Leliana and Cole. The spirit and the Spymaster were watching Cullen with almost equal intensity. Dorian wondered if bloodshed grounded Cole somehow. He had been quite unlike himself for many days now. More focused, certainly.

Sera packed her quiver. ‘If we vote, Solas is gonna shit a brick with disappointment.’

Morrigan seemed especially cross. ‘I took great risk in telling you ahead of time about the Well, Inquisitor. Anything that impedes our ability to—’

‘Nothing will impede us,’ Lavellan said, getting to her feet. ‘Because we’ll have Samson with us when we go.’ She gave Cullen and Dorian a nod. ‘If you’re sure about this,’ she said quietly. ‘This is your choice. I would never order you to use blood magic or do anything against your will.’

Cullen was respectfully quiet, allowing Dorian to have the final say.

And he had given it some thought, the Tevinter mage. Of all the upsides and downsides, his overall instincts leaned towards wanting to _help_ as many as he could. He was already a blood mage. What was a little more spilled to potentially save thousands of lives?

‘We can do it.’

‘I don’t doubt that. Do you _want_ to do it?’

‘I do,’ Dorian said. ‘We use whatever we have, right?’

Something sad played about her face, but she gave him a forced smile and nod. ‘Be careful then,’ was all she said.

*

The _way_ inside Samson was torn and jagged, hot and so very infected. Dorian’s magic grimaced at the prospect. Dorian was, at the very least, relieved he would not have to use Cullen as the conduit.

They untied Samson’s hands but left his feet in chains so that he couldn’t run. With deep resentment, Morrigan raised a shield and the others kept lookout as false dawn glowed dimly above them. Dorian knelt in front of Samson, taking in the man before him.

‘If the pain is unbearable, tell me and I’ll stop,’ Dorian said, shoring his magic, bringing it down into his fingertips. ‘You’ll need some of my blood first. You’ll need to ingest it. Is that all right?’

Samson gave a dirty chuckle and shot Cullen a deeply amused look. ‘That how it happened, eh? Never figured you for bloodplay, Rutherford.’

Dorian cut the tip of his finger on Cullen’s freshly cleaned and very sharp little dagger and bled into a wooden cup. Only a small amount, enough to prove that this could and indeed _would_ work. The prospect of something going _awry_ loomed large before the mage, but he steeled himself, focusing on the moment. On the wet grass beneath his knees, on the cool air in his lungs.

‘It’ll be invasive,’ Dorian explained as Samson drank his blood. He bled a little more, fingers pressed into the earth. The offering for blood magic. ‘But you’re no doubt used to that.’

Samson glared, wiping his mouth.

‘Come on then, mage,’ he beckoned. ‘Do your very worst.’

_Give me the bad, give me all the worst of you. I can take it._

Dorian shook himself and spoke the incantation, but the feeling didn’t leave, could not be shaken away, not when it was bone deep.

*

‘He still looks like shit,’ Varric pointed out while Cullen rubbed Dorian’s back and carefully fed him water, tipping his chin so he didn't spill any.

‘He always looked like that,’ Cullen stated dryly. Dorian’s vision was hazy, he was deeply lightheaded. He felt tired, like he could have slept for days.

‘Samson, how do you feel?’ Lavellan was asking and Dorian _really _wanted to focus on the man’s answer, to find out if it had worked but he was just so fucking _dizzy_. Cullen was the only thing he could focus on. He felt very far _inside_ himself.

‘I think it worked,’ Cullen told Dorian, stroking the side of his face. ‘You were magnificent.’

‘I was?’ Dorian said with numb lips, leaning into the touch.

‘You were. Do you know what this means, that we’ll have a third less army to battle against? So many lives will be spared.’

‘At least the journey into the Temple will be made that much easier,’ Morrigan allowed as she walked past. ‘Assuming your man keeps his word, of course.’

Cullen shot her a dark look. ‘He is not my man.’

‘No shit,’ Varric called out, reliably cheery.

‘Cullen,’ Dorian said because really, he was _struggling_ but… but he couldn’t feel it, could not detect evidence of his actual struggle. His hands were lax and loose, limbs weak and floppy. Only his spine held strong, determined to keep him upright at all costs. _Relax, _he thought to himself. _Relax and sit back. _

But he didn’t sit back, he didn’t do anything really. When he lifted his hand to touch Cullen, pressed fingers to the scar over Cullen’s lips, he couldn’t _feel_ it.

‘Tell me how you got it,’ he requested, voice rough and edged with a somewhat more common accent once more, but he was just tired, that was all. He was so fucking _tired_. He could sleep if he wanted to, he was sure it would be fine.

Cullen smiled and kissed the inside of Dorian’s wrist, but again… the mage didn't feel it. He couldn’t feel much of anything.

‘It’s not an impressive story, by any stretch of the imagination,’ Cullen told him, eyes burning with so much _love_ that Dorian could barely stand it, his chest felt packed with wool to see it and know… _know_ that it was meant for him. ‘But if you promise to see this battle through _without_ making me fear for your life, then I will tell you it, in all its dull glory.’

Dorian laughed softly only… he didn't usually laugh like that. He needed to rest, Maker, he needed to _sleep_.

‘I promise,’ he said through numb lips and sluggish tongue, though it didn't _sound_ sluggish, it was strong and clear to his ears. ‘Promise not to leave you if you do the same.’

Someone was calling Cullen then, someone _else_ and Cullen glanced behind nodding. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said, but Dorian clung hard to his wrist.

‘Promise first,’ he begged in a threadbare whisper and Cullen’s brow lifted, expression softening. ‘Promise me?’

Cullen’s eyes moved over Dorian’s face and for a moment, something cold inside of the mage clenched in apprehension that Dorian simply did not understand.

‘I promise,’ Cullen said at last and the cold tension vanished, replaced by so much _warmth_ that Dorian could hardly stand it. ‘I promise you, Dorian.’

Cullen pressed a kiss to unfeeling lips and Dorian wondered if he was going to faint but it didn’t seem to be happening. His body was strong and alert and _awake_ when he felt anything but.

‘I’ll hold you to that,’ Dorian said as Cullen smiled affectionately, _knowingly_, standing and leaving the mage then to speak to others about Maker only knew what. When Cullen was a little distance away, the mage’s lips curved in a smile, quietly shaping an unfamiliar word. _‘Lover_.’

*


	25. What Love Has Wrought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incredible, breath-taking concept art of the magic between Dorian and Cullen by Justsomelurker. 💜

[](https://ibb.co/JQV6MDt)

_Dorian was freshly seventeen and his father_ _’s knowledge of his and Allendas’ one-time relation (or so Halward thought) apparently did not preclude said Magister from writing ahead and announcing his intention to visit the Pavus estate. Life went on in Tevinter when silence and secrets prevailed. _

_Allendas was to come with two others from the Magisterium and have drinks with Halward while magical theory was discussed, politics were mildly debated and the concept of morality was batted back and forth with good humour. Such was the way or at least the appearance of it. There would be some business to be discussed later in the night and that would be the true crux of the visit, Dorian knew. _

_He had not seen Allendas for months. The last time was in the city; a deeply __‘coincidental’ meeting which might have been the direct result of Dorian essentially _stalking_ the man simply to appear to bump into him again, ever so surprised. _

_Dorian hadn__’t been certain if he would see him again and mostly, that was fine, except he’d been low the last few days. Rattling around the mansion, bored and verging on lonely. Now with Allendas coming to his _home_, Dorian__’s excitement was at an all-time fucking high. Even just to see him again would be amazing. _

_‘You will behave,’ Halward told Dorian, who was officially home for Wintersend and unofficially not returning to the Circle afterwards. His behaviour had apparently worsened and this was the latest in a long string of Circles that had absolutely no patience for it. Dorian’s father seemed greatly aged in the span of time since last his son had clapped eyes on him. A fresh streak of grey through his hair and his skin was a little sallower, more wrinkled. He seemed less _nervous_ about Dorian__’s presence and instead, resigned. ‘And you won’t interrupt.’_

_Dorian pressed his tongue to the tip of his teeth and considered. __‘Or _what_?__’_

_Halward seemed tired. _ _‘Just… stay out of the way.’_

_Dorian shrugged casually. __‘I might.’ _I might not_, went unsaid but clearly heard. _

_‘Do you want to break your mother’s heart?’ _

_‘Do _you_?__’_

_Father and son glared at one another and Dorian was oh so thrilled when Halward broke away first with a weak sigh. It didn_ _’t satisfy him, it emboldened him all the more, galvanised him to try even harder next time and break his father that much quicker. _

_‘Stay upstairs, Dorian. That’s all I ask.’_

_Dorian was very much upstairs sometime after darkness had fallen, when Allendas and the two others arrived. Dorian leaned over the upstairs railing, looking down at the lobby. Allendas was just as attractive as ever. He wore impressive clothing, nothing like the kind Dorian had eagerly stripped him out of the last time they’d fucked. Halward and Aquinea greeted their guests with the customary double kisses, servants taking their cloaks. Allendas glanced up, as if sensing Dorian_ _’s presence, and gave the young mage a kind of smile, a deeply secret one that made Dorian’s heart skip and his skin tighten. _

_‘Come through, dear friends,’ Halward said, the ever-gracious host with the men who Dorian knew he, at best, considered unlikely to murder him, at least outright. Dorian didn’t watch the servants as they searched the cloaks for weapons, for small bottles of poison. It was customary and done in a subtle manner without the guests noticing but everyone knew it happened. _

_Dorian__’s stare was riveted on Allendas who looked back at Halward with an easy expression, following the Pavus’ into the drawing room. When his mother glanced up, cocking an eyebrow ever so slightly in warning, Dorian shrugged at her and grinned. She didn’t _know_ what he was staring at, likely thought he was just curious about the big bad Magisters. _

_Halward followed Aquinea_ _’s eyeline and his expression hardened at the sight of his son. The warning flashed there but Dorian paid it no heed. He rarely did. Warnings were little but dares, after all. _

*

‘I can feel my fingertips again,’ Samson said quietly while they ate around the campfire later that night and Dorian, feeling so unlike himself he could barely remember who Samson even _was_, carried on eating, sat happily beside Cullen.

‘Lyrium does that?’ Sera asked him. ‘Makes it so you can’t feel them?’

‘Red does,’ Samson answered, using his fork as though he hadn’t been able to do so for a very long time, holding the metal implement between his thumb and forefingers. ‘Blue doesn’t.’

‘How many captains are your people marching with?’ Bull asked and Dorian abruptly lost interest. He didn’t care about the fighting, about this _war. _It was nothing to do with him and he didn’t…

No. No that was not right.

There was nothing he could do about it though. He was weak and barely conscious even as his body continued to operate without him and make _decisions_ without him. He was trapped deep within, his magic curling protectively around him like a warm, benign snake.

_Do not slumber, Dorian,_ it warned. _Fight this, fight for control. _

Cullen looked at Dorian then and frowned, perhaps sensing something. Dorian’s arm slid around the Commander’s waist, head leaning on a strong, armoured shoulder. Cullen said nothing and Dorian quietly despaired.

_He cannot tell_, the magic whispered. _All tangled, all catching, he does not want to see it. Do not sleep, we cannot protect you if you sleep. _

But Dorian, formless and helpless in the extreme, gave up trying to keep track of what was happening and instead, turned towards the soothing, soft darkness of his magic and ceased.

*

He regained consciousness twice, but really, he didn’t believe he was actually conscious at all. They were doubtless elements of dreams, the things he saw, the things he _felt_. The first was Cullen undressing him, calloused hands dragging gently across his skin and Dorian’s irritation flaring viciously, telling Cullen not to be gentle, to hold back _nothing_.

The second was a flash of something deeply _intimate_. Of pressure and fullness, of that burn and stretch. Moans and gasps, sweat slicked skin moving slowly at first and then faster, _deeper_. Of Cullen biting Dorian and Dorian urging, ‘_Harder__, bite me harder, make me bleed, scar me or I’ll never truly be yours.’_

Dorian was dreaming, that was all.

*

The dreams faded like they always did and Dorian awoke, wrapped in Cullen’s arms as usual.

‘That,’ he muttered, voice rough from sleep. ‘Was the weirdest fucking dream of my life.’

‘Oh?’ Cullen mumbled, arms tightening around his chest as lips pressed to the back of his neck. ‘Not a bad dream, then?’

Dorian rubbed his eyes, trying to think. He remembered pieces, little fragments but mostly it was just _strange_. Like being trapped inside his own body. He was glad to be woken from it once more.

‘There were good parts,’ Dorian said, turning towards his Commander, seeking out kisses. ‘Some parts were _very_ good.’

Cullen’s lips were soft and sweet, gifting small, closed-mouth caresses to the mage while running his hands through his hair.

‘I’m so glad,’ Cullen told him. ‘I hope the nightmares are passing. I hope whatever the curse is, its… fading.’ He leaned back a little, looking down at Dorian and then he grinned wickedly. ‘Maybe we fucked it all out of your system, hmm?’

Dorian stretched. ‘In my dream, you mean? Hmm, maybe.’

Cullen frowned and tilted his head which… shouldn’t have been so damnably cute. He was like a puppy sometimes. ‘No, I meant—’

‘Up and at ‘em boys,’ someone called, giving their tent a most impolite shake. Samson’s voice was rough and lightly lecherous. ‘If you’re not already.’

*

Dorian felt quite refreshed truth be told. He felt _awake_ in a way that he hadn’t been for days now, alert and sharp. Cullen looked at him sideways sometimes during breakfast, which Dorian heartily scoffed with renewed appetite, and seemed to be _wondering_ something but Dorian could not quite bring himself to care. Aside from residual aches, likely from the blood magic ritual, and an occasionally stinging pain at the base of his neck, he felt rather wonderful.

His magic, however, was being troublesome.

_You must destroy it, Dorian_, it warned repeatedly. _The anchor has you by the foot. It will drag and pull, seep into you anew. Destroy it_.

The mage fully intended to, the moment they returned to Skyhold of course.

_Dorian, you are not listening,_ it insisted angrily. _You cannot sleep again until it is destroyed!_

He shushed it and when it would not shush, he ignored it.

‘The front lines will crest here,’ Samson explained to Lavellan and Cullen, Dorian hovering nearby. ‘This ridge and then to the left, that was our initial plan. Now, I’ll divert them here instead.’

‘How are you going to swerve them mid-march?’

‘There are nine captains, good men and women. I’ll tell them what I know and they will pass it down but even if I can't do that, I’ll issue it as an executive order at the front of the march. They’ll swerve if I tell them.’

Dorian stared down at the map. ‘They march alone, do they?’

Samson sneered, his eyes just _slightly_ less bloodshot. ‘Venatori don’t play well with others. They arrive separately, always have.’

Cullen’s hand rested on his pommel. ‘Tell me of the forces.’

‘Phalanxes are split into four. Marksman and light infantry make up the front guard. They’re the bulk of the forces. They march ahead. Heavy infantry with the rear guard.’ Here, Samson hesitated. ‘Heavy infantry are those most afflicted by the red.’

‘Red Templar Knights,’ Dorian filled in grimacing slightly.

‘Shadows, Horrors and Behemoths too. The Knights can still be reasoned with. If I speak with them personally, as their General, they’ll be susceptible to logic but the others, the big ones especially… they might need to be put down.’

Raleigh Samson’s jaw was tight, eyes downcast upon the map. Cullen affixed him with a cold look.

‘Put down? Like rabid dogs?’

‘They won’t understand,’ Samson snapped. ‘They’re… they attack on sight. Anything _not_ red, they’ll rip to pieces. Unless you’re going to paint yourselves up a lovely shade of claret, there won’t be any getting through to them. It’s a struggle enough getting them to march in formation. We have to use wranglers. Men carrying bottles of the red to herd them together, keep them moving.’

Cullen’s countenance was glacial. ‘Out with a _bang_.’

Samson lifted his hooded gaze. ‘Go _fuck_ yourself, you righteous fucker. Not everyone had their very own _mage_ to clean that shit out of them.’

‘I would _die_ before I poured lyrium down the throat of a Templar.’

‘All right,’ Dorian tried to cut in, somewhat uselessly. ‘Let’s just—’

‘I gave them a choice! One the Chantry never offered!’

‘Is that how you justify it? Turning good men and women into little more than beasts? Taint driven _demons_?’

‘Stand there and insult me all you fucking want, Rutherford. Spit in my face, I’ve had worse. If there’s a chance for even one percent of these people to get their lives back, I will fight and die for that, regardless of how it leaves a bad taste in your mouth!’

‘A little _late_ to turn hero, aren’t you?’

Samson threw his arms wide and grinned sourly. ‘Better late than never!’

Cullen glowered but did not contribute anything further. Lavellan took control of the conversation once more, knuckling her forehead a few times, indicating a headache.

‘Well, if that’s _quite_ out of your systems,’ she muttered. ‘Samson, with me. We need to discuss weapons with Bull.’

‘Wait,’ Dorian said and they halted, looking at him questioningly. ‘Do you think Corypheus knows of your betrayal?’

Samson’s expression smoothed. He really did look a little better. Dorian was almost _proud_, but that definitely wasn’t the word for it. ‘I told him in advance I was coming here to attempt infiltration.’

‘Why would he believe that?’

Samson shrugged. ‘He likely thinks I’m desperate and vengeful.’

‘Hardly a stretch,’ Cullen muttered.

‘Won’t he anticipate this, though?’ Dorian pressed on. ‘If he knows about what happened with Lavellan and the red lyrium?’

‘He doesn’t know.’

‘You said—’

‘I said that _I_ got word. I’ve been getting updates once a week for the last few months or so. Information on your military movements, mostly. Some of it useful, most of it not. Like I said, you’ve a spy. Far as I know, the same spy never reached out to the Elder One and I never told him about it.’

Cullen nodded to himself. ‘Better if it seems like your _own_ initiative and spies, hmm?’

Samson said, ‘Exactly. When I got word of the red lyrium removal, I destroyed the note and sent word I was going to attempt to infiltrate your upper ranks, claimed a personal history with the Commander here. He never replies, you understand. If he doesn’t want you to do something, he’ll drop a boulder on you and that’ll be that. No boulder, so off I went and here I am.’

Lavellan’s expression was entirely grave. ‘Do you have any idea who this person is? This spy?’

‘Nope,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Notes came by a different bird every time and there was never a name.’

Dorian cleared his throat and asked, in a forcibly calm kind of way, ‘What was the handwriting like?’

Cullen looked at him, lips parting slightly.

‘The handwriting?’ Samson echoed doubtfully.

‘Yes,’ Dorian went on. ‘Would you recognise it if you saw it again?’

‘Guess so. You gonna make your people write lines and have me look ‘em over?’ he chuckled darkly.

‘Not quite,’ Dorian muttered.

Lavellan and Samson left while Cullen continued to watch Dorian curiously. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ Dorian said, letting a bright, decidedly _chipper_ smile cross his features. ‘What’s our plan for the morning then? Woodland stroll to take in the sights? Picnic along the riverbank?’

Cullen wasn’t remotely fooled and really, Dorian had once been in possession of abundant deceptive skills. Master of lies, manipulator of truth. _Once_.

‘You seem on edge.’

‘Well, we are about to go into battle.’

‘Not that,’ Cullen said, stepping into Dorian’s space. ‘Was it… last night?’

‘Probably,’ Dorian said quite blandly. ‘I barely remember anything before I passed out but I know I was exhausted. I can't remember the last time I slept for so long. I think it’s made me a little hyperactive.’

Cullen’s eyes crinkled slightly, as if what Dorian said was confusing.

‘You passed out? Was that after… y’know? Because we talked for a while, we talked for a _long_ time. Do you not remember?’

It was a fuzzy, distant thing, Dorian’s memory. Not quite within reach, not _quite_ close enough to get his fingers on and analyse.

‘I think honestly it was the blood magic,’ he said, deciding to stay in clear cut territory for once. He hadn’t felt this sharp in weeks, maybe _months. _He didn’t want to waste it by blundering into muddied waters once more. ‘It took more out of me than I realised and I had no beautiful conduit to share the burden.’

Cullen smiled, but there was still something slightly confused in it. ‘If you feel at all unwell, don’t hide it from me.’

Dorian brought Cullen to him for a brief kiss. ‘Never.’

*

Cullen and Samson rode ahead to intercept and apparently _swerve_ the Red Templar Order back to the side of good and, much to everyone’s delight, Cassandra arrived with the Inquisition’s somewhat weary troops later in the afternoon. She looked the same as ever, except that her hair was a little longer.

‘Ugh,’ she complained, hugging Leliana tightly when the Spymaster commented on it. ‘It needs shearing off, all of it!’

Dorian was quite taken aback to receive a hug of his own; a fierce, almost painful thing because Seeker Pentaghast was certainly no weakling. She slapped his back and shook his shoulder once, her smile genuine.

‘You look well,’ she declared. ‘Far, _far_ better than when we last saw one another. Thank the _Maker_ you got rid of that beard.’

While Cassandra was debriefed and then _briefed_ about current events, Dorian made his way through the ambling ranks, searching for familiar faces. There were more than he expected. The mages greeted him warmly, Tommur lifting him clean off his feet.

‘You’re still alive!’ the ginger bearded mage exclaimed joyfully. ‘And you don’t look like a beggar anymore! How are the little ones? What of Nalari?’

Dorian filled them in on everything, all the _good_ parts anyway, the focus heavily upon Nalari and Dawn. The mages were unexpectedly overjoyed and despite their evident exhaustion, they were in high spirits, making Dorian promise to eat dinner with them that night so they could catch up. Dorian swore it faithfully and moved on.

‘Dorian!’ a female voice called out and he turned, squinting through the sea of metal covered bodies. Haynes was moving towards him, a grin across her usually steely features.

The pair hugged and after that, Dorian stopped questioning the way people greeted him. It wasn’t _him_, he realised. It was that he was a familiar face. Someone who _hadn__’t_ died, someone who was still there after a month of fighting and marching and distance.

‘How is the Commander?’ she asked after they had each ascertained the other was well. ‘Seeker Pentaghast told us of his return and reinstatement.’

‘He’s… very well indeed,’ Dorian told her, deciding to neatly skip everything that had preceded Cullen being well once more. ‘He is bringing additional troops. An allegiance has been made with the Red Templar Order.’

Haynes’ mouth dropped open. ‘Fucking void! I-I mean… my apologies.’

Dorian waved it away. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You held my face together once. We are practically family.’

She gave a warmer, slightly sheepish smile and the pair made their way towards what was being established as the military base camp, half a mile head. She asked many questions about how the allegiance had come about and any worries Dorian had about resentment towards the afflicted forces were apparently unnecessary.

‘I was a Templar once,’ she told him. ‘The Chantry can be fucking awful and there were times I cursed them myself. We are so easily dismissed, so easily set aside. I am glad there is hope for those who chose the wrong path and… perhaps for those of _us_ who wish to become unshackled from lyrium too one day.’

Dorian wrapped his arm about her. ‘There’s hope for everyone.’

She laughed and shook her head. ‘Said the Tevinter mage, fighting for the South.’

Bringing up the rear were the Chargers. Dorian scarce had time to _greet_ Krem before the young Tevinter man was snatched up by the Iron Bull like he was the last bottle of _Mackay__’s__ Epic _single malt. There followed much good natured struggling and yelling, the occasional light-hearted punch too. Bull seemed to positively come alive in the presence of his Chargers once more and Dorian was happy to see it. While Bull wasted absolutely no time in regaling them about the tip of his missing horn, leading to a freshly adjusted round of yelling _‘Horn_ Up!’_, _Krem and Dorian walked ahead. They spoke Tevene as they occasionally had in the days _before_, the days when Dorian had nothing but time to fill and nights to spend with whoever would grace him with a distraction.

‘Your mages were solid,’ Krem told him. ‘Saved a lot of lives.’

‘I’ll bet you did some saving yourself, there,’ Dorian said.

Krem shrugged. ‘Here and there. Mostly protecting people, farmers and such. Good folk. Nice change of pace, all told.’ He looked back with a faint grin. ‘Chief’s already embellished the story about his horn twice now. By the time we make camp he’ll have lost it wrestling with Corypheus himself.’

Dorian followed his glance and smirked. It was hard not to smile when Bull was quite literally _carrying_ Dalish on his shoulder like a small child, gesturing wildly with his free hand.

‘Thank the Maker you’re back,’ Dorian sighed. ‘I swear, without you all here, he leans more towards his _Hissrad _ self every day.’

‘Eh,’ Krem said. ‘He’s sneaky, the chief. Always has been, always will be.’ Dorian smiled, he did _so_ like the Tevene word for _sneaky_. ‘But with us, he gets to be who he _wants_ to be again. Carve his own path. That’s hard to do alone, especially for someone like him.’

‘Ah, Krem,’ Dorian sighed wistfully. ‘How I’ve missed your dry wisdom.’

*

_Aquinea had retired to bed after the customary amount of time, usually an hour or so of oblique pleasantries and light discussions. Dorian hid upstairs until she came and checked on him, kissing him good night as he lay on his bed, purposefully surrounded by essays and books, looking busy and distracted. _

_When he heard her door click loudly shut, he crept from his room, barefoot so that there was no clack of a heel. He padded silently to the main staircase and hovered there for a while in the low light before sitting. _

_Dorian could hear most of the conversation, male voices carrying well throughout all that marble and polished stone. He sat still and silent, knees hunched to his chest and drank in every word, pulse thudding faster and hotter whenever he caught Allendas_ _’ low, rich tone. _

_‘Gereon would never consider it,’ Maphas scoffed. ‘You know where his interests lie.’_

_‘Every mage considers it at some point,’ Allendas said smoothly. ‘For whatever reason, be it personal or academic.’_

_‘Personal is usually the jumping point,’ Halward said. ‘But considering is not _doing_, not by far. Blood magic is, and should always be, a last resort.__’_

_‘Southern nonsense, Halward.’_

_‘The corrupting elements—’_

_‘Pure conjecture. Your basis of knowledge comes from those blood mages who are so far gone in their utilisation of demons that they can no longer conceal their usage. Those mages are corrupt by such a point, I grant you but there are those who use it sparingly, carefully and you would never know to look upon them.’_

_‘I am highly aware of those that use it among us, Allendas, believe me. We all know how rampant it is in certain circles.’_

_‘You are foolish, Halward,’ said Thaddeus. ‘To frown upon it so. The Imperium prizes power and purity above all else. Of course we play nice in front of those Southern morons, puppets in armour with their pointy sticks, but that is no reason to decry the truest source of magic.’_

_‘The Fade is the truest source and are you calling me a fool?’_

_A breath of silence stretched wide until Thaddeus, cleared his throat. _ _‘I said you are foolish, there is a clear distinction.’_

_Allendas sighed. _ _‘Perhaps you do not care to use it and that is fine, but to deny the exceptional nature of it is nothing less than foolish, as Thaddeus said. It is far more powerful than anything that comes from the Fade. It is the difference between dredging water from a well and becoming the ocean.’_

_‘Yes,’ Halward agreed sombrely. ‘And how does one measure the ocean, Allendas? How does one _control_ the ocean?__’_

_More silence filled the air until Allendas chuckled lightly, sipping his drink by the sounds of the tinkling ice. _ _‘By taking hold of the moons, of course.’_

*

Dorian flitted about for the rest of the evening, going back and forth with what felt like boundless energy. He felt like he was twenty again, like he could work through the night, slip ahead of the forces and take down Corypheus himself. The miracle of a good night’s sleep, he decided.

He had little chance to speak with Cassandra alone but in the few seconds they had, she asked how he was in a lower, more serious tone.

‘I really am well,’ he told her.

‘You and Cullen have reconciled,’ she ventured, smiling as softly as someone of her innate strength could manage. ‘A feat I confess to thinking impossible after the last I saw of him.’

Dorian didn’t know what to say beyond, ‘I thought much the same.’

‘Well, I am pleased for you both. A little love in the world is what we need right now, most assuredly.’

‘Such _sentiment_!’ Dorian mock gasped. ‘From our most surly Seeker? I hardly know what to make of it!’

She rolled her eyes, _tiny_ corner of her mouth upturned. ‘I see you’ve regained your propensity for sarcasm once more.’

‘Oh, how sorely your dour observations have been missed,’ he jibed, nudging her slightly.

She pursed her lips and glanced over at Cullen, speaking with various soldiers. ‘Leliana tells me that Cullen is much changed. That he is… using magic, to an extent.’

That brought Dorian up short. ‘It’s my magic,’ he explained. ‘He can draw it into himself. It’s rather complicated.’

‘I do not know what the Chantry will make of it,’ she said in a decidedly more troubled tone of voice. ‘I do not _care_, you understand,’ she added, no doubt taking in Dorian’s expression. ‘But they will be greatly displeased to say the very least. A Templar using magic freely is… a living symbol of heresy.’

‘Cullen isn’t a symbol of anything.’

Cassandra sighed. ‘You know that is not true. Much of what has urged our soldiers on through weeks of marching and battling has been the thought of returning to their Commander. Many of them were recruited directly _by_ Cullen. They follow him personally out of admiration, devotion even.’

Dorian remembered being held against a wall, sword point pressed into his wrist and spat on.

_The Commander is off limits to you and your kind_.

Things were markedly different since then. The rotting underbelly of corruption within Skyhold had been rooted out. Dorian had a close rapport with the guards and soldiers of the castle. They _respected_ him.

But Dorian understood. Most of the soldiers _loved_ Cullen. He was their beacon, their example of destiny diverted., Carving your own path, mastering your course. Seeing him use magic, the jaw-dropping kind at that, might be too much for them.

‘If I tell him not to use magic, he won’t listen.’

‘I feared as much. I would not advise it anyway. The war comes first and we need whatever tools we have at our disposal. All I would say is, be prepared for backlash.’

*

_‘Magic_?’ Haynes echoed quietly, her eyes wide. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s to do with the process of removing the lyrium,’ Dorian explained to her, the two of them aside from the other forces under cover of darkness. The camp was almost fully established, rows of tents stretching high over the hill, the high ground to keep a close eye for attacks. ‘Essentially, Templars have been conditioned to use a form of magic ever since their first philter and without the lyrium in their body, they are capable of having magic run through them.’

‘I’ve heard of it, in Tevinter,’ she said. ‘But you said he’s _using_ magic.’

‘He is. There is a…’ Dorian paused, finding the right word. ‘Connection between us. I’m unsure exactly what it is, but it allows Cullen to draw on my magic and use it. Before, it was much the same as Templar abilities. A heavily amplified _Silence_, for example. It’s very different now. He’s using magic, the kind I trained for years to master. It can be alarming to witness. I need you to warn the others.’

‘Warn them of _what_?’ she asked rather doubtfully. ‘That their Commander has become a mage?’

‘Cullen is not a mage.’

‘A mage is a being who channels magic,’ Haynes said. ‘A person who uses and interacts with it, who wields it.’

‘He has no connection to the Fade.’

‘But _you_ do.’

‘Yes.’

‘So he’s only using your magic?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘How are you still able to use magic? Your mana must drain so quickly.’

‘No, it’s um..’ Dorian shifted slightly. ‘It’s not like that.’

He didn’t want to tell Haynes that he was a blood mage now. That his magic was forever changed. That this magic was more alive than any he’d encountered.

She did not pursue it and for that, he was grateful.

‘I’ll speak to those I trust. Take the measure of their reactions. I have to tell you, my instinctual reaction is to assume, even though I know you _haven__’t_, that somehow you have him under your thrall.’

‘Yes, I know that’s how it seems. This is why I need your help. You know these people, you know who will react the worst and who can be an ally in making the facts ring clearer than fear-driven fiction.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ she said. ‘All of us have fought side by side with the mages for a solid month now. I can say with confidence that the level of mistrust has dropped sharply. We consider them comrades in arms. Friends, even. However, you know as well as I do, old hatreds die hard. There are a few I can think of who would drop their weapons and walk away upon seeing Commander Cullen perform magic.’

‘It is my hope that _no one_ will see Commander Cullen using magic, especially not our own armies. Inquisition forces are mostly auxiliary and therefore, will be kept back for the majority of the fight, all being well.’

‘Word travels fast,’ she pointed out. ‘If he uses it, we’ll hear of it.’

‘Well, let’s try and soften the blow, eh? I appreciate this Haynes.’

She gave him a kind smile and a nod. ‘Of course. It’s good to see you again, Dorian.’

The mage smiled back, more than a little touched that she still called him by his first name as he had requested, months ago. ‘And you, my dear. Stay safe out there.’

‘You too, Maker willing.’

*

Dorian ate a scant dinner of blackened nug and crusty bread with the mages, all forty-nine of them. It was a merry, loud affair and he found himself engaged in deeply pleasant conversation, the _distracting_ kind, which was wonderful. He told them all about little Dawn in as much detail as possible, about her birth, about her hair. Their happiness was palpable in the air. A baby _not_ stricken from mother’s arms was a true thing to celebrate apparently and to Dorian, their enthusiasm was contagious.

One would almost never know they were on the edge of war.

The mages, it had been decided, were not staying back with the rest of the auxiliary forces. As their magic had far more reach, they would be maintaining barriers and shields from what was still considered a safe distance, but not in the same position as the Inquisition’s forces.

When Dorian asked Tommur and the others how they felt about that, Tommur explained that it had been his idea.

It was an odd feeling, to see how far they’d come. Dorian, arrogant as he might have been, would never dream of taking credit for it but… he had played a small part. It filled him with a kind of strength, a renewed sense of _hope_.

He bid them a good night and headed back to the main camp, their laughter and joy echoing after him as he walked.

‘There you are,’ Lavellan greeted him with a brief, tired smile as he entered the main command tent. ‘Have fun?’

‘I did, actually,’ he told her, plonking himself down on a chair in front of the desk where she and Leliana hovered. ‘Cullen back yet?’

‘An hour ago,’ Lavellan informed him. ‘He and Samson, they uh. Well, I think they had a fight.’

Dorian’s good mood didn’t quite _drain _but it certainly flickered. ‘What? Why?’

Leliana was entirely focused on her scrolls, tiny messages from sharp eyed birds and as such, she didn’t even look up, let alone answer.

‘Neither of them said, but it was relatively clear,’ the elf chuckled awkwardly. ‘Still, they seem to be on good terms now at least.’

‘Good terms?’ Dorian echoed doubtfully.

Lavellan leaned over Leliana. _‘Better_ terms, then. Is that… Josephine? I’ve never seen her handwriting so messy.’

At the mere mention of _handwriting_, Dorian immediately felt an almost itchy need to go out and about, see to various things. Keep moving, stay awake and alert. He wanted, more than anything, to see Cullen.

‘Fuck,’ Leliana said, bringing Dorian sharply from his pleasant reverie of all things Cullen-esque. The Spymaster had her hand over her mouth, face like absolute stone.

‘What? What is it?’

Lavellan glanced up worriedly. ‘It might be nothing.’

‘Josie has never written like that,’ Leliana said tightly. ‘I’ve seen her handwriting ten times a day for the last two years. It’s still her hand but it’s not right at all.’

‘What does that mean?’ Dorian asked, peering across the desk to see. The scroll they’d been examining was written in tiny scrawl, certainly not what Dorian would consider messy, not at all, but perhaps not the finest he’d ever seen. Cullen’s in particular was quite elegant and this was decidedly less so.

Leliana got to her feet. ‘I have dozens of spies still within Skyhold and not a single one of them has reported anything awry. They write me once a day and I receive their messages after a one-day delay to allow for travel. This morning they reported all was well. Josephine’s message came a few hours after theirs. If something has…’ she exhaled in a controlled manner. _‘Happened _then we won’t know about it until tomorrow.’

‘But tomorrow we fight,’ Lavellan said, sounding very young.

‘Tomorrow?’ Dorian questioned.

‘The Orlesian army is likely to arrive earlier than expected,’ Leliana said, staring across the tent at nothing. ‘The Elder One’s forces seem set to arrive by nightfall tomorrow.’

A vile, pulsing feeling of unease sat in Dorian’s stomach. ‘What do you think could have happened in Skyhold?’

‘Josephine has been writing me steadily over the past week. She mentioned two days ago that many people have come down with a mild cold. It’s relatively common when the temperature plummets and then rapidly climbs. She could just be… unwell, I suppose.’

‘We could send Cole back,’ Dorian said quickly. ‘Just to see.’

‘No,’ the Spymaster said. ‘To prevent another attack like the one we suffered under Hawke, Vivienne has raised and is maintaining significant wards to prevent unwanted entry. Cole will not be able to enter in anything less than his human form.’

‘Leliana,’ Lavellan said, carefully touching her shoulder. ‘What do you think it is?’

The Spymaster sighed. ‘In all fairness, it _could_ be a cold. A nasty one that would cause her hands to shake. She would never shirk her duties simply because she was ill, she would continue to write as if nothing was wrong.’

‘Well that… sounds reasonable?’ the Inquisitor ventured hopefully.

‘I am uncertain, but my instincts tend towards the worst. It could be her way of telling me that something is amiss, warning me of something.’

Silence prevailed for a while as Lavellan opened and closed her mouth a few times before Leliana took pity on her and turned, green eyes cold and shuttered.

‘I know we cannot return,’ she said simply. ‘I know we must stay and push on here. There are armed forces within Skyhold. Albeit sick and injured from the weeks away in the Hinterlands, but still. Rainier and Vivienne are formidable. We have to trust them to be strong. To hold steady and come through whatever might be happening.’

Dorian was thinking very quickly, mind awash with bitter, acrid worry; the very worst-case scenarios, the majority of them circulating around his mages. Nalari, Dawn, Saffy, Landon, Pick, _Keenan_.

There was no magic, blood powered or otherwise, in all of Thedas that would permit any means of faster travel. He would have bled himself near dry to be able to return there that night but it wasn’t possible.

‘We need to send people back,’ he said. ‘Just a few.’

‘I agree,’ Lavellan said while Leliana stared down at Josephine’s message. ‘We can easily spare fifty or so. I’ll speak with Cullen immediately.’

‘No, let me go,’ Dorian said, placing a gentle hand on her forearm and subtly indicating towards Leliana who was apparently obsessed with the small scroll. ‘You stay, all right?’

She understood immediately. That raven-haired elf gave him a wink and a brief reassuring smile to prove it and Dorian took his leave.

*

‘Leliana is right to worry,’ Cullen said, washing his face over a bowl of water on a small rickety table. ‘Josephine’s writing is nothing less than pure art. If there’s even a wobble in it, something is wrong.’

‘I should have left them the sending crystal,’ Dorian said, shaking his head. ‘I shouldn’t have taken both. We just left them there. It could be Hawke. He’s already inside, he’s dangerous. We should have just killed him.’

‘Dorian, come here. Look at me.’ Cullen’s hands were damp on Dorian’s face but in truth it felt nice. ‘Skyhold was under attack from that bastard before and we came through it. Maker have pity on _anyone_ who underestimates your mages in a fight, Saffy especially.’

That brought Dorian out in a trembling, broken laugh and Cullen quickly mirrored the smile, his efforts to ease Dorian not wholly successful, but at least bringing him back from the beginnings of a panic attack.

‘Tomorrow we’ll know,’ Cullen said firmly. ‘Tomorrow we’ll know more and if we have to knock Corypheus off his dragon and ride it all the way back to Skyhold then that’s exactly what we’ll do.’

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘Promise?’

‘I swear it, my love.’

Cullen drew Dorian into his arms and enveloped him in caring warmth, in strength and support. Dorian breathed deeply and let himself be _weak_ for a moment, knowing he was safe to do so all the while taking in Cullen’s scent like it was something to be treasured, a rare flower or an expensive oil. Cullen always smelled the same. Of sea salt and leather, of fresh honey and rain-made ozone.

‘You smell like home,’ Dorian mumbled against his shoulder and then immediately felt very stupid. Cullen was stroking the back of his neck, fingers brushing over the shaved hair at the nape. Dorian felt his soft smile, the press of lips against the shell of his ear.

‘I smell like Tevinter?’

‘No,’ Dorian said, tightening his grip somewhat, fearing irrationally that Cullen might draw back before he was strong again, strong enough to weather the world outside the walls of their backs. ‘Tevinter is an incredible place. It’s part of who I am and I love it, for all its faults but it’s… never felt like _home_. Nowhere has.’ He swallowed and half rolled his eyes, forcing himself to just _say_ it. ‘Until you. You… _this_ feels like home.’

Cullen didn’t move for a long time and Dorian’s words faded into gentle silence, the white noise of _outside_ not sufficient to make them feel the need to part. It was strange, just holding each other. Existing within personal space, not moving or seeking to give or take. Just to be there, just to _hold _and be held in return. It was precious, that feeling and between them, for the first time all day, their magic stirred, cautious and wary and slowly stretching out. It was a little sad, Dorian realised with a frown, but it couldn’t resist the connection, not in such a way. Unbidden and shapeless, it ran very gently through Cullen, not seeking to be made into a weapon, not for any purpose other than to slide between them. In through Cullen’s skin wherever it pressed against Dorian’s and back home again.

And as it carefully moved through them both, a kind of sensation was brewing in Dorian’s chest, but not his _own_ feelings exactly. They were the colour of white sunshine, the taste of freshest, ice cold milk and edible flowers. They were simple, Cullen’s feelings. They rarely discussed this part of what they shared and in truth, it rarely _happened_ to this extent. As the magic ran through them both, a circular rhythm round and round, Dorian let himself bask in the physical sensation of what he elicited from Cullen, what he brought out in him.

Dorian closed his eyes but there was no darkness behind his lids. It was all light, he was _bathed_ in Cullen’s light. What had once been cold, predawn rays was now the kind of illumination that warmed skin, that brought flowers to life, that sustained living things as it journeyed across the sky. Their magic moved delicately, a length of thread through material back and forth, mixing them together carefully, showing them everything.

When Cullen spoke, he sounded so very far away. His voice was rumbling and soft when he asked, ‘Will you marry me?’

The light caught inside Dorian. It expanded almost painfully and there was no way it was ever leaving, that feeling. Cullen’s question, something Dorian could scarce even process yet, anchored the light deep within the mage. It wasn’t Dorian’s magic, that light. He could never produce anything so radiant, no matter how long he practised.

It was Cullen’s _own _magic, be it born of love or something else Dorian did not yet understand.

The question was a living thing, a promise and an offering all in one.

Slowly, trembling, Dorian Pavus drew back, hands braced on Cullen Rutherford’s shoulders. As they parted slightly, the sides of their faces brushed.

And when their eyes met, the light inside Dorian took shape and form, lit up every part of him within. To call it beautiful was to call the ocean blue or the sky vast; woefully insufficient and tragically unevocative. Cullen smoothed Dorian’s hair back a little from where it fell into his eyes.

Dorian’s silence stretched on as if he’d forgotten he even _could_ speak, let alone remember how to.

Cullen’s brow creased ever so slightly, pad of his thumb rubbing where an arrow had cut Dorian’s skin not four days previous. His throat bobbed and he said, rough and low, ‘I had… better plans. There was to be a lake and a keepsake, a nice story. I didn't… there wasn’t supposed to be a _war, _but I’ve thought of little else.’

Dorian had very rarely come to truly understand what it meant to be the centre of the world. It was something they often said to one another, a kind of endearment, an attempt to voice how one made the other feel. Cullen made Dorian feel important, like he was the focus of all the Commander’s attention and that had been an incredible feeling.

This was different. Dorian could literally feel the world turning all around him as he stood there, rendered silent and mute by a question that he never, in all his life, expected _anyone_ to ask him. Who would want that, really? Who in their right minds would want to _marry_ Dorian Pavus?

The answer stood before him; the man who waited a little awkwardly, _nervously_ to be given a response to a question that went down to the very core of who Dorian was… and changed everything.

‘There is nothing I want more in this world than to make you happy. To be the reason you smile. To… to make you laugh and see your eyes light up because you hold all the good in the world in those eyes. The place I look to most, the place _I_ consider home; your beautiful eyes.’ Cullen’s voice was shaking a little, he was so nervous. ‘It is selfish, to ask for your hand in mine. You’re a wild thing at heart, Dorian and I would never see you caged, but I… I want so very much… would be made whole by… by having you as my husband.’

It was _monumental_, the question. It was everything that should have brought Dorian out panicking and seizing. Marriage, vows, promises. A ring, a binding, a contract even when looked upon with cynicism. It was everything he’d dreaded as a young boy, as a young man and then just a man, a full-grown mage with an inherited arrogance and self-made scorn carved into himself. It was a decision he never thought he’d have to make once he severed ties with his parents, went his own way, carrying the weight of a curse that would preclude any such sentiment. A curse to keep him distant and _alone_, but alive.

‘You… you have to say something,’ Cullen said with a nervous little smile, everything about him wide open and _vulnerable_ then. ‘Even if you don’t want to, that’s… that’s completely fine I just… Maker, I should have stuck with the _plan_. It was a good plan and I—’

‘Yes.’

Amber eyes widened slightly and somehow, Cullen looked even _more_ defenceless, utterly laid bare to the mage as he echoed in a breathy whisper that hitched halfway in his throat, ‘Yes?’

Dorian swallowed and blinked, tears rolling down his cheeks in contrast with the weak, oh so _genuine_ smile, the very best he could manage while simultaneously falling to pieces and yet being remade.

‘Of course _yes_. Did you think…’ his voice gave out slightly and he shook himself. ‘Did you honestly imagine a world where I would say no?’

Cullen laughed, a small shaky thing and everything between them was _shaky_, was fragile and so _new. _Cutting a path as they went with no idea where it would lead, no light to guide the way but that which they made themselves.

‘I imagined several,’ he told Dorian, brown eyes moving rapidly between grey. ‘I imagined you letting me down gently, you making a joke of it. You taking offence was the one I most dreaded but I would… understand.’ Cullen closed his eyes and his exhale shuddered. ‘I have not your light, your… brilliance. It _is_ selfish of me to ask this of you but I cannot live another moment without having been brave enough to _ask._’

‘Cullen, open your eyes.’ When he did, Dorian’s hands slid from the Commander’s shoulders, trailed softly down his arms and followed the upward curve over Cullen’s wrists, the backs of his hands and there, he linked their fingers together, bringing them intertwined in the space between them. ‘I was going to ask _you_, back in Skyhold. We’re both… deeply stupid, I think.’

That elicited a true laugh from the man before him and all that _light_ inside Dorian glowed brighter, almost unbearably so. Cullen’s light, Cullen’s _love_ for him, as Dorian dared name it. Dorian laughed slightly too, heedless of how it came out, how fragile it was and how his eyes simply refused to cease filling with tears. It helped that Cullen was crying a little too. That the happiness and love between them was not an easy thing, was not something to be handled without the aching twist of _depth_ and intensity because they dealt in extremes, they always had.

‘I love you,’ Cullen said, pressing his forehead to Dorian’s. ‘I love you so much.’

‘I love you too. More than you can ever know.’

Cullen sighed as his mouth found Dorian’s, like the river found the sea. Naturally drawn there, naturally pulled. The heart of their connection, the very place it had all begun. Delicate, paper thin skin had once torn and bled and they had collided, magic and blood, flesh and desire and beneath it all, Cullen had _loved_ Dorian, had loved him right from the start.

Dorian slanted his mouth, lips parting and tasting the man who had asked for him in a way no one else ever had, who had asked _for_ _Dorian_. He held Cullen’s hands and angled the kiss until they were perfectly aligned, that way he loved when they could fall deepest into one another, nothing shallow about it. He shivered to feel the intensity, something beautiful and _powerful_ unfurling within him as Cullen’s tongue curled against his, as tears fell and combined, an ocean of salt and love and everything so _tangled_ between them. A bright and pure euphoria born of being asked and wanted and needed in a way Dorian had never truly considered and such might always have been his life, were it not for Cullen.

He would never be the same and he did not regret the loss of his old self. He wished it all the best, the version of him that could live without Cullen. That mage who had been perfectly self-contained and built walls to keep himself alive. He wished him well and they parted ways entirely, never to meet again.

‘Say it for me?’ Cullen asked in a threadbare whisper, lips never quite leaving Dorian’s.

‘I’ll marry you,’ Dorian said, surging up on to the very tips of his toes because he simply couldn’t help himself, their hands parting that he might tangle his fingers in Cullen’s curls, in all that dark golden silk, too long to slick back anymore, too unruly to tame. ‘I’ll marry you. I’ll wear your ring and you’ll wear mine and everyone will know. I’ll marry _you_, Cullen Rutherford. You, who brings out all the very best in me. You, who makes me _believe_. You, who saved me from myself, time and again. I will marry you and be yours in every way that you’ll have me.’

There was a breath between them, the smallest amount of space. Dorian’s fingers pushed through perfect, messy curls, taking in as much as he could, wanting to imprint the memory into his very being for all time. The taste in the air, the way Cullen stood, the way he breathed, shallow and rapid. Tear tracks through an as of yet unwashed face. A faded bruise slowly forming on his jaw, evidence of his and Samson’s spat most likely.

The look on Cullen’s face he would never forget, not even if he tried.

‘You… you’re everything,’ Cullen said, seemingly unable to put it into words any better than he already had but Dorian didn’t need words. He had that light inside of him. Pure and perfect, white sunshine and everything good in the world.

‘As are you, _amatus_,’ Dorian said, carefully speaking the word he had never once said before.

Cullen smiled. ‘I waited a long time to hear you call me that.’

Dorian rubbed his nose against Cullen’s, fingers luxuriating in his hair as Cullen brought them closer, bodies pressing without any urgency or heat, simply wanting proximity and the absence of space.

‘You did? You know what it means, then?’

‘Yes,’ Cullen said, swallowing loudly. ‘You told me to start learning Tevene but I confess to have been learning it for longer than you realise, or _attempting_ to at the very least. That word, it always stuck out to me. I wondered if I would ever hear you shape it and know that… that it was meant for me.’

Dorian kissed him again, wishing he could _show_ Cullen how much that word was for him, how it was _only_ for him and no one else. He hoped that Cullen could feel something like the light within the mage, only Dorian’s own, perhaps brightly purple. He hoped Cullen could _feel_ Dorian’s love the way Dorian felt his.

Their magic was slowing now, basking, purring and delighting. It was hopeful, it hoped for better things for them both in ways Dorian could not truly comprehend.

‘Amatus,’ Dorian said when there was barely enough space to create the word. ‘_My_ amatus.’

Cullen’s hands slid up his back, crossing and _keeping, _having asked and been answered. ‘To be yours is more than I deserve.’

‘To be mine,’ Dorian said carefully, frowning. ‘Comes with its own set of problems, in all fairness.’

Cullen shook his head slightly. ‘Don’t. Just… one more moment where we can pretend this is somewhere quiet? Some place we are alone and everything is all right?’

Dorian might have tried to argue, might have even made a joke somehow about how it was fortunate they hadn’t been interrupted thus far but all that light inside of him made it impossible. It felt like they _were_ alone, removed from the world and lifted right from it.

‘Whatever you want,’ he murmured as Cullen kissed him again, sweet and slow, turning Dorian’s skin to liquid fire and his bones to molten gold. The kind of kiss that spoke of love beyond death and devotion beyond words. Dorian would die for Cullen and he knew without ever having to ask that Cullen would do the same. That small point of contact, lips to lips, tongue and heat and swallowing sighs, was all they had. Could not further it, could not deepen it. There wasn’t time, no opportunity to _bond_ the way Dorian wished to.

‘Thank you,’ Cullen said when they drew apart again, this time a little further because there were preparations to be made, endless plans to be checked and overseen to minimise loss of life. Things to be worried about, friends to fret over and children… _Dorian__’s_ children to worry about.

‘For what?’ Dorian asked.

Cullen wiped Dorian’s face, brushing over damp skin. ‘For saying yes. For being mine. For being who you are.’

If Dorian kissed him again, it would never stop and they both knew it. Forcibly, Dorian took a step back and pieced himself together enough to do so without clinging to Cullen, but he found himself feeling… strong. Whole.

‘I didn’t realise,’ Dorian intoned in earnest. ‘That there were people who said such things.’

Cullen smiled, the lopsided kind that Dorian adored. ‘I didn’t realise I was one of them. You’d better go, my love. We won’t sleep tonight, there’s too much to be done but I’ll try and find you in little moments throughout.’

Dorian’s answering smile was a soft, almost shy thing. ‘I look forward to being found.’

*

The night passed quickly and no matter what difficulty he was met with, Dorian’s mood did not falter, not even once. Heavy discussions of losses and potential pitfalls in terms of magical traps and Venatori trickery could not bring him down, though he _did_ try to appear sombre throughout such discussions.

True to his word, Cullen found him several times throughout the organised chaos. When Dorian was speaking intently with Leliana about shield maintenance around siege engines, Cullen came to stand with them, most _un_subtly brushing his fingers over Dorian’s lower back. It sent a strange thrill skittering through the mage to have his… his _fianc__é_ come and stand beside him, secretly touching him, even though it was hardly secret and Leliana hardly cared.

They parted quickly, both having too much to do around camp but later when Dorian was rubbing his eyes, itching with a bodily fatigue that did not extend to his mind, Cullen pressed a quick and fleeting kiss to Dorian’s cheek during the moment he was temporarily blinded. Dorian didn’t even have time to reciprocate before Cullen swept away, not looking back.

Nothing could touch Dorian’s happiness then. It was a living breathing thing, built with a strength imbued by something eternal, something immortal.

And things were grim, things needed his attention and he devoted it best he could but… but that light inside of him gave him the strength to go on, to make ready for what would doubtlessly be death and destruction, no matter how limited it was. If two thousand marched, two thousand would not return, there was simply no possibility of it. Minimal losses was the term and it was all they could hope for.

Leliana spoke with Dorian some more about her theory involving Josephine. She was confident, or so she told him, that Josephine was attempting to communicate that something was wrong and that they should be on their guard upon returning. Dorian didn’t know how true that was but he trusted her instincts and she would never lie to him to spare his feelings. Leliana was good that way.

Dorian spent a surprising amount of time with Samson throughout the night and at various stages. The former Templar, though repellent and evidently only _barely_ trustworthy, made for amusing company. He had a way of speaking that was refreshingly straightforward and occasionally dripping in self-deprecating humour which Dorian, for whatever reason, found funny.

‘What did you fight about?’ Dorian asked him some time before dawn, the pair of them adjusting the saddle of Samson’s horse, Dorian helping simply because he wanted to know why Cullen’s jaw was bruised.

Samson shrugged, attention mostly on the buckle, running a calming hand over the horse which was, to say the least, uneasy around him. Dorian thought it could have been the red lyrium still in his system.

‘If Rutherford didn’t tell you, not sure I should risk his ire by doing so,’ he said and then looked up, cocking his head. ‘Oh, wait. I couldn’t give a shit about his ire. I asked him if you were a good fuck.’

Dorian’s eyes narrowed. ‘No you didn’t. That wouldn’t rile him enough to cause a fight and even for you, that’s low hanging fruit.’

Samson grinned. ‘Ah, fair play, mage, fair play. We had to put down the Behemoths and it was brutal as fuck. He recognised some of them. Harder on him than I thought it would be.’

‘Yes, why would killing people he knew be _hard_ on him?’ Dorian questioned, highly facetious, brushing the horse down gently in contrast with his tone. ‘Maker forbid.’

‘If you knew him back in the day you might not say that.’

They shared a moment of eye contact, Samson’s only _slightly_ less bloodshot than they had been yesterday. Dorian looked away first.

‘Did you know Hawke too?’

‘Enough to know he’s a prick.’

‘Then you know he’s the kind of _prick_ who did exactly the same thing you’re doing. Baiting me and seeing if I’ll bite, trying to get me to ask about Cullen when I could just _ask Cullen_ himself.’

‘Nah, that shit’s not my scene,’ Samson said giving the leather of the strap a final tug. ‘I’m only fucking with you, mage. We had a good fight, that’s it. He always was a decent scrapper.’

Dorian graciously let it go and together they walked back to the main fire where most of the inner circle were hovering. It was bustling and full of energy, just verging on _nervous_. Dorian performed a quick scan for the man he would recognise anywhere and tried to contain the small stab of disappointment when he couldn’t make him out.

‘How are you feeling?’ Dorian asked Samson, mostly to detract from the disappointment. ‘Your withdrawal?’

‘I’ve had worse.’

Dorian shifted awkwardly. ‘Do you need…?’

Samson’s brow lifted, surprised. ‘You’re offering?’

In truth, it was the last thing Dorian _wanted_ to do. The way it had drained him last night wasn’t anything he wanted to repeat but he’d said he would help and he’d meant it.

He opened his mouth to say as much when Samson waved a hand, expression unusually soft. ‘There’s no need.’

‘But… I agreed to help you.’

Samson nodded. ‘And you did. You showed me it was possible. There’s younger recruits in the Order, those who haven’t been taking it for very long. I wanted hope for _them_.’ He laughed dryly. ‘I know there’s no saving me, but I can still be useful. Make sure there’s a world for at least some of us and a bit of hope to brighten the skies an’ all. That’s all I want.’

Something quite like _sympathy_ wound its way around Dorian’s spine, right at the base. ‘You’re taking the lyrium again.’

‘Like I said,’ Samson intoned firmly, no trace of regret. ‘There’s no hope for me. I know I’m too far along but for the others, even just some of them… that’s worth fighting for.’ He half-punched Dorian on the shoulder and snickered. ‘Don’t go getting all teary eyed, mage. Ruin your reputation as a cold blooded Tevinter, after all.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Dorian insisted only somewhat haughtily.

Samson rolled his eyes. ‘Only kidding. No one who sees how you look at Rutherford would think you’re cold blooded.’

*

_Thaddeus and Maphas left some time before midnight and Dorian had to silently flee up the stairs, hiding in shadows at the top around the curve to avoid being seen. Halward bid them a good night and Dorian half expected Allendas to leave as well, but once the door was closed behind the other two Magisters, Halward turned to his so-called friend and sighed, _ _‘Shall we drink on the veranda?’_

_Dorian could not follow them there without being seen so he retreated deep into the second floor, heading for the rarely used music room which sat directly above the veranda. There was a definite chill in the air as he opened the wide double doors, taking absolute care to remain silent. He placed cushions against the glass to ensure that no wind suddenly caused them to move and therefore give him away. He crawled out onto the balcony, the moons high in the dark sky above him and he listened. Dorian and Allendas came to sit below him, a little to the right. _

_‘It’s colder than I expected,’ Allendas commented and Dorian saw a faint glow of warm, yellow light stretching out across the garden. He pushed his fingers through the gaps in the stone balcony, through the wrought iron and hovered them there, trying to feel the heat but it couldn’t reach him. _

_‘Thaddeus is painfully stupid,’ Halward said without preamble, settling into one of the comfortable and quite loud wicker chairs. ‘I dread the day he realises Maphas is fucking his wife.’_

_Allendas chuckled and Dorian felt shocked. His father never used such language, at least not around him. __‘What _questions_ we__’ll have to endure,’ Allendas agreed. ‘They are not wrong about the blood magic though, Halward.’_

_‘Oh, do _not_ start up again,__’ Halward laughed, sipping his whiskey as Dorian carefully and slowly lay himself flat on the balcony, staring up at the star strewn sky, listening intently. ‘I’ve no interest in a subject so mediocre.’_

_‘It’s the default subject. Every mage wants to know where the other stands. Endless scenarios presented to see if maybe, just maybe, the great and upright Halward Pavus would ever consider blood magic.’_

_‘And the answer is always the same, always very _dull_. To save my family and nothing else.__’_

_Dorian frowned, never having heard Halward say _that_ either. He began to wonder just how well Allendas and his father actually knew one another. Dorian had no previous memory of Allendas but that didn__’t mean anything really. Dorian hadn’t begun paying attention to any of his parents friends until a few years ago, when he’d found himself drawn to the stronger, taller men. Allendas was new, at least to the Dorian who had begun noticing men like him. _

_‘Your family indeed,’ Allendas purred. ‘Yes, we would all go to great lengths for our loved ones.’ There was a beat during which Dorian stared unseeingly up at the stars wondering how long they would stay outside and how long he could keep from shivering but then Allendas spoke again. ‘Your son is quite exceptional.’_

_Dorian__’s heart _stopped_. _

_‘Indeed,’ Halward said, careful and cagey. _

_‘You must be very proud of him.’_

_‘He shows extraordinary backbone in a society of spineless, simpering idiots.’_

_Breath held tightly in his chest, Dorian closed his eyes to hear better. _

_‘What apprenticeships is he considering?’_

_‘He is but sixteen.’_

_‘Meaning what? You apprenticed under Nalvernian when you were fifteen, myself with Bellast at fourteen. Circles do not suit everyone and he is greatly talented in a way that is rarely nurtured in classrooms.’_

_‘Dorian will see his education through to the fullest before we consider any and all possibilities of apprenticeships.’_

_‘That is fair, but I would caution you against trying to restrain a wild thing like him.’_

_In a voice Dorian barely recognised, Halward said, _ _‘What did you just say to me?’_

_The young mage__’s breath shuddered and caught, heart fucking _pounding_. _

_‘I mean no offence, my friend, only that—’_

_‘When you have a child of your own, Allendas, please do return and caution me to your heart’s content about _restraint_. My son is many things but he is _not_ wild. He is brilliant and talented and, as many before him, he rails against adherence to rules because he is under-stimulated.__’_

_Dorian fully expected Allendas to apologise, to agree and change the subject. What the man actually said was, _ _‘He would fare well under my tutelage.’_

_Now Dorian__’s heart turned stormy and treacherous, smashing against his ribs and Maker, he wanted it. He wanted it like he’d never known it until that precise moment but now it was every single dream he’d ever had in his life of being happy, of being _free_. _

_‘I have been considering taking on an apprentice for some time now. Dorian would be perfect.’_

_That praise hit him like an orgasm. It was impact driven into his core, plunging heat and sensitivity and turning his skin deeply red. It made his insides writhe, it made the air _hurt_ to breathe. _

Dorian would be perfect_. He would think of those words later when he stroked himself, could barely stand not doing so there and then. _

_‘I fully recognise the honour of such an offer, but the answer is no.’_

_‘Come, Halward. I know he was ejected from his last Circle. With me, he would flourish. He requires a direct, devoted kind of attention and I know I can offer him that.’_

_‘He is going to Minrathous to attend the Order of Argent.’_

_All that heat and dizzy longing vanished in an instant. Dorian_ _’s eyes opened and those stars twinkled above, detached and uncaring for the affairs of men. _

_‘You can’t send him there.’_

_Halward_ _’s voice stiffened. ‘He is my son, I can send him wherever I deem best. The Order of Argent is—’_

_‘It’s a _prison_, little more. Canings and punishments, Andrastian obsession and religious zealotry.__’_

_‘It is a highly respectable establishment and it has cost me dearly to obtain him a placement. He goes next week and he will finish his education there without distraction or lack of stimulus.’_

_Allendas scoffed. __‘The _stimulus_ being incentive not to be beaten black and blue, is it? That is not the true spirit of learning, of _education_, if you indeed prize it so highly above experience. That place is little more than a southern Circle and you know it!__’_

_‘I know no such thing.’_

_Slowly, carefully, Dorian rolled over on his stomach, hands grazing the cold stone of the balcony and he set his eyes below, unable to see them, only their shadows, cast long against the veranda wall. _

_‘And what does he say of it?’_

_‘I’ve not yet told him.’_

_‘I see. Well, you certainly know what is best for your child, but I cannot see the reasoning behind denying him the opportunity to—’_

_‘Do not think me the fool, Allendas,’ Halward said, suddenly sharp. ‘Do you believe I am ignorant as to the reasons behind your presence in my household when we’ve not met privately for as long as fifteen years?’_

_‘We’re friends, Halward.’_

_‘An interesting word for it and perhaps once it might have applied, but no. We are not friends and I am perfectly aware of your _interest_ in my son.__’_

_‘I see his potential.’_

_‘You see his face, his body, the Pavus name. Nothing more.’_

_Tears stung hard and Dorian couldn_ _’t catch his breath. _

_Very quietly, Allendas said, _ _‘I didn’t know he was your son the first time. I didn’t recognise him.’_

_‘And perhaps,’ Halward said, standing up. ‘If I believed that, we might part on friendly terms, you and I. But I do not for one moment believe you nor would I ever lend consideration to shipping my son off to a man such as you.’_

_Allendas got to his feet quickly. _ _‘Such as me?’_

_‘I’ve seen your experiments,’ Halward said, disgust colouring his tone. ‘Your _studies_. My son will not become embroiled in your forays. He has a brilliant future ahead of him, would that he learn to control himself.__’_

_‘How will be ever be able to control himself…’ Allendas whispered with a touch of hostility. ‘If you are the one controlling him?’_

_‘By taking hold of the moons,’ Halward said and that was the end of that. _

*

‘Well,’ Leliana sighed as the sun rose. ‘At least it’s pretty.’

Dorian knew what she meant. This might well be the last sunrise that some people, themselves included, ever saw again. Later that night, Corypheus’s forces would arrive and all told, he was patently furious at the loss of his Red Templar Order. It meant unpredictable elements, anger always changed the course of events.

Orlesian forces were due in a few hours as were any messages from Skyhold containing information about the state of things within the castle. Dorian had been calm all through the night, mostly emboldened by the still burning light within him from Cullen’s… question, but now nerves were creeping in. Not necessarily bad ones, the kind that sometimes, just sometimes, pushed him to analyse and double check, to be ready.

Cole was watching him, expression mostly light, from across the camp, leaning against a cart. The boy had been withdrawn even more than usual over the last few days and despite Dorian’s many attempts to speak to him, he remained mostly unreachable. Dorian thought that he was more than a little upset he couldn’t get into Skyhold, no matter how hard he tried. It was good, really. It spoke of the strength of Vivienne’s barrier and also served as a reminder that if she was dead, it would have fallen.

Dorian changed his outfit in the tent, wincing slightly when he pulled on his battle armour, something flaring at the base of his neck. He traced it carefully, the skin slightly risen and definitely sore. He didn't know how it had come about but then it _had_ been an incredibly busy day and night. Maybe it was simply strained. There was no mirror around to check and he gave it very little thought except… except that his dream that night had involved Cullen’s teeth in his neck, biting him hard enough to make him scream, to earn Cullen’s hand over his mouth. Dorian hadn’t really felt the pain, hadn’t felt much of anything because it was a dream, a trip through the Fade and little else but…

He shook himself determinedly. This was no time for distractions.

*

Leliana’s messages came just before the first of the Orlesian forces began to trickle in. Dorian had been watching the sky for the birds and when they landed, many of the inner circle crowded around her to the point where she huffed irritably and snapped at them to get back.

‘The messages could be coded, let me _breathe_, will you?’

Bull moved back, folding his arms and that, in and of itself, created a great deal more room, but Dorian didn’t budge and neither did Lavellan or Sera. Varric and Cole watched from a little way away, Solas and Morrigan speaking about non-Skyhold related things or so Dorian assumed.

‘They say everything is well,’ she declared quietly after a few very long, thorough minutes spent going over the four messages. ‘We have several alert words, ways of raising the alarm without an onlooker ever realising. None have been used and furthermore, they say all is quite normal aside from a cold spreading through the masses. These were dispatched _after_ Josephine sent her missive.’

‘So, nothing is wrong then?’ Lavellan asked, hand splayed over her chest, the other tight around her stomach.

Leliana’s lips pursed and Dorian could tell how much she didn’t want to give a blanket assurance when her instincts, finely honed and sharper than most, clearly indicated that _something_ was wrong.

‘I see no evidence of foul play,’ she said slowly. ‘My agents are buried deeply and placed well within the castle. They would know if anything was overtly wrong.’

‘Do they mention day to day activities?’ Dorian asked. ‘Any indication of what actually _is_ happening inside the castle.’

‘Beyond assurances of continued routines and normal life, no.’

Cullen came over leaving Samson behind on the fringes of the main camp. ‘What news?’

‘No confirmation of anything _overtly_ wrong,’ Leliana said, stressing the word even more so a second time.

‘Leliana,’ Lavellan said. ‘We trust your instincts. If you think something is wrong, I know better than to argue.’

‘I would not worry anyone unduly and without any further evidence, I fear this may simply be my own concerns for my friend manifesting under the weight of helplessness and distance.’

‘It’s hard being away from the castle,’ Cullen said quietly. ‘I feel the same.’

The Spymaster got to her feet. ‘We have sent a small contingency back to Skyhold and there _are_ forces there already.’ She closed her eyes. ‘We must trust that our friends can handle themselves.’

‘I trusted all of you,’ Lavellan said, touching her shoulder. ‘And you always far exceeded my expectations.’

‘Yeah,’ Sera agreed wholeheartedly. ‘Last time we came back, you had Hawke bloody well gift-wrapped for us. That was nice.’

Leliana nodded briskly and turned her attention to Cullen, all business again. ‘They’re here?’

Cullen sighed, visibly displeased but only in that superficial way that signalled the arrival of people he did not especially _like_. ‘They are.’

*

‘Inquisitor,’ Celene greeted, looking more than a little ridiculous in her ball gown set against a heavily military backdrop but who was Dorian to criticise? ‘You are most… uh, radiant!’

Ellana Lavellan, grime streaked and kitted out in lightweight armour, managed a smile and near perfect bow, Gaspard and Briala hovering nearby.

‘You honour us with your presence.’

‘We are proud to stand with the Inquisition at this time. We will make our mark in history and do so proudly. The full force of the Orlesian army is at your disposal. We fight together.’

It was formal and scripted. Once, Dorian might have admired the Empress. Coming out in all this state to be with her soldiers, to be seen and heard giving what she no doubt considered a rousing speech. As it stood, he found himself barely withholding the disdain he felt. What did she know about _fighting_? About dragons and fire and bodies?

‘Indeed,’ Lavellan said. ‘May we discuss the finer details, perhaps?’

Celene smiled and waved her hand. ‘Please, direct your concerns to Gaspard. I must retire and rest. I am quite exhausted after travelling, you understand.’

Dorian restrained a scoff, but it was a near thing.

‘Of course,’ Lavellan said dutifully, bowing again as Celene performed that ridiculous curtsy in return, fluttering away with her entourage of at least twelve twittering masked maidens.

Cullen was already speaking with Gaspard, Leliana having pulled Briala aside. Lavellan looked at Dorian and inclined her head, indicating that he follow her.

‘Inquisitor,’ Gaspard greeted promptly when she and Dorian came to stand with him. ‘Altus Pavus.’

Cullen’s mouth quirked ever so slightly.

‘We’ve been redirected to you to discuss strategy,’ Lavellan explained lightly.

‘Yes, the Empress made as much clear to me on our travels. I was discussing formation with your Commander here. I understand we are to be very much on the front lines?’

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Many of my people will provide ancillary support.’

‘You have Red Templars fighting for you too?’

‘They will maintain the perimeter.’

‘It is a vast perimeter.’

‘There are a great number of Templars,’ Cullen answered efficiently. ‘Near fifteen hundred.’

‘Have you considered the possibility that—?’

‘That this could be a ploy to surround and trap us and then have Red Templars turn on us? Yes,’ Lavellan cut over him. ‘We are confident this is not the case.’

Gaspard was not impressed. ‘Confident? I do not care to march on confidence alone. The Templar Order is corrupt, as are the Wardens you so _graciously_ allowed to remain. I’m surprised _they_ will not be joining us.’

‘The Wardens are the last line of defence as I think you are well aware. The fall-back, should we all perish here.’

‘What is the imperative in protecting the forest?’ he went on, undeterred. ‘It would be easier to flatten the entire area, make a clear path to this place the Elder One seeks.’

‘Easier in the short term, likely to result in an entirely new war in the long term. This land is guarded by Sentinels, ancient beings.’

Even with the mask, Dorian knew an up and down look when he saw one. _‘Elves_, I assume?’ Gaspard asked her quite coolly.

Dorian intervened. ‘How many soldiers do you bring?’

Gaspard shot him a look. ‘Nine hundred.’

‘Barely a fraction of the main Orlesian army, isn’t it?’

‘Well, well,’ the man said, full weight of his gaze settling onto the mage. ‘How well connected you are, Altus. _Deeply_ involved with all elements of command, I see. Impressive. Yes, we bring a small portion of the true might of Orlais but as the Inquisitor admirably demonstrates, we too seek to exercise caution and ensure a strong _fall-back. _Besides, we are hardly needed, save for frontal fodder of course.’

‘You know what?’ Lavellan said, unexpectedly brusque. ‘I think I’ve genuinely reached my limit for posturing euphemistic speeches, especially coming from arrogant _men_ who did nothing to lift a finger towards stopping Corypheus until it benefited them.’

Gaspard’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I… Inquisitor, I meant absolutely no affront—’

‘I’m in no mood for your political _bullshit._ We point, you march. This is not in service of expanding the Empire or protecting alliances. This is to save the fucking _world_, you understand?’

‘I understand, of course.’

Dorian didn’t bother to restrain his smirk, not when Cullen himself looked unabashedly smug, a deep glow of _respect_ for Lavellan so evident.

‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘In that case please _withhold _your sparkling wit and legendary banter until _after_ we win in which case, I’m sure we’ll all be positively aquiver to bask in it once more. I leave you in the more than capable hands of my Commander.’

Gaspard barely had time to bow before she turned away and took Dorian with her, linking their arms together. They weren’t very far when she burst out laughing, burying her face in his shoulder and Dorian, despite everything else, was helpless but to join in.

*

Dorian Pavus was but a man, a mage unto himself, and as such, he could not fully comprehend the vastness of how an _army_ was assembled and organised and even if he _could_ understand it, he found it was better to focus on what he could control. Throughout the day, he barely saw Cullen for how much the man was needed everywhere. Whenever he did see him, it was in passing and of those times, only twice did they manage to touch. A quick, sweeping grasp of fingers before they were pulled apart again by necessity and obligation.

‘What do you mean I won’t be _fighting_?’

Cassandra gave a look that plainly stated her doubt in his intelligence.

‘You will be, just not on the front lines. You’re with the mages, overseeing them much in the way Commander Cullen is overseeing—’

‘The entirety of the largest army amassed in Thedas for several hundreds of years. I do not see how _babysitting_ fifty mages compares!’

She tilted her head and stifled a yawn. ‘You _are_ rather accomplished at babysitting mages, Dorian.’ When he glared, she rolled her eyes and made a sound of mild, somewhat affectionate disgust. ‘All mages are to provide combined shields and cover for the infantry and siege weapons. You _know_ this.’

‘I want to fight.’

Cassandra sighed. ‘You _want_ to be with Cullen.’

‘I…’ he scrunched his nose, abruptly tired of pretending anything else. ‘Yes.’

‘That is not how this works.’

‘I don’t care how it works.’

‘And if everyone stopped caring how this worked, what then? Friends marching only with friends? Lovers breaking ranks to protect their significant others? It would be chaos. This is what everyone speaks of when they say war is hard. Not the fighting, but the choices. Being given orders and _following_ them.’

‘Where will Solas be? Where will bloody _Morrigan_ be?’

‘With you and the other mages,’ Cassandra answered evenly and that, despite how little he wanted to admit it, _did_ mollify him slightly. ‘Once the army is defeated, and by all accounts it _will_ be, you and the Inquisitor can proceed to the Temple.’

‘Why don’t we simply go now?’ Dorian asked. ‘He’s not here, is he?’

Cassandra nodded. ‘I partially agree with your logic, however Corypheus is cunning and Lavellan is wary of being caught unawares. Not to mention that she refuses to let the armies fight unless she’s fighting right alongside them.’ When Dorian opened his mouth to demand why Lavellan got to fight, Cassandra raised a hand to prevent it. ‘Fighting alongside them in the _metaphorical_ sense of the word, quite patently. The Inquisitor can barely lift her daggers, let alone use them. Maker, what a mess.’

Dorian considered the woman before him, leaning heavily against a table in a quiet, humid tent. Body heat became quickly trapped in such thick material. The cold night air would feel wonderful to breathe once he left.

‘She shouldn’t risk going to the Temple,’ Dorian said, mostly to himself.

‘This time I wholeheartedly agree with you, but there is no talking her out of it.’

‘I know,’ Dorian said wearily. ‘We’ve all tried, believe me.’

‘We can protect her,’ Cassandra said. ‘We must.’

‘Prop her up and push her onward, yes that seems like the thing to do.’

‘It is what she wants. You yourself allowed her to come, Cullen told me.’

‘That doesn’t mean I like it.’

They were silent for a while, nothing but the faint glow of candles nearby and the white noise of _activity_ outside. ‘You should sleep for an hour if you can,’ Cassandra told him. ‘Our scouts have thus far reported no forward signs of the Elder One’s armies.’

‘I couldn’t sleep if I tried,’ he answered, getting to his feet with a wan smile. ‘But I appreciate the concern, Cassandra.’

He went to pass her by but she caught his arm, firm and gentle. ‘Stay safe,’ she told him. ‘No heroics.’

Dorian’s smile took on a touch of something genuine. ‘You wound me, Seeker. _Heroics_ indeed, what do you think I am, some sort of _Ferelden?__’_

Her eyes, though tired and heavy lidded, managed to glitter with something like amusement. ‘I think you are wayward, Dorian. You always have been, you always will be.’

He patted her on the back. ‘I’ll leave the heroics, as you call it, to the real heroes, never you fear.’

*

He came in the dead of night. The darkest and longest ebb, the sky lightless and obscured by heavy clouds, the moons nowhere to be seen. He came in the dead of night and he did not come alone.

Dorian had been falling into a kind of fatigue fuelled _despair_ at being made to wait in such a way. There had been no waiting at Adamant, no waiting when a rift opened right in front of their eyes, no waiting when bandits attacked or Hawke had locked them inside.

To have set the stage and then be made to _wait_ was simply awful and to earn the truth, when a runner, a deeply familiar face, came skidding into the Command tent, eyes wide and face flushed, Dorian was almost _glad. _

‘Y-your Grace,’ he stammered, that boy Dorian had allowed to live and sent back to call Cullen a most familiar term of _endearment_. ‘Sers, the Elder One approaches.’

Cullen, Lavellan, Leliana and Cassandra stared at him for a beat. Dorian sighed and finished the last of his lovely iced water.

‘Well,’ he said, clapping his hands. ‘Fucking _finally_, eh? Some of us have lives to get on with after this nonsense.’

Lavellan cracked a thin smile as Cullen asked of the boy, ‘From what direction?’

‘Th-the sighting, Ser? Or the army?’

‘Do they differ?’ Cullen asked patiently and Dorian was irrationally proud of him for not snapping when the boy, though somewhat irritatingly slow, was blatantly terrified. ‘Come show me, lad.’

They left the tent together and Dorian breathed in the cool, slightly damp air, heavy rain on the way no matter how inconvenient. The boy pointed upwards at the sky with a trembling hand and Dorian’s heart clenched.

‘He brings his dragon?’

‘More than one,’ the boy answered.

Cole appeared directly beside Dorian, the mage had felt his presence for a while now. ‘Take from me my red and I will bleed more. Bigger, higher, they bring _regret_. You will regret and I will bask.’

A thunderous scream rent the dense and heavy skies and before Dorian could swallow with fear, the sound all too familiar, several others followed it.

‘Dragons,’ Morrigan said grimly, her usually strong tone wavering slightly as she came to stand with them. ‘He has enthralled _dragons.__’_

‘The perimeter,’ Lavellan said, but Cullen was already moving away.

‘Get the shields up _now!__’ _Cullen called as he backed away swiftly, locking eyes with Dorian before he turned away, melting into the darkness towards the outskirts, towards where Samson and the Red Templars were waiting.

‘He’ll rain fire on us,’ Solas said. ‘On all his enemies, neatly lined up.’

It was as Lavellan had feared, just as she’d predicted. Dorian looked at her, they _all_ looked at her.

‘We hold,’ she said, staring up at the sky, jaw working, eyes flashing. ‘And we fight.’

*

The dragons were not enthralled, they were _dead_.

It was the most powerful necromancy Dorian had ever witnessed. Ten dragons, not counting the beast Corypheus sat astride, glowing bright and awful like lightning made flesh, soared through the skies, screaming and shaking the very earth with their terrible fire. As Dorian ran to where the mages were stationed - the very place that was now the single most important area of the battlefield as it held the trebuchets and ballistae - Solas and Morrigan ran alongside him, dodging fire at the very last second.

‘Was that… the Highland Ravager?’ Solas panted when they came to a halt, throwing their magic up into the sky, joining the communal, vast shield already glowing and stretching as far as it could without decaying. ‘We killed it in the Emprise du Lion!’

Dorian grunted, his magic flooding from his palms into his staff. ‘They’re all dead,’ he yelled back. ‘It’s necromancy, but not like anything I’ve—’

The Ravager’s mouth exploded with fire and it hit the shield hard enough to rattle Dorian’s bones and set his teeth on a fine, vibrating edge. The shield held strong, the force of so much magic sustaining it but that couldn’t last. Around them, _all_ around them, fire was lighting up the night and the smell of burning flesh filled the air.

The people manning the trebuchets took aim at the dragons and fired, but they were too fast, too many. The soldiers were panicking, fucking void, _Dorian_ was panicking.

‘There’s too many,’ he muttered, veins pulsing and magic stretching, some part of it seeking out Cullen but it could not reach and Dorian knew the Commander would never use magic unless he had to, not when their magic was so sorely needed elsewhere. ‘Fuck, there’s too many.’

‘You’re the Necromancer!’ Solas snapped, eyes screwed tight shut with the effort of maintaining the mass shield. ‘What do we do?’

The answer was simple, except it wasn’t.

‘We need to find the mages sustaining them.’

Two dragons came from opposing directions, spouting fire in unison. The shield held once more but it couldn’t last much longer.

Solas wrenched his gaze on to Dorian. ‘Go,’ he bade breathlessly. ‘Find them and kill them. You can trace the magic, you know what to look for.’

‘I can’t, I should—’

‘GO!’

‘I will accompany you,’ Morrigan said. ‘I can scout overhead to help you search.’

Dorian yanked his staff away, withdrawing his magic and the pair left the relative, albeit temporary safety of the mass shield.

‘Which direction?’ Morrigan yelled over the sounds all around them. A dull, rushing roar of fighting, the constant screams of dead dragons. Dorian tried to centre himself, tried to _find_ the strings of all that darkness, that masterful power, generating false and temporary life.

And because there was so _much _of it, it was easy.

He turned, gesturing towards the woods. ‘This way.’

*

Demons and mages and rotting bright dragons made up the army of the Elder One. Deprived of his Red Templars, he’d been forced to adjust, to expand. As Dorian’s feet thundered against the ground, following his instincts towards the root of all that incredible necromancy, he couldn’t help but swallow down the sick feeling when he thought of what kindness had truly brought them, in allowing the Red Templars to take their side, to have the possibility of _hope. _

Morrigan yanked him back by the scruff not a moment too soon when a river of fire crashed in front of him, scorching the very earth as if it were flesh.

There was screaming, so _much_ screaming. Dorian wanted to stop and help, he wanted to go towards every single person he heard or saw who needed help but he knew he couldn’t. The Venatori were all that mattered in the moment. The best way to save as many as possible.

‘They’ll be well protected,’ he panted when they ran around the sizzling grass and glowing rocks, heading deeper in the wilds. ‘The mages.’

‘I’ll deal with that,’ Morrigan assured him. ‘Just keep going.’

And with every step forward, with every rapid beat of his heart, he thought of Cullen. He didn’t dare extend the bond and seek him out, could not afford to waste one drop of mana, but… the very fact that the bond still _existed_ had to be worth something, didn’t it? Without Cullen, it would be snapped and gone.

Running through dense trees and growth, clear only in patches, Dorian’s magical senses began to positively _throb_.

It wasn’t natural and he could tell right away.

‘It’s blood magic,’ he said as they slowed and above, the bittersweet metallic pressure in the air intensified massively. Rain was coming any second. ‘_Huge_ amounts of blood magic.’

He and Morrigan jogged quietly together, using the large, partially ruined stone structures as cover wherever possible.

The screaming and the fire had faded but when they found what they were looking for, Dorian could still hear it if he strained.

Twelve Venatori stood in a circle of pure, blinding red light, their arms outstretched as if warming their hands over a fire and in the centre, a pile of bodies so high they obscured the mages on the other side. The air crackled and hissed, dripping with the smell of rot and decay turned electric. It was overpowering, the taste of death in the air.

Dorian was about to thank the Maker that they seemed to be unguarded at the very least when the ground beneath him turned bright green and rippled and an ocean of terror demons tore their way upwards from the earth.

‘Morrigan!’ he shouted, gripping his staff tightly and praying she was in place to at least help. He cast as much lightning as he was physically capable, raining it all down on the Venatori, hoping to disrupt their cast but it ricocheted off of a domed shield, leaving them untouched just as a terror demon’s talons tore across his chest.

The pain was vicious and it rendered him stunned, unable to think much beyond the fact that his chest was now split open and all his organs were surely going to tumble to the ground. It was white hot, razor sharp agony.

As the creature screeched, lifting it’s hand a second time, Dorian ground his back teeth and positively _fried_ the thing with energy, causing it to explode, showering him with wet, hot debris.

Morrigan’s magic came into play, _fucking finally_, and the demons turned their attention to her. Dorian clutched his chest, but it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. Bleeding profusely yes, but his lungs weren’t hanging out. The Venatori within the shield were entirely focused on their magic, eyes closed as they chanted and controlled the gigantic flow. Dorian reached out with a shaking hand and tested the shield. It was strong, absolutely, but it wasn’t blood magic. All that power went to the dragons.

Dorian looked down at his chest, at the three long tears in his leather. Blood flowed steadily, and plenty of it. No sense in letting it go to waste, he supposed.

He took a deep breath and said, ‘Fuck it all,’ just before he spoke the incantation.

*

_Allendas left before Dorian could get down the stairs, before the mage, heart dictating all manner of wild and dangerous things, could beg to go with him, could follow him out into the night and embrace uncertainty and change and everything else he longed for. He heard the carriage door slam shut, heard the horses hooves and he was brought to a standstill. _

_Allendas was gone and Dorian was too late, his father coming up behind him as he stood, panting and wide eyed before the now closed door. _

_‘You were listening?’ Halward sounded furious, betrayed even. _

_Dorian spun around, an old, decayed anger catching fire in his chest like tinder in the dry seasons. _

_‘I stayed upstairs!’ he spat, shaking with hatred. ‘Just like you told me!’_

_Halward was pale, his eyes a little red around the edges from the alcohol, but they were fixed upon Dorian without the slightest waver. _ _‘You had no right!’ _

_‘No right to hear you dictate the entirety of my fucking life?’_

_‘A private conversation is intended to be just that! _Private_!__’_

_‘Well it wasn’t private!’ Dorian screamed, tears running down his face much to his dismay but it didn't stop him, didn’t come close to dousing the raging inferno within. ‘And you… you had no right to refuse him!’_

_Halward sneered, eyes darkening. _ _‘Do not delude yourself to be in love with such a man, you fool. He is vicious and cunning. If he came here tonight to ask for you—’_

_‘THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE GIVEN ME TO HIM!’_

_‘You’re a _child_, Dorian, and however little you may think of yourself, I am your Father and I will not see you throw your life away with someone like him!__’_

_‘I’m not going to the Order, you can’t make me!’_

_‘You’ll go where I tell you to so long as you live under my roof!’_

_‘I don’t _want_ to live under your fucking roof, don__’t you understand? Why didn’t you let him take me? You’d have been rid of me like I know you truly want!’_

_‘What is happening here?’_

_Aquinea_ _’s voice cut through the household like a whiplash, strong and absolute. Dorian wiped his eyes and turned away. He clamped a hand over his mouth to keep from being sick, to keep everything inside that he was desperate to scream out. _

_‘Nothing, nothing my dear, go back to bed.’_

_‘Halward.’ Her voice was unyielding. ‘Stop this immediately. I will not be dismissed in such a way.’ She walked down the stairs, silken night robes wrapped around her. ‘My love,’ she addressed Dorian, softer and entirely concerned. ‘What is wrong?’_

_When she held her arms out to him, he couldn__’t help but go to her. He felt like he was shaking apart, struck deep by the crushing disappointment and then added devastation of realising he was going to be sent away somewhere fucking _awful_. She took him without pause, arms encircling him immediately and, even though he was taller than her now, he hid his face in the crook of her neck like he had when he was a child. _

_‘Tell me, my darling,’ she whispered, ringed hands moving over his back soothingly. ‘Whatever it is, you can tell me.’_

_Dorian didn't care about Halward, he didn__’t care about propriety or society or expectation. He had to… to say it, just once. It would _break_ him when she pushed him away in disgust but he was weak, so fucking weak and he couldn__’t stop himself. _

_‘Momma,’ he breathed, tightening his arms about her as if to keep her from leaving which she would, he knew. ‘I don’t… like girls.’_

_Her hands never stopped moving, soothing circles just the way he liked. _

_‘Oh my baby boy,’ she said softly. ‘Is that what this is about?’_

_She drew away and smiled at him__… she fucking _smiled, _and proceeded to wipe away his tears. __‘I know that, my love. Did you think I didn’t know?’_

_Dorian stuttered inelegantly, suddenly faced with a reality he had never once believed possible. _ _‘N-no, I… Mother I didn’t… how long have you…?’_

_She smoothed his hair back and studied him fondly, intently. _ _‘I’ve known for many years,’ she told him evenly. ‘Perhaps always.’_

_Halward__’s voice struck a fracture through Dorian’s dreamlike state. ‘Aquinea, you _knew_?__’_

_She glanced coldly at her husband then. __‘He is my son. I _made_ him. I know him inside and out.__’_

_The lump in Dorian_ _’s throat swelled painfully. He squeezed his eyes shut and tipped his face downward. ‘Do you… hate me?’_

_Aquinea Pavus let out a kind of gasp, an indignant breath. __‘My _darling, _I could never hate you. Never. You are who you are and I love you regardless.__’_

_Dorian felt almost dizzy. He sobbed slightly because in that moment, he was certain that he was dreaming. This could not be real. It was a trick, a cruel trick by a demon determined to seduce him into despair. _

_She placed her thumb beneath his chin and lifted him to look at her through tear clouded eyes. _ _‘Do you hear me, Dorian? I love you regardless. Hear that if nothing else.’_

_He tried to root himself in the moment, convince himself it was real and slowly, he began to believe. It was hardly a perfect moment after all, what with Halward standing nearby, doubtlessly scowling more and more with every passing moment. _

_‘You do?’ he breathed, daring to speak. _

_She smiled and no matter how Dorian railed against rules, against restrictions and the path his parents encouraged him to walk, his mother_ _’s smile still felt like the sun to him. ‘Of course I do. Nothing will ever change that.’_

_They hugged again and Dorian felt that if he didn_ _’t cling hard enough to her he might genuinely float away, he was that light. His dread, years’ worth of compounded dread and actual terror at seeing the love in his mother’s eyes fade upon realising who and what he was… it was for nothing. He’d worried unduly. Yes, his father was disgusted by him, ashamed of him, but his mother…_

_Still loved him. _

_When they drew back she laughed softly and adjusted the silky shirt of his night clothes. _ _‘Now what is all this yelling in aid of? Tell me so that I might fix everything.’_

_*_

The magic was more than ready this time, the _fourth_ time that Dorian had ever bled and set that blood aflame with the oldest and strongest kind of magic known to mages. It didn’t hurt when it expanded, it wasn't uncomfortable beneath his skin.

When he made lightning again, it was stronger than the real thing. Hotter and whiter, the impact enough to shatter the air around the shield when it collided and his eardrums could not withstand the pitch. He was knocked back by the sheer force of the blast, colliding hard with the ground as rain began to fall softly above him. He barely felt it on his face and the total lack of sound was deeply disorienting. He struggled to sit, chest screaming in protest but he grit his teeth and forced himself up. The force had knocked a few demons down, killed a couple or so he hoped. Morrigan was battling them still.

The Venatori’s ritual remained undisturbed but they had no shield now.

_We are ready_, his magic growled, powerful and focused. _Let us loose._

Dorian did just that. His staff lay on the dirt, blood seeping through his torn skin, trickling all down his front but it was just _fuel. _He thrust both arms out, fingers extended as far as they would go.

The magic shot from him like a slingshot drawn back just shy of snapping. It tore into the twelve mages, formless and shapeless save but to cause pain, to rip and to _rent_. Light flashed and the magic went to work hurting them. Their screams were loud and Dorian let his eyes flutter closed for a moment, head tipped back as the rain washed over him. It felt undeniably _good_, fucking incredible even. It was no cast, no spell, no _lesson_ learned years ago and put to good use.

It was simply his magic, _his magic_ and it was beautiful.

It didn’t kill them all, no. Dorian knew one would be useful as prisoners and so he allowed one Venatori to simply be cracked but not broken. It kept coming from him, that magic, his magic. Could Cullen feel it, he wondered?

_Cullen_.

The light from the pile of bodies stuttered quickly and faded when the last of the mages fell, screaming and writhing on the damp grassy earth. A vile, high-pitched scream pierced the air, but Dorian could only hear it distantly as if he had his hands over both ears. It had to be the dragons falling, fading back into death once more.

He let the magic drop, brought it back inside himself and pressed his hands to the wounds on his chest, grunting with pain. The demons were dead all around him, his magic had taken care of them too. Morrigan was staring at him, eyes wide as rain pelted them both.

‘We need at least one of them!’ Dorian yelled, though it was barely a whisper to his own damaged ears. ‘Bring him with us!’

*

They made it back to the main camp without dragons to light up the sky. Without them, the battle was still in full swing but Dorian felt that their chances were at least decent now that they didn’t have to contend with motherfucking _reanimated dragons_. Dragons, he thought bitterly as Morrigan dragged a screaming, sobbing Venatori ahead of him, that he’d helped kill once _already_, many months ago.

‘There!’ It was Cassandra, pointing through the rain as Dorian, Morrigan and the deeply unwilling Venatori made their way through the perimeter forces. They’d help up well enough, but their losses were significant. They’d protected much of the other forces from what was, judging by the ocean of goo and ooze Dorian stepped through, a simply massive onslaught of demons. ‘Help them!’

Strong arms caught Dorian about the waist and he winced. ‘He’s hurt!’ Rylen yelled back through the rain, through the dull roar of thousands fighting for their lives. ‘Bring the medic!’

The blood loss was extreme, Dorian knew that. Perhaps he should have saved some of his magic to attempt to heal himself. That was funny. He started laughing and Rylen shot him a profoundly concerned look before bracing more of Dorian’s weight and moving faster.

‘How did you—?’ Cassandra asked Morrigan as men took the Venatori off her hands.

Morrigan glanced at Dorian, something like _respect_ in those yellow eyes.

‘He did it,’ she answered quickly. ‘He did it all.’

Dorian wanted to say something witty, he was sure he had an impressive repertoire in there somewhere but… he began to feel so _tired_ again. Like he could barely keep his eyes open. It was the blood loss, but it was like his dream the other night, the last time he’d slept. He felt submerged, watching the world around him from behind a sheet of water, from behind glass.

‘What did this?’ someone demanded, someone _rude_ and Dorian wanted to comment but again, his lips would not move. ‘Demon, was it? Pavus, you hear me?’

The man in front of him lightly slapped his face but Dorian couldn’t make himself respond. He began to panic, wondering if he was actually _dying_ and this was just how it went down. Retreating inward, becoming stuck inside without being able to control anything.

‘Is he in shock?’ Cassandra asked as Dorian was brought into a tent, a massive fireball spit forth from a trebuchet flying overhead. ‘Can you heal him?’

Dorian was laid on some kind of bed, rickety and highly uncomfortable. He wasn’t able to do anything beyond stare and breathe. The desire to sleep, to fade away and rest was compelling but he knew he shouldn’t. He could not afford the luxury of rest especially if that rest was _death_.

‘It’s not so bad,’ the medic said, frowning down at him, pouring all kinds of potions over the mage’s exposed chest. ‘Punctured ear drums here. Lacerations on his chest avoided internal organs. Blood loss is massive, though.’ He looked back at Cassandra. ‘He used blood magic.’

Peripherally, Dorian could see that Cassandra’s lips thinned but other than that she showed no reaction. ‘Heal him, do the best you can. He has to live. We’re all lost if the Commander hears anything to the contrary.’

_Cullen_. Something inside Dorian stirred and awoke and his magic, exhausted and worn, shrank back. Dorian didn’t understand, it was difficult to understand fucking _anything_ when he was this tired.

The _something_ was interested in Cullen, though. Dorian could feel it. He didn’t like it. This _something_ was not himself, he knew that much.

_Sleep, little blood mage_, it suggested in a way so unlike his magic that it terrified Dorian. It felt malevolent and it had all its focus set upon that name, upon that beautiful man who bore it. _It is my turn._

Dorian didn’t want to sleep. He struggled and he railed but it was no use. Consciousness slipped away like water in his hands and the last thing he heard was his own mouth shaping Cullen’s name.

*

When Dorian awoke, it was immediate. He was standing upright, he was _moving_ for Maker’s sake and when he realised all of this, he promptly panicked and stumbled. He threw out his arms to brace against the impact of landing, hands plunging into thick, squelching mud. The rain was relentless and the night raged on around them.

His chest hurt but it was nothing to the previous pain and he could hear again which was wonderful but…

What the _fuck_?

The sounds of clanging swords had died down greatly from before and when he looked around he saw he was on the very edge of the battlefield, heading elsewhere. He pushed up onto his wet knees, twisting to see behind him. The battle was almost over or so he thought, at least. He was _leaving_ it, which made no sense.

And why was he moving around without realising it?

Blood loss, he decided, shaking himself off and carefully getting to his feet once more. Blood loss could cause all kinds of things to happen. Dizziness, hallucinations, blackouts.

He headed back the way he evidently came judging by his own rapidly fading footprints in the mud, the way shone by the moon, Satina, no longer burdened by heavy clouds in her part of the sky. Dorian didn’t have a clue where the fuck he was, what was happening.

It would be fine, he just had to find…

He paused, boot sinking into the mud as he faltered. Cullen. He remembered something stirring inside him, interested in Cullen. He remembered his magic being _afraid_ of it. He placed both hands over his chest as if to _feel_ what might be there. His palms met sopping wet bandages and a bright flash of sensitive pain, but he couldn’t feel anything else.

Except… the sensation of being _watched_ from within.

‘Dorian!’ someone was yelling up ahead. ‘Dorian, get your arse down here!’

It was Sera. Dorian exhaled shakily, not realising he’d been holding his breath. He moved towards her, not looking back to see where he’d been intent on going, the dark hill that beckoned mysteriously.

‘The frig did’ja go?’ she demanded, furiously yanking him into a hug. He yelped high and loud and she let go, wincing. ‘Sorry, sorry! Chest clawed open by a demon, hard to remember that. But where the void were you? Cullen nearly lost it when you took off! You can’t do that to him!’

‘I don’t—I have no memory of what happened.’

‘Did you fall down?’ she asked, eyes raking over his mud drenched form, the ooze all the way up his wrists. ‘Smack your head?’

‘M-maybe,’ he said, teeth chattering slightly from the cold or from other things the mage didn’t dare examine. ‘What’s happening? Where is everyone?’

‘Back this way,’ she said and took him by the hand.

*

The look in Cullen’s eyes made it very clear that Dorian, however _inadvertently_, had very much broken his promise about not ever letting Cullen think he was dead again. Cullen, Cassandra, Lavellan and Solas were all together as the fighting came to a halt, the battle against demons and Venatori over with as the rain poured on. They stood beneath a makeshift shelter, a table laid out before them.

‘At long last!’ Solas greeted, sarcastic and highly belligerent. ‘Taking a mud bath were you?’

‘Dorian,’ Lavellan said, reaching for his arm and offering a brief squeeze. ‘Where the void did you go?’

Dorian took in the state of them. Sera was marked with blood that likely wasn’t her own, the spatter recognisable as the kind that rogues tended to become smothered in. Cassandra seemed in good form save for an already healed cut on her neck. Solas was damp and foul tempered, he positively reeked of burnt out mana and Cullen…

‘You’re hurt,’ Dorian blurted out, eyes locking on the Commander’s exposed shoulder, exposed fucking _chest_ now that his brain was functioning once more. He hadn’t actually noticed that Cullen was standing there, entirely _without _a shirt or armour, thick bandages wrapped around his shoulder and spanning across his chest to stay in place. He was bloody and bruised, hair reddish gold at the tips, mud running up the side of his body that _wasn__’t_ bandaged and on his hand was a pretty serious looking burn. ‘Cullen, you’re _hurt_!’

Everyone reeled at that, Cullen most of all. ‘What?’

Dorian took a step forward, reaching for his hand. It was blackened and horribly singed, but not by natural fire. The fire those monstrous dead dragons had poured from their puppet mouths. ‘Why haven’t you healed it?’ he demanded of Solas.

Solas’s eyes narrowed in part suspicion, part curiosity.

‘He hit his head,’ Sera said on Dorian’s behalf. ‘Doesn’t seem to remember.’

Outside, the low but persevering cheer of soldiers grew louder as they solidified their victory.

Cullen examined Dorian quickly, good hand moving through the mage’s ruined hair. ‘There’s no sign of injury. Dorian, what’s the last thing you remember?’

‘I…’ he trailed off, thinking, trying to ignore the sensation of a pair of _eyes_ set upon him from within. ‘Coming back with Morrigan.’

‘That was at least two hours ago,’ Cassandra breathed, glancing at the elven apostate. ‘Is it blood loss, do you think?’

Solas considered. ‘Possibly, though he responded well to the regenerative potions. It could be the absence of his magic. Whatever the reason, we cannot risk taking him to the Temple.’

‘What?’ Dorian yelled. ‘No, I’m _coming_!’

_‘Dorian_,’ Cullen addressed him, pulling his focus back where it belonged, so much concern in those light brown eyes that it hurt to behold. ‘You’re not well. You shouldn’t come, it’s too dangerous.’

Dorian hissed with frustration. They didn't understand; he felt strong and fast and powerful. They needed him, they would fail without him.

‘No, I’m coming with you,’ he said not leaving any room for doubt. ‘And you’re right, it was blood loss but I’m fine now and no force in Thedas or _void_ will stop me.’

‘Do you truly remember nothing of the last few hours?’ Lavellan asked gravely. ‘Nothing of questioning the Venatori?’

‘No, nothing. Why, what did he say?’

‘He spoke of a great many things,’ Cullen explained slowly, almost hesitantly. ‘Dorian, how can you not remember?’

‘It doesn’t matter. It was blood loss.’ He was telling himself as much as the others. ‘Someone bring me up to speed?’

Behind him, a voice was calling for the Inquisitor. Cassandra and Lavellan shifted and began to head that way. ‘Solas, heal Cullen’s hand now that Dorian is back. Find us when you’re done.’

‘What does that mean? Now I’m back?’ Dorian asked, once more examining Cullen’s charred and horribly mangled left hand, the hand he’d bled from years ago, the hand he used their magic with.

The magic.

Dorian felt a dark, terrible stab of realisation. Their magic was _gone_.

His mouth fell open, free hand flying to his chest but Cullen was quick to reassure him.

‘No, it’s inside me. It’s fine.’

Dorian gaped. ‘_What?__’_

_‘_As I was saying before you turned tail and _fled_,’ Solas drawled impatiently. ‘For whatever reason, your magic has become almost entirely housed inside of Cullen. Most likely due to your lack of consciousness or perhaps the effort of the blood magic you performed.’

While he explained, in a manner that made it clear he was explaining this for the _second_ time, Cullen was constantly touching Dorian, a small line dented into his forehead. Concern, worry, confusion. He ran his sword hand over Dorian’s skin, over his leather, his face. It was gentle and caring but there was something _probing_ about it too, something seeking.

‘Your magic is acting defensively inside of Cullen. The burn on his hand is magical and therefore requires a specific kind of magic to heal it. All attempts have thus far failed. We were trying to have you call back the magic, after you finished questioning the Venatori. He spoke only Tevene and mine is, at best, rusty.’

‘I don’t remember any of that.’

‘Do you remember why you ran?’

‘I… maybe I felt sick.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Cullen said when Solas took a breath to doubtlessly spew more judgemental snark. ‘He’s here now.’

Dorian felt inside of himself, looking _in_ and finding a gaping hole where his magic should have been. The blood magic had been so extreme that it had almost entirely severed his connection to the Fade and what little trickled back in immediately fled into Cullen, building there in his reservoir. The connection between them, usually thick and strong and wholly resplendent was dull and thin. On the other end, Dorian could feel it, their magic, hiding within Cullen like a frightened animal.

A slew of Tevene curses fell from Dorian’s lips before he shook himself to get a grip. There wasn't time, no fucking _time_ for any of this.

‘Come on then,’ he said aloud to his magic. ‘It’s fine, come on.’

The magic did not budge.

Cullen’s concern doubled, Dorian could almost feel it.

‘Well?’ Solas enquired. ‘I _do_ actually have other people to heal, you know.’

‘Go heal them,’ Cullen said quickly, as close as he ever came to snapping at anyone. ‘I won’t die of a burn, we’ll deal with it later.’

Dorian didn’t watch Solas leave but he knew if he did, he would have seen an impressive scowl on those usually placid features.

Once he was gone, Cullen dropped all pretence of holding himself back. Uncaring for the state of things, he brought their mouths together in a burning, desperate kiss which Dorian was helpless to return. It was a point of safety, that kiss. Gravity when falling, a port in a storm. Dorian clung to Cullen as best he could, not wanting to disturb the bandages or his damaged hand but…

‘Fuck, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ he confessed shakily against Cullen’s lips, their noses bumping as he angled to better slant, to better _slide_. ‘What’s happening to me?’

Cullen couldn’t hold him, not with his hand in such a state but they pressed close, Cullen’s bare skin finding Dorian’s through the slashes in his armour. Their kiss was messy and interwoven with distress, both seeking comfort and assurance and _love_ when surrounded by such horrors, known and unknown.

‘Don’t leave me again,’ Cullen whispered in a voice so small it near broke the mage’s heart anew. ‘Please.’

Dorian closed his eyes hard and swallowed over the lump. ‘I- I won’t.’

‘You just turned and fled and I couldn’t follow you.’

‘Has the magic been inside you this whole time?’

‘Ever since I came to you in the medical tent, yes.’ Cullen let out a trembling breath and it affected his words when he said, ‘I thought you were dying. That your… _our_ magic was leaving you because you were dying.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘This is now the _fourth_ time.’

‘It’s not intentional, I swear to you.’

Cullen put a small amount of distance between them, clearly trying to steady himself. ‘How do you feel?’

‘I ache all over, my chest hurts. I can feel the absence of the magic, though. That’s the worst thing.’

‘Why is it afraid of you?’

‘I don’t… I don’t _know_,’ Dorian said, guilt burning down his spine. He felt terrible, like he’d kicked a puppy. His magic was real and it was alive and fuck, Cullen was right, it was afraid of him. ‘Maybe it’s the blood magic.’

But that did not ring true at all. Dorian remembered, with crystal clarity, how that magic had poured fourth proudly, eagerly and with remarkable _ease_ to decimate the Venatori and rid their armies of the plague of necromanced dragons. It hadn’t been hesitant or afraid then, not at all.

‘Commune with it,’ Cullen suggested, stroking Dorian’s face. ‘While we have a moment to breathe.’

Dorian didn't waste the moment. He went still, safe in Cullen’s space, and let himself look within. It was dark, pitch black without the glittering coils of that strong, beautiful power he’d come to love. In the darkness, buried in the walls of it, was something else. Something _evil_.

A shiver ran up Dorian’s back and fear kicked out a breath without his consent.

‘There’s something there,’ he said, shaking his head and opening his eyes quickly, letting himself feel grounded by the very sight of Cullen. ‘Something bad.’

‘Something bad,’ Cullen echoed slowly. ‘That’s what the magic is afraid of?’

‘I think so. There’s hardly any magic inside me to commune _with, _but that has to be it. Can you feel the magic inside you?’

‘To an extent. It’s always inside me, just not this _much_. I can feel how much it’s afraid, how it’s hiding.’

Dorian hated that. He _hated_ anyone being afraid of him, still remembered how much it stung to realise it when he’d first come South. To see an immutable fear in the faces of strangers, to know that the reason they scowled was the same reason a dog bares teeth to a grizzly.

‘Maybe it’s the curse,’ he uttered, stomach clenching.

‘The—_my_ curse?’

Dorian didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to shatter Cullen’s belief that somehow everything had gone back to normal, or whatever their version of normal was, but he couldn’t keep lying.

‘Perhaps, yes.’

Something passed over Cullen’s face then, a kind of slow dawning realisation. ‘Dorian, have you lost time like this before?’

‘I don’t know, maybe. Maybe… that night.’

Cullen’s hand covered his mouth and Maker, the _look_ in his eyes.

‘That night.’

‘I don’t remember much about it, I think maybe I forgot how we got into the tent after dinner, but that’s not a lot of time really. It could _genuinely_ be blood loss, both times it happened are when I spilled blood and found myself completely exhausted.’

The hand over Cullen’s mouth was taut, everything about him was rigid and stiff. When he slowly lowered it, Dorian wasn’t sure what to expect but it definitely wasn’t for Cullen to blink tears down his face.

‘I… we slept together that night.’

Dorian was bemused. ‘We _always_ sleep together.’

Cullen shook his head tightly. ‘No, Dorian.’

Dorian didn’t understand… right up until he did.

His jaw slackened, realisation making him momentarily lightheaded as the pieces fell into place, jagged little bits twisting and turning to make sense.

Carefully, he lifted his hand to his neck, to the place Cullen’s mouth was naturally drawn to. He peeled back the leather and his fingertips found the almost entirely faded ache but… but there was something _there_ still. Slightly raised, slightly rough.

‘Did you mark me?’ he asked, voice trembling. ‘Did you _scar_ me?’

Cullen swallowed hard and shook his head. ‘You—you told me to.’

*

_‘I’ll tell you what’s happening,’ Halward snarled, lifting a finger to point at Dorian accusingly. ‘Your precious son has become involved with Allendas of all mages! It is why he came tonight, to ask me to hand Dorian over to him under the guise of an apprenticeship!’_

_Aquinea frowned slightly, but didn_ _’t seem angry. ‘My love, is this true?’_

_‘Of course it’s true!’ Halward spluttered. _

_‘I am speaking to my son!’_

_She waited for Dorian to fill the growing silence and after a long, painful beat, he pushed himself to be honest. It didn_ _’t come naturally, hadn’t for many years. ‘Yes, it’s true. We became involved last year. I didn’t realise he was coming here though and certainly not to ask for that. Mother, please. Please let me go to him.’_

_‘Darling, you are too young for an apprenticeship. You’re going to complete your education first.’_

_Dorian let slip a small sob. __‘Don’t send me to the Order of Argent. _Please_.__’_

_‘I’m afraid there is nowhere else to send you,’ she said, tone soft with regret. ‘And even then, the fees of obtaining you a placement were extraordinary. It’s one more year and then we will find you a suitable apprenticeship if that is what you truly want.’_

_‘No, no. I won’t go there. I… Mother, please. Please let me go to Allendas.’_

_And there, the thing he_ _’d been dreading; her mouth pursed slightly and a touch of that cool steel that Aquinea Pavus innately possessed came into her eyes. _

_‘You cannot go to him, you know that.’_

_‘I don’t know that!’ Dorian exclaimed, pushing away from her. ‘I want to learn under his tutelage. He sees the potential in me unlike every other Circle you’ve ever shunted me into! I’ll be good, so good! I’ll make you proud, you’ll see! Just… just let me go to him.’_

_Halward made a sound of abject disgust but Aquinea showed no such emotions. _ _‘Darling,’ she said, quiet and empty. ‘No.’_

_Dorian_ _’s voice was so small, so childlike when he said, ‘But you… you said you still loved me. You didn’t hate me.’_

_‘I will always love you, you’re my son regardless. Many men tend towards one another, especially in their youth. There is nothing unnatural about such predilections despite what many would say, but… Dorian, you still have to marry.’ She said it like it was obvious, like Dorian was silly for having forgotten. ‘You must father a child. Our legacy lies with you and you cannot wed a man, cannot create a child with a man to continue our name.’_

_‘No.’_

_‘I know it’s difficult to realise, especially at such a confusing time. You should have come to me before, darling. I would have talked you through all of this.’_

_‘I won’t marry a woman.’_

_She laughed, it was kind. _ _‘Of course you will. You’ll marry her and you’ll create a new life, a new Pavus. You’ll marry her and if you prefer, you can indulge to your heart’s desire with as many men as make you happy, albeit subtly. It is hardly uncommon.’_

_‘Mother, I’m not marrying a woman. I can’t do that.’_

_‘Not yet, of course. A few more years I think. Education is the priority.’_

_His head spun, sickness crashing around inside him and he felt__… painfully, agonisingly _stupid _for ever allowing himself to believe that either of his parents would ever be anything less than what he__’d always dreaded. _

_His mother had been kind about it, but the path they charted for him had not deviated in the slightest. _

_‘I won’t do it.’_

_‘You will.’_

_‘I won’t.’_

_‘Dorian, you’ll do as we tell you. We are your parents; we love you and we know what is best for you.’_

_He wiped his eyes, stepping away from them both, staring at the perfectly polished floor. _ _‘I’ll go to Allendas.’_

_Halward said, _ _‘You’ll do no such thing!’_

_‘You cannot go to him, my darling. Whatever you think you feel for him, Allendas is of questionable repute, not to mention those grotesque experiments he’s involved with, working alongside Magister Danarius of all people.’_

_‘I don’t care!’ Dorian burst out. ‘I love him!’_

_Both his parents sighed; his mother with mild impatience, his father with disappointment. The latter _stung; _it burrowed under Dorian__’s skin and burned from beneath. _

_And it was a lie. Dorian didn_ _’t love Allendas, but he wanted the life that he could give him. He wanted the passion and the danger, didn’t care for reputation or squeamishness when it came to experimentation. Allendas pushed boundaries and Dorian wanted to do the same. There would be no better teacher, he was sure. _

_‘You do not love him,’ Aquinea said, utterly calm and confident. ‘Desire is not love. You must temper yourself, my son. Control what you want and seek out what you need. The difference between the two is always stark.’_

_‘You can’t make me marry a woman.’_

_‘We will find you an exemplary match. Someone you can befriend, someone you respect. An agreeable companion and someone to raise a child with.’_

_Dorian laughed bitterly, shaking his head. __‘It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? It doesn’t matter to you how much I beg or plead. The end result is the same. What _you _want.__’_

_Aquinea winced. __‘This is my fault. I should have spoken with you years ago, should have addressed your orientation. You were not to know that this is the way of such things. No. This is our failing, darling. Do not make yourself upset. We have failed you, but we’ll rectify this. A year to finish your education and then together, we will work to find you an apprenticeship of your choosing. Not Allendas, obviously, but an area that piques your interest. Then, after two years, a marriage to a woman over whom _you_ have the final say.__’_

_The way she offered it, Dorian knew she meant it generously. Abstractly, he knew it _was_ generous. More freedom than either of his parents had ever offered, but of course it wasn__’t really freedom. _

_‘Let me guild my own cage, that’s your offer?’_

_‘Marriage is a partnership,’ his mother pressed on. _

_Dorian sneered. __‘And what of _your_ partnership? You despise one another!__’_

_‘I greatly respect your Mother!’ Halward was quick to say. ‘We work well together and her goals are aligned with mine. What more could one ask for?’_

_‘Well I want _more_!__’ Dorian yelled. ‘I want more than you can offer; more than a loveless fucking marriage, trapped in a place where I’m forever misunderstood and reviled!’_

_‘But there is love,’ Aquinea insisted, taking a step towards her son. ‘You. You are the reason for all of it! We _love_ you. You are the reason we married, the reason we push so hard, strive to carve out a future befitting our beautiful son. And when you make a child with your wife, you will understand, Dorian. You__’ll hold that baby in your arms and want all the best for them. The best schools, the best education, the best partnership.’_

_‘And then… what? Treat that child as you treat me? Having a child for the sole purpose of continuing our family name? It is circular!’_

_‘It is the Tevinter way.’ _

_‘I will not do it. I will break your fucking circle!’_

_‘How dare you speak to your Mother in such a way!’_

_‘Halward, stop. This is not helping.’_

_‘Are you both deaf? I. Won’t. Do it! Your precious name dies with me!’_

_‘Darling, listen—’_

_‘No! Don’t call me that, don’t come at me with kindness and affection when… I was stupid enough to think you would actually accept me for who I am.’_

_‘Dorian,’ she said, confused and exasperated. ‘These are not arbitrary rules we impose upon you for cruel purposes. This is how things are, the way of _all_ life.__’_

_‘In Tevinter maybe.’_

_‘Oh, and I suppose you’d rather go slumming down South, then?’ Halward jeered unkindly. ‘Shack up with some Ferelden barbarian, some sword wielding Soporati? Do you know what they would do to you down there? Lock you in a rat-infested cell for the rest of your days, starved on bread and water and beaten whenever you use magic without express permission!’_

_‘I didn’t realise the Order of Argent had moved to the South!’ Dorian spat. _

_‘Stop this, you two! Halward, cease provoking him, this is difficult for him! Of course he’s not going South, don’t be so ridiculous. Dorian, I know you are suffering but in time, you will see that everything we do is for _you. _To keep you safe, to ensure the best possible life for you, our beautiful son.__’_

_Dorian was shaking all over, adrenaline and sheer despair twining together to make a kind of wall. _

_‘I’m not your son. I’m your legacy. That’s all.’_

_‘How can you say that?’_

_‘I say it because it’s true and I see it clearly for the first time.’ He wiped his nose, dried his eyes and took hold of himself, putting aside the part of him that had dared to believe he might actually be accepted for who he was, that he might have some say in how his life moved forward. ‘I’ll go to the Order,’ he said in a dead voice. ‘I’ll go tomorrow. Anywhere away from you two.’_

_‘My love, please—’_

_‘Leave him to his sulk, Aquinea,’ Halward said wearily, though perhaps a touch guiltily. ‘If he agrees to go, that’s all that matters for now. Take the victories where you can.’_

_‘Yes,’ Dorian said, locking eyes with his father then. ‘Take them where you can, _while_ you can.__’_

_It didn_ _’t feel like a victory, even though his father looked away first and much quicker than last time. Dorian put away the last of himself that was childish and hopeful and the loss cut deep but he buried that too. _

_‘We’ll make it right,’ Aquinea said, but she sounded uncertain. ‘You’ll see.’_

_‘No, Mother,’ Dorian said as he headed for the stairs, not looking at her once. ‘I don’t think you will.’_

_*_

‘Forgive me,’ Cullen breathed, his eyes wide and shining.

It came slowly, that truth. A cold, terrible thing that set the _something_ inside him smiling cruelly.

‘We… I don’t remember it.’ Dorian’s voice trembled. ‘I thought I dreamed it. There were bits and pieces but I wasn’t _there_.’

Cullen turned abruptly, hand flying back to his mouth and Dorian thought for a moment that he was going to be sick, but he didn't heave, his back didn’t roll. The mage wanted to touch him, to offer _comfort_ but he couldn’t move and not, this time, because he was falling backwards into himself.

‘I’m so sorry,’ came the whisper from Cullen. ‘Oh Maker, I’m so sorry.’

‘It wasn’t me,’ Dorian said slowly, shaking himself. ‘It wasn’t _me_.’

‘This can’t be happening.’

‘But it is. It’s—’

‘It _can__’t_ be.’

‘It’s him, Cullen. It’s Jassen. I can feel it. Our magic is terrified of it, of _him_.’

Cullen braced himself on the table, bad hand and all. ‘Jassen is dead.’

‘Apparently, not all of him. The letter, the anchor or whatever the fuck it is… it’s like you said, there’s a part of him caught in it. And now that I’m connected to the anchor, I suppose… he’s in _me_ now.’

‘Jassen is _dead_.’

A flare of impatience prickled through the mage. ‘Well, obviously _not_ seeing as how you _fucked_ _him_ the other night!’

He turned abruptly. Dorian regretted his cruel words the moment they’d left his mouth but that regret blossomed like blood from a death wound when he saw Cullen’s face, saw and _felt_ the agony of such an accusation.

‘I didn’t mean that, I’m—’

‘You weren’t there,’ Cullen gasped, whiter than Dorian had ever seen him, eyes brimming with dread. Some _new_ element of how Cullen had truly wronged Dorian was occurring to him then. ‘You weren’t _there_ and I… oh my God.’

‘Cullen, no, it wasn’t that.’

‘I—’

‘No!’ Dorian snapped, unable to let the word form, that awful, almost _onomatopoeic _word that stirred a base reaction in all who heard it. That word could never, ever apply to them, to what they had. They played games, they tested boundaries but it was always, _always _safe. There was always a safety net, always a way back. That _word_ was intolerable and Dorian would not let it form. ‘No, never! You… I… just _no_!’

But Cullen was beyond reassurance. He was struck deeply by the horror, by the sickening realisation that for that night, for that _experience, _Dorian had not been present. Had not been there to _consent_ to what he’d done to his neck, even though it was something the mage had begged for a dozen times before or more.

‘What else was it, then?’ he demanded shakily. ‘You weren’t _there. _It was your body and I just…’

Dorian could not stand it. He took Cullen’s face in his hands and made him look, held him fast.

‘Don’t you _dare,__’ _he intoned as strong as he could make it. ‘Don’t you fucking dare! It wasn’t that, it would never be _that_, no matter the circumstance.’

Cullen let out a kind of sob, a broken breath and a noise that had not formed right and Dorian couldn’t take it.

‘Never, never you hear me? If I was there, we’d have done the exact s-same thing. It’s no different than me not remembering it. I love you, you hear me? I love you and I’m yours.’

‘Dorian, _stop_.’

‘No, because I know exactly what you’re going to do next.’

Cullen lifted his hands to grip Dorian’s wrists as his jaw locked, teeth slightly bared. ‘No you don’t.’

‘Yes, I fucking well do!’ the mage snapped. ‘You’re going to leave as soon as this battle is done and go in search of this master, in search of whatever you think is responsible for this, Jassen or otherwise, no you _look _at me! I know that’s what you want to do but Cullen, _think_.’

‘I can’t think,’ Cullen ground out, tears spilling down his face. ‘I’ll find him, I’ll find the root of all this and rip it out, I swear to you!’

‘Cullen, listen to me! Do you remember what Lavellan said about Hawke?’

‘I don’t care about Hawke!’

‘He’s the lure, that’s what she said! And this… this is a lure too. Why else have you scar my neck? Why else commit something so petty and cruel? Whoever this is, _whatever_ this is, it wanted me to know what happened and it wanted _you_ to think you… that you.’

Cullen ground out, ‘That I fucking _raped _you?’

Dorian winced. ‘But you _didn__’t_.’

‘Dorian, you weren’t _there_. How can it be anything but that?’

‘This is the lure, Cullen. To drive you mad with anger, to drive you right to him. You _cannot_ leave.’

‘I would not leave the battle—’

‘I’m not _stupid_, far from it. I know you, Cullen. I _know_ you’ll try and leave, alone, as soon as this is done.’

‘Whoever did this,’ Cullen panted, eyes blazing in torment. ‘I’ll rip their spine out, I swear to the Maker, by all that I believe in, I will tear it out with my bare fucking hands!’

‘Yes, you will,’ Dorian said, nodding and smoothing Cullen’s face slightly as if he were a wild dog who required slow, soothing movements. ‘And I will be there with you, every step of the way.’

He didn’t like that. ‘No.’

‘Again, just a little bit smarter than you, my love. Leliana told me that whoever this is, they want you to come to them friendless and alone, _isolated_. Cullen, you cannot give in to this.’

The Commander screwed his eyes tight and let out a small noise, something vulnerable and heartbroken. ‘I hurt you.’

‘I _love_ it when you hurt me,’ Dorian tried to laugh, but it came out so fucking weak that he couldn’t help but despise himself for not being stronger. ‘This is _nothing_. An attempt to drive you from me and we’re not going to let that happen, are we? Cullen? We’re _not_ going to walk into a fucking trap, are we?’

‘No,’ he whispered.

‘No,’ Dorian agreed sternly. ‘Whatever this is, be it your curse exacerbated by the blood magic or a piece of Jassen or _whatever_ \- it doesn’t matter. We’re together and we’re not going to separate, are we?’ Cullen resisted and Dorian shook his face again for emphasis, back teeth grinding together, eyes stinging with tears. ‘_Are we_?’

‘No, we’re not.’ Cullen reached for the scruff of Dorian’s filthy, mud smothered collar and used it to bring them closer, foreheads touching. ‘We’re not, I swear it. I swear on my love for you. I won’t leave you.’

‘Nor I you. There’s no fucking _world_ without you, Cullen. Don’t leave me behind and I _promise_ I’ll never do the same.’

Cullen clung hard to Dorian then, pressing them together dangerously, desperately close. Dorian felt the heat radiating from his bare chest, could taste the burnt magic circulating the air around his damaged hand.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he rasped.

‘That’s the last time I’ll ever let you say it,’ Dorian warned and that time, by the grace of whatever Gods existed, it _did_ come out strong. It was solid and reliable. ‘You have _nothing _to apologise for. Nothing. I forgive you your sins and you forgive me mine.’

He nodded once, no words but Dorian took it.

‘We… we have to go,’ Cullen said reluctantly. ‘There’s so much—’

Dorian kissed him quickly, a soft touch of their lips because he _needed _it. He always needed it to an extent, but there was a fracture between them and he had to close it, seal it with the only thing that _could_ heal such a fracture.

There was no hesitance from Cullen, no attempt to pull away. He returned the kiss, seeking out that deepest contact and drawing Dorian into him. As they kissed, lips sliding over lips and tongues brushing, Dorian pressed his hand to Cullen’s bare chest.

_Come back, _he bade gently. _Come back to me. I__’m so sorry. I’ll protect you from now on, I swear it. Come back to me._

They didn’t stop kissing, not slowing down even a little. Cullen had once asked Dorian to kiss him like he loved him, Dorian had never been able to forget that. Especially not when it was the way Cullen kissed him every _single_ time. All passion and devotion and nothing held back.

_We were not strong enough_, his magic whispered, so small, so sad. Dorian’s brow creased and his chest contracted.

_I will protect you, both of us will. I_ _’m listening to everything you say now, I will always listen. Forgive me and return. _

_He comes when we are weak_, the magic confessed in a secret kind of way and Cullen let out a small noise of surprise.

‘Maker,’ he gasped against Dorian’s lips. ‘I can _hear it_!’

‘Keep kissing me,’ Dorian said. ‘It likes it when we kiss.’

_We love it when you kiss, when you touch and when you play. You are strongest together._

Dorian made the space inside him as wide as possible. The _something_ still lurked there but… it was displeased, confidence knocked.

_Come home, _he whispered to it without ever saying a word. _Come home._

Slowly, cautiously, their magic began to uncoil within Cullen, within the confines of that place it so loved but could not _truly_ sustain without endless blood to fuel it. It belonged in Dorian _and_ Cullen, equally between them both. With trepidation, it began to trickle back into Dorian once more, into that place inside him.

Dorian smiled a little because it felt _wonderful_ to have it return to him. He’d missed it like the better part of himself, like having a limb hacked off only to grow it back once more. Once fully inside Dorian again, that part that was more _Cullen__’s_ end then slid back inside him, creating what had once been a thread but was too strong to be snapped now. A rope, a bridge, a _bond_.

‘There now,’ Dorian said, pressing a final, careful kiss to Cullen’s lips. ‘That’s better.’

Inside him once more, the magic unfurled and searched, wary and determined. Protectively, it swore to guard Dorian from harm and Cullen too.

_We are a family_, it said, glaring around at the mystical space within Dorian’s mage body. _And we belong together, always._

‘We do,’ Cullen said, surprising Dorian. ‘Families… stay together.’

Something loosened in Dorian’s chest at last, finally letting himself _believe_ that Cullen was not going to do something monumentally stupid.

‘Families take care of each other,’ Dorian added, blinking rapidly and swallowing slightly, taking in the sight of Cullen, _his_ Cullen. Bandaged and bloodied and still suffering a burn that must have caused untold agony and yet, giving Dorian everything he wanted, everything he _needed_. ‘Or at least this one does.’

‘I love you,’ Cullen said. There was strength in it, determination. ‘And I’m going to marry you.’

‘Then put your shirt on, Commander,’ Dorian said, finally finding the ability to step back and away. ‘Because take you for your humble origins I might, but I’m _not_ marrying you in a muddy field surrounded by demon ooze.’

Cullen’s smile was precious and it was almost entirely genuine. Dorian treasured it all the same, would take whatever he could get and return it tenfold. He would _show_ Cullen that he had nothing to be sorry for, that everything was fine between them.

‘Solas should be able to heal your hand now,’ Dorian pointed out as Cullen strapped his armour back on quickly with the ease born of familiarity. ‘What did I miss with the battle?’

Cullen adjusted his sword and looked behind the mage, expression tightening. ‘I’ll show you.’

*

False dawn glowed ominously in the distance by the time Cullen’s hand was fully healed and Dorian understood the full scope of the battle. Had it not been for the dragons, losses would have been minimal. The demons were outnumbered ten to one and Venatori at least fifteen to one.

But the dragons had slaughtered _thousands_. It was a number Dorian couldn’t quite comprehend.

The perimeter forces were fairly decimated, the Red Templars had taken most of the brunt in keeping the inner forces safe. Dragon fire had targeted them first to make a clear path for the swathes of demons but some still remained and more were being found by the moment.

Samson, Dorian was oddly relieved to discover, had survived.

The auxiliary forces had come in hard when the dragons attacked, not a single person, however weary or wounded, satisfied to stand back and watch the carnage from a distance. Many of them had been taken out by three specific dragons, Cullen explained. The Orlesian forces had taken a significant hit too, but, so Dorian was told, a solid third remained alive and able to march if necessary.

Dorian wanted to wander the muddy fields and find familiar faces. He hadn’t seen Bull or Cole, despite being assured they were alive by a few soldiers. He hadn’t seen Haynes or Tommur, Rylen or even bloody _Varric. _Leliana he saw only from a distance, helping others or perhaps gathering what intelligence she deemed necessary.

‘We have to go,’ Lavellan said and Dorian sighed. He’d known it was coming but that made it no less painful. ‘Corypheus will go right for the Well.’

‘He does not know the best way,’ Morrigan said. ‘Our previous knowledge of the forest will buy us some time but we must go _now_.’

Cassandra and Cullen exchanged glances and she nodded. ‘I’m coming,’ Cullen said. ‘Cassandra is more than equipped to hold things down here in my absence. She managed for five months, I daresay another day will not find her lacking.’

‘Good,’ Lavellan said as Sera holstered her blades on her thigh for her. Lavellan had been forced to remain out of the way, protected by Sera and Cassandra for much of the battle. Her eyes met Dorian’s. She had already asked after him at least five times but this time she was asking something _else_. Asking if he was ready, if he was ready for more than whatever awaited them in this fucking Temple.

He was ready. He felt it.

‘Then we’re going,’ she said. Sera, Cullen, Solas, Dorian and Morrigan moved with her, watching her carefully navigate the treacherous terrain. ‘Let’s find this bastard and piss all over his party, shall we?’

Sera laughed and wrapped her arm about her partner as if it was anything but a subtle offer to hold her up, hold her steady.

Cullen walked beside Dorian, his freshly healed hand occasionally brushing against the mage’s.

*

The forest was mostly untouched, save for the outskirts. They moved through it as quickly as Lavellan could bear, the effort of moving at such a pace written all over her delicate features in sweat and pallor. They left behind the dark, sludgy certainty of the now quiet battlefield and moved towards the unknown.

Corypheus got there first.

*

Cullen held Dorian behind him, used their magic to shield them from the blast that positively split the atmosphere when Corypheus exploded. The sun was freshly rising, true dawn all around them when Dorian watched, in abject horror, as Corypheus erupted whole once more from _within_ a freshly dead, very human body. Cullen’s hand never left Dorian’s wrist and it pulled sharply, the Commander knowing when to stand and fight and when to run the fuck _away_.

*

By the time they came to the rituals, Cullen was half carrying Lavellan, taking almost all of her weight so that they could move fast enough through the winding labyrinth that was the Temple of Mythal.

‘We should keep moving,’ Cullen insisted, looking back at the large hole in the ground, a shortcut of sorts.

‘No!’ Morrigan argued sharply. ‘These rituals are in place for a _reason_! They must be observed.’

Lavellan winced and stood on her own two feet. ‘I know, we have to respect the sanctity of the Temple.’

Cullen neatly prevented himself from arguing when he clearly realised he would be outnumbered. Sera gave him a sad kind of smile, but the two of them were the minority. Lavellan had gone to such incredible lengths to protect the forest, to respect the Sentinels and those who guarded this place. Dorian agreed with her completely but he… understood. Cullen and Sera were the ones carrying her, the ones who could _feel_ how much this took from Lavellan, just to stand upright.

Dorian could feel it too, but more than that, he _knew_ Ellana Lavellan. He’d seen her wipe away tears in the Fade, grieving the loss of belief that she had been chosen for this by Andraste herself. He knew what it meant to _need_ to push on, to carve out that path for one’s self no matter how much or who it hurt.

‘The rituals must be observed,’ she ground out and Dorian didn’t miss how Cullen briefly took Sera’s hand in his own for a moment, but Lavellan definitely did.

*

Dorian took some small, savage pleasure in watching Solas and Morrigan run around lighting up tiles and snapping at each other whenever the other accidentally trod on one already lit. Lavellan was in no state to run _anywhere_, was in no state to fucking _amble_, let alone flee around figuring out ancient rituals.

They wanted it, they could _have _it, was the general attitude.

But they were quick at the very least and soon that door glowed blue, granting entry at last. Where possible, Cullen lifted Lavellan and carried her fully, despite her protests. They moved a lot faster that way.

*

The Petitioner’s Chamber was musty and the air was stale, speaking of doors unopened for many years. No sooner had the doors closed behind them than the back of Dorian’s neck prickled and his magic warned they were not alone.

Abelas was full of annoying _questions _and Lavellan, exerting tremendous effort to stand alone and unassisted, answered them to the best of her extent.

‘You went to great lengths to protect the forest,’ the elven Sentinel spoke, smooth and unaffected. ‘Trespassers you are, but you followed the Rites of Petition, even though you barely stand upright.’ Abelas beheld Lavellan for a long moment before he lowered his hand and said, ‘It has been many years since I awoke and was anything less than displeased with what this new, foreign world had to offer us. You will be guided to what you seek.’

It was all going rather well which meant that Abelas deciding to destroy the well and Morrigan pursuing in a feathery bout of panic came as absolutely no surprise whatsoever to Dorian.

*

The guide moved, if possible, even _slower_ than Lavellan. Dorian could see the muscles in Cullen’s jaw ticking as they were led through the silent and apparently, very _secret_ hallways and shifting rooms of the Temple. Lavellan leaned on Sera and Solas talked, mostly to himself, about the wonders of such a place. The guide was silent and snail-like and Dorian wanted to kick that stupid stick out from under him, but they followed, basically _strolling, _towards the Well.

But when at last they tasted fresh air, everything moved _very_ quickly.

*

‘Ellana,’ Cullen said in a voice Dorian so rarely heard outside of the two of them. ‘Consider this, _please_.’

She stared down into the water, that raven-haired elf. ‘I have. If anyone is to use the Well, it will be me.’

‘Ellie, _no_!’ Sera implored, but Lavellan didn't look up, didn’t look away once. ‘You don’t need this, let Morrigan have it! It’s called the well of frickin’ _sorrows_! Sorrows!’

‘I know you disapprove—’

‘Fucking _void_, that’s putting it lightly!’

‘Who’s to say what effect this will have on your current condition?’ Cullen pressed, taking a step forward and giving Dorian a very plain _help us here_ kind of glare. ‘Morrigan is, by all accounts, far better equipped to cope with whatever magic this is.’

Dorian stood by his best friend’s side and looked down into the shallow pool. It was strange, the way it called to him. He didn’t _want_ it precisely, but there was a hunger in the pit of his stomach, something calling out for all that knowledge, that understanding of mystical things.

‘You have nothing to prove,’ he told her very quietly.

She stared at it for a long time before stepping carefully into the water.

*

Dorian fell hard and painfully, ribs taking the brunt of the impact when he landed on familiar stones to a familiar _smell_ with the kind of light and overall chill he’d come to associate with one place only.

The mirror, the _Eluvian_ that Lavellan had opened for them, had taken them back to _Skyhold_. Lavellan fell through last and Cullen caught her, having only just come through himself so that she could close it behind them and prevent a greatly displeased Corypheus from following.

Sera got to her feet quickly and looked around. ‘Are we… home?’

Any relief Dorian felt at being back in Skyhold, the place he loved, filled with the _people_ he loved, quickly disintegrated when he realised that they had left the others, countless hundreds including their closest friends _behind_, a week away in the Arbor fucking Wilds.

‘We-we can go back, right?’ Sera said, touching the glass. ‘Tadwinks, you can control them now, the mirrory things, so—’

‘Abelas made it clear we could never return,’ Solas intoned, staring at the now dull glass coolly. ‘And I doubt the Eluvian is intact on the other side. There is no immediate threat to our people in the Wilds, not anymore. Corypheus has lost his army, every part of it. They will return within the week. We are here and for that, we should be grateful.’

‘Grateful? Sodding _grateful_?’

‘We must dispatch ravens immediately,’ Cullen said briskly, heading for the exit. ‘Let them know we are here and that they are to return.’

‘If we can lower Vivienne’s shield, then we can call Cole and he can pass the message onto Cassandra and Leliana,’ Dorian said.

The moment they opened the door, it was plain that something was wrong. A sick, creeping sensation ran over Dorian’s skin in warning, subtle and insidious. The sensation of _dread_, of a too still room, of the night without moons and stars.

‘We should take care,’ Morrigan said in a low tone. ‘Something is most definitely not _right_.’

‘Nothing new there,’ Dorian said, but the humour didn’t touch him. He was on high alert, magic coming to life inside he and Cullen, ready for whatever it was that soured the air so.

Stealthily, they left the small, stuffy room containing the Eluvian and ventured outside. The gardens were empty and quiet, the morning bright and freshly crisp all around them, but the feeling of something _not good_ pervaded.

Lavellan looked up at the sky as they crossed the garden, heading towards the shortcut that would take them into the hall.

‘Ellana?’ Dorian said, coming to a stop and looking back at her. ‘Are you all right?’

She shook herself and looked away. ‘I… yes.’

Solas looked at her curiously. ‘You sense something? The gift of the Well, perhaps?’

Self-consciously, she shook her hand as if it was hurting. ‘No, it’s nothing.’ Lavellan glanced ahead and Dorian heard a door swinging wide and banging on the wall as it opened. Sera had yanked it purposefully hard, her irritation had them all wincing, all but Cullen who was tense and ready, hand on the hilt of his sword.

‘Stay out here,’ he said in a tone that brokered absolutely no alternative. He went through the door and Dorian made to follow, to entirely disobey that ridiculous order when Cullen called back, ‘Come through, they’re in here.’

The hall was full of people, soldiers and guards, cooks and household staff. Dorian scanned them quickly, relief slamming into him hard when he saw his mages, saw Nalari’s golden hair creating a kind of halo as the sun streamed through coloured glass. Saffy was holding Dawn as they stood huddled together.

Dorian broke into a jog towards them. Nalari was… she’d been crying.

She met him halfway, throwing her arms around him and burying her face in his shoulder.

‘Darling,’ he greeted. ‘What is it? What—?’

Before he could finish, Landon also threw himself at Dorian, skinny arms wrapping about Dorian’s middle, followed by Pick, Marcus, Finn, Bastian and every other mage, save for Saffy who held a soundly sleeping Dawn. Dorian was simply drowning in little mages, being hugged from all angles.

‘All right, what’s happened?’ he asked seriously, patting whatever he could get a hold of, heads, shoulders, cheeks. ‘Come on, tell me.’

They drew back, sorrow etched in all their faces but also… a kind of trepidation that Dorian usually came to associate with an unwillingness to explain something.

‘Is everyone well?’ he asked, when no one ventured anything. ‘You all…’ his blood turned to water. ‘Where’s Keenan?’

Nalari sobbed and Dorian’s heart plunged into his stomach.

‘No, no, no,’ he said quickly. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s gone,’ Saffy said, rubbing Dawn’s back as the tiny thing slept, chin tucked over the young mage’s shoulder. Her voice was hard, unfeeling almost but Dorian knew her too well to mistake it for such. Saffy felt things very deeply, but rarely showed it. ‘With Hawke.’

Dorian spun around, wide eyes seeking out Cullen, seeking confirmation or denial of this. He saw the Commander and Lavellan speaking with Vivienne.

‘I’ll—I’ll be back,’ he said, disentangling his hand from Nalari’s. ‘Stay here, I’ll be right back.’

People were _crying_ as he moved through them, sniffling and shaking their heads, watching him with red rimmed eyes and he didn’t _understand_.

Cullen was so fucking pale when his eyes slammed shut, Vivienne’s hand on his arm, explaining something difficult and… where was Rainier? Where was Josephine? Lavellan turned away, shaking her head and Sera… Maker, _Sera_ was crying too.

‘What is it?’ he called out, closing the distance as fast as he could but it felt slow, each step like wading through treacle. ‘Cullen, what—?’

‘Dorian,’ Vivienne said, her voice rough and her demeanour entirely downtrodden. Her eyes met his and there was… some modicum of _grief_ there.

‘Tell me,’ he demanded, voice trembling.

‘There’s a lot to tell,’ she said, shaking her head. She looked positively gaunt, deeply unwell, truth be told. Cullen reached for Dorian as if to steady himself. ‘But Hawke is gone and by all accounts, he took Keenan with him. We think he went voluntarily.’

‘No,’ Dorian said. ‘He-he wouldn’t do that. Why do you think that?’

Solas was administering healing to Vivienne, his mouth pressed in a thin, determined line and when his eyes met Dorian’s, there was something mildly accusatory there.

‘Was there no elfroot?’ the apostate asked Vivienne tersely.

‘None,’ she answered, eyes closed as he healed whatever invisible wounds she was apparently afflicted with, though to Dorian, it looked more like sickness. ‘All stores were destroyed in what we thought was an accident, but now—’

‘Someone tell me what’s gone on!’ Dorian blurted out.

It was Cullen who told him, though he was so far in shock that he seemed to be running on the most basic of functions, voice flat, movements stilted and lifeless.

‘They were… being poisoned,’ he said. ‘Keenan was poisoning them.’

‘It was witchgrass,’ Vivienne said, her skin giving off a kind of glow as Solas finished healing her. ‘Thank you, that’s better. Please go to Thom, he’s refused everything, even water, let alone any attempt at healing. Nalari has tried her best but,’ Vivienne lowered her voice. ‘The girl is distraught. They all are.’

Dorian’s head positively swam, all manner of terrible things crashing around inside him.

‘Keenan wouldn’t do that,’ Dorian said, but it wasn’t strong, it wasn’t _certain. _‘He couldn’t.’

‘He did,’ Vivienne stated, swiping at her eyes. ‘He was poisoning us for days, weakening us or so we think. Us and the soldiers, the guards too. All in advance of him breaking Hawke free and the pair escaping the castle together. They left in the night, hardly anyone was able to even slow them down.’

‘Is everyone… all right?’

Vivienne shook her head and Lavellan took Sera in her arms.

‘Many guards died yesterday and at least a quarter of all returned forces, the sickest and worst injured. Some of the household staff too. It’s all happened within a day. We think it was in the tea.’

Cullen made a small, aborted movement and before he contained himself, Dorian was sure he’d been about to do something like punch whatever inanimate object was nearest, but he didn’t. It registered like a flinch, a full body movement in reaction to the horror Vivienne was spreading before them.

‘Maker,’ Dorian breathed, taking Cullen’s hand in his own. The Commander squeezed it hard, eyes clenched shut for a moment. ‘Vivienne, are you all right?’

‘I rarely drink the stuff,’ she said, her eyes tracking Morrigan as she swept from the hall, heading out towards the courtyard. ‘But Josephine… she always liked her tea.’

_Liked_.

‘No.’

‘She died yesterday evening,’ Vivienne said. ‘We did what we could but we didn’t realise until they broke out what was wrong with her. It was traceless and we had no potions.’

Dorian felt like he was falling. ‘It can’t be.’ He thought of Josephine’s shaky writing, how Leliana was certain something was wrong but even she had not anticipated _poison_, the most insidious, underhand way to kill someone.

‘It was Landon who realised what was happening. He came to me after Josephine died. He’d heard of her symptoms and he told me of Keenan, how he’d been distant lately. When we went to confront him, Hawke was already freed of his restraints.’ She sighed and it turned to a cough by the end. ‘We stood no chance. They left on foot. We dispatched ravens to inform you, but by the Maker’s grace you’re _here_.’

‘Where is Blackwall, uh… Rainier?’

Vivienne winced. ‘He’s still with her. He won’t leave her side, hasn’t ever since Hawke escaped with Keenan.’

Dorian could stand to hear no more without pulling Cullen into his arms, the two of them sharing the raw grief and as of yet incalculable loss. Dorian thought of Josephine fitting them all for the Winter Palace, her exasperation, her brilliance, her _kindness_.

Cullen’s arms were tight around Dorian’s back and for a moment, they held fast to one another, each keeping the other upright, lending strength back and forth.

‘That’s not all,’ Vivienne said heavily as they parted. She withdrew something from her pocket, a small folded piece of paper. ‘There was a note left for you, Cullen.’

She handed it over to him and as Cullen opened it with trembling fingers, Dorian scanned it too. The writing was jagged and spiky, written in a rush and entirely unfamiliar, all four words of it.

‘Gherlen’s Pass,’ Cullen read aloud under his breath. ‘Two days.’

*

The message was simple but the underlying offer was clear. Keenan for Cullen. However willing, however fucking _stupid_ Keenan had been, he was still a child, to Dorian if no one else.

The mage existed in a kind of haze in the hours that followed their return. Vivienne dropped the wards and Dorian called for Cole, waiting until he felt just that _touch_ of warmth nearby before explaining everything that Cole had to relay. There was to be no concealing Josephine’s death. No one deserved that, Leliana least of all.

Dorian spent most of his time comforting the mages. Keenan’s betrayal and loss had cut them to the quick and Nalari was as Vivienne had explained, deeply distraught.

He was beginning to feel tired, so very _tired_ when Cullen came to him, cut through the creeping daze and the grief and the _sadness. _

_‘_Don’t fall asleep,’ he warned as kindly as he could. ‘We need to do something first.’

Dorian shook himself and let Cullen lead him by the hand, taking him from the hallway outside the mage’s dorm and down the spiral staircase.

Cullen’s quarters were warmer than Dorian had ever felt before. When Cullen closed the door behind them, Dorian saw with a jolt of painful recognition that upon that desk, the letter sat there, folded and innocent, looking for all the world like any other letter, with Cullen’s small, elegant scrawl running across both sides in all different directions.

‘I want you to destroy it,’ Cullen said. Maker, he sounded so tired himself, so worn and heartbroken. ‘I don’t want it existing a moment longer than necessary.’

Dorian hovered his hand over the paper. He felt something, a kind of _resistance_. A fine, vibrating warning.

‘It won’t break the curse,’ he told Cullen.

‘It will weaken it,’ Cullen said, staring down at it intensely. ‘And you will no longer be connected to it. That’s all I care about. You said you were dreaming of me in Kinloch for months, before you ever saw or knew that my curse existed. You made this with your blood, that’s why you’re bound to it.’ Cullen took a breath. ‘Destroy it, please.’

He had to ask. ‘Are you sure?’

It was eleven years’ worth of time, albeit _terrible_ time. It was Cullen’s pain immortalised; his loss, his grief and the truest account of everything that Jassen had left behind in the wake of his death. The last remaining piece of Jassen. The legacy of Cullen’s first love.

‘I’m sure.’

Dorian pushed through the warning resistance hovering around the letter, a deep and penetrating _cold_, despite the temperature of the quarters being otherwise normal. He grasped it by the top right corner, right where Cullen had written his own name.

_Dorian Pavus is a reason. _

To think there had been a time when Dorian had been a reason for Cullen to want to die.

_We will end it_, his magic swore fervently. _Burn it away and leave no trace._

The mage threw the letter up in the air with one hand and with the other, let loose his magic in the smallest, most concentrated form he could manage. A burst of brightest, purest fire consumed the paper and incinerated every part of it. Magical fire annihilated the item, burned away at the offering Dorian had bled for.

Blood magic killing blood magic, the power between Cullen and Dorian destroyed that first droplet, destroyed what it had become tangled up in.

Something pulled and then _snapped. _The letter was entirely consumed, no trace of ash, no remaining elements at all. Within Dorian, the flash of pain he felt quickly faded and even though he had his hand pressed to his heart, it was almost entirely gone by the time he met Cullen’s eyes.

‘It’s done,’ he said.

‘Do you… feel different?’ Cullen asked, tentative and pained.

Dorian shivered as his magic shook like a lion drying itself from a lake. It stretched out, finding even more space than usual. The mage let out a shaky breath.

_That part is gone now_, it said, the sensation light and curious. _You can sleep now, Dorian. You can sleep and we will guard you always. We and Cullen will guard and protect you for all time. _

_‘_Yes,’ he managed to say, nodding slightly. ‘I feel… lighter. Free of something I didn’t even realise was there.’

Cullen looked down and gripped the back of the chair hard, the chair where Dorian often sat, impatiently waiting for Cullen to finish working and pay attention to him.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I already told you—’

‘I _know_ what you told me, but I’m still so sorry. All of this _mess_, it’s my fault. If I hadn’t kept the letter, if I’d just let it go years before…’

Dorian moved slowly around the desk. ‘Cullen, don’t.’

‘This is my doing,’ Cullen said, face screwing up. ‘Hawke was here because of _me_. Keenan did this because of _me_. Our people, our soldiers. _Josephine_—’

‘Stop,’ Dorian bade, but his voice cracked slightly. He grasped both of Cullen’s hands in his own. ‘Stop it.’

But Cullen could not stop. ‘All because of _me_. Would that I’d died in that fucking place, how many better people might be alive today? Fenris would be free, Josephine alive, Keenan by your side—’

‘Shut _the fuck_ up!’ Dorian burst out, voice positively trembling. ‘Who said you were allowed to wallow like this?’

Cullen dropped his head and sobbed softly. ‘Josephine deserved a whole life of wonderful things. She was beautiful in every way.’

Dorian swallowed down his own sadness and stayed strong, determined to, for _once_, be the steady one for Cullen. ‘She was that and everything more, but this is not your fault. However many you convince yourself would be alive had you perished in that Maker forsaken place, countless thousands would be dead without you to save them.’

Cullen cried and Dorian held fast, taking the man into his arms and offering what he could. He rubbed soothing circles into Cullen’s back, the way Dorian himself liked. He pressed small kisses to the side of his head, into his hair and he let him cry.

Around and between them, their magic swirled softly, bringing them closer even in grief. It was gentle and it glowed but a little, sharing in their sadness even if it did not fully understand _why_.

‘We’ll get Fenris back,’ Dorian said after an undeterminable length of time, when Cullen’s back turned still and he no longer hitched shuddering breaths. ‘I swear to you, we’ll find him and whoever this master is, we’ll make him pay for all of this.’

Cullen drew back, blinking and wiping his eyes, sniffing slightly. ‘You—you don’t remember.’

‘Remember what?’

‘The Venatori we questioned,’ Cullen explained hoarsely. ‘There wasn’t time to tell you again, not before.’

‘Tell me now,’ the mage requested, thumbing away errant tears from Cullen’s jawline.

‘We questioned him, mostly to ascertain any Venatori strongholds nearby but… you or… _not_ you had some questions of your own.’

‘Just tell me, amatus.’

‘During questioning, he made reference to Fenris. You… the questions being asked were increasingly specific, demanding if he knew who we all were, who I was especially. He said he knew me from Kirkwall, he was part of a group of blood mages Fenris and I had been hunting down. You pressed him about it, about Fenris and he said the last time he clapped eyes on him was in Tevinter, three months ago.’

‘Tevinter?’

‘Yes. That he was sighted in a cell beneath an estate of a renowned blood mage and esteemed Magister.’

Dorian’s spine prickled, breathing shallowly. ‘Whose estate?’

‘A mage named Allendas.’

*


	26. Coming Around Again

_Dorian was twenty-two and, despite the body of a would-be assassin being collected and disposed of in a practised manner, he was exceedingly bored. _

_Gereon__’s insistence that both he and Felix accompany him to a lavish and highly prolific function in Magister Danarius’s mansion estate had resulted in much whining but eventually, acquiescence. Dorian had agreed mostly out of the deeply private hope that he might see Allendas at the party, but even more so, his father. He hadn’t seen Halward in over a year and it had been three and a half _glorious_ years since he had been free of the Pavus estate. _

_The Alexius residence was freedom incarnate to Dorian. Acceptance. Family. To learn with Gereon as his patron, who had been amused to find Dorian slumming it in a decidedly questionable outskirt of the city after three months with the Order of Argent, had turned his whole life around. _

_Dorian was flourishing, he was a man now. _

_A fact that he very much wanted to rub in the face of two certain Magisters, Allendas quite literally. _

_The last time he_ _’d seen Allendas had been that lost month after… after Rilenius. Dorian hadn’t been able to remain in Asariel, not for a while and Allendas had been all too happy to take him across the Nocen Sea and get lost with him in Seheron. Dorian couldn’t have said where in Seheron they even stayed, wrapped up in the other man as he was. That had been a year ago. _

_Now he was beautiful and talented and well known and he wanted to make that clear to Allendas, to fucking Halward too. _

_And the party was a good place to do just that. No Magister refused an invite when it was for an _academic_ event, no matter how distasteful they found it. _

_‘This will likely come as no surprise,’ Felix muttered into his champagne flute. ‘But despite Magister Carnath being the one who was just attacked, everyone is staring at you.’_

_Dorian smirked and resisted the urge to refine his newly cultivated moustache, should a single hair have come loose. He knew they were staring at him, he_ _’d dressed for precisely such an outcome. It was a beautiful thing, the shirt he wore under his cloak, gold and black silk with a button-less plunge that went all the way to the base of his ribs, revealing a thin line of bronze skin and dark chest hair. His shoulders were well built now, the line of his jaw fully filled out, his hair just long enough to braid at the back, shaved at the sides and high at the top. He wore kohl around his eyes and boots that reached beneath his knees. _

_He looked fucking _gorgeous_ and he knew it. _

_‘Your Father is here,’ Felix said, nudging him and Dorian didn’t turn, didn’t follow Felix’s gaze, not at all. _

_‘Is he?’ Dorian sighed, wrinkling his nose at the champagne, the diamonds in the bottom of the glass glittering as he set it down without a care. He looked over at the server; a neatly dressed elf whose eyes didn’t meet his despite giving him her full attention. _

_‘Whiskey,’ he said. ‘Two.’_

_‘What kind, Ser?’_

_Dorian looked away. _ _‘Something monstrously hard to replace.’_

_‘Dorian,’ Felix scolded and then smiled apologetically at the servant. ‘Two glasses of Sun Blonde, please.’ She gave a smart nod and hurried away. ‘Don’t be a prick just because you’re nervous.’_

_‘Nervous? Me? Maybe you should slow down on that watered fizz, my darling Felix.’_

_Felix rolled his eyes and muttered something unpleasant about Dorian_ _’s honour, or lack thereof, in ancient Tevene. ‘Oh, your boyfriend is here too,’ Felix added with a sigh. ‘Though, not very alone.’_

_Dorian couldn__’t help it, that time he _did_ turn. It was subtle, he was sure, but he couldn__’t prevent himself. Allendas was there, beautiful salt and pepper hair slicked back, strong features, beautiful clever eyes and wicked mouth. _

_And on his arm was a pretty young girl. _

_Dorian was no longer bored, he was_ _… numb, or at least he wanted to be. He thought of the month spend with Allendas on white sandy beaches, crystal clear waters around their waists. _

‘You should let your hair grow,’ _Allendas had said, holding Dorian then. _‘How lovely it would be to pull on while I fuck you.’

_The woman, older than Dorian but just ridiculously, painfully pretty, smiled and fluttered her eyelashes at everyone as they crowded around her and the attention that had been on Dorian slowly filtered away. _

_Allendas met Dorian_ _’s eyes once, gaze never faltering as he nodded politely, a smirk playing about that Maker damned mouth that drove Dorian to babble all kinds of things, things he’d never even known were inside him. _

_Danarius swept forward to make a big show of greeting his good friend and said good friend__’s new fucking _squeeze_. Danarius was kissing her hand and showering her with compliments and Allendas__’ hand was on her lower back, fingers tracing circles. _

_‘Are you all right?’ _

_Dorian shook himself and the whiskey__’s arrived. ‘Hmm. Of course I am. He chose well, though that woman _did_ only just get out of a rather tangled three way with Verixus and his wife. Remember, at your Father__’s last birthday, they were all arguing in the gardens?’_

_‘How the fuck do you even know that? I barely remember who even _came_ to that party.__’_

_Dorian smiled bitterly. _ _‘I never forget a pretty face. Never took Allendas for the type to like blonde’s, though.’_

_Felix removed the glasses from the tray_ _’s, a generous helping of the amber coloured malt inside each one with two perfectly rounded spheres of ice. _

_‘You like blonde’s too,’ he pointed out. _

_Dorian wrenched his gaze away from the scene and downed his whiskey in one go, a deep and blissful _burn_ coursing through him. __‘This is the only blond I like,’ he said of the drink and then took Felix’s before his friend had the chance. _

_‘Attention, attention!’ Danarius called just as Dorian wiped his mouth and ordered two more. ‘I would like to thank all my dearest, most cherished friends for attending tonight. With the collaboration of a man I consider my brother, so dear to me is he, we have some incredibly important and fascinating showcases for you all to partake of.’_

_There came a smattering of applause, though it was half-hearted. Allendas notwithstanding, Danarius had a tendency to associate with what most upstanding Magisters considered low lives and his experiments so rarely bore fruit that the overall anticipation for whatever he was about to trot out, was perfunctory at best. Dorian was eager for it to be over so he could find and fuck someone, ensuring Allendas saw them leave together. _

_And in a moment of weakness, Dorian found his gaze wandering to the hopeful, vying one of his father’s. _

_Halward had clearly been trying to catch Dorian_ _’s eye and when he did he gave Dorian a kind of smile, restrained and polite, obviously but still far more than Dorian had been expecting. _

_His father had written many times over the last few months, asking after Dorian, after his tutelage, though not very much about his overall life and happiness. He wanted Dorian to come home when his apprenticeship with the Alexius family ended in less than a year. _

_Dorian was considering it, but his father didn_ _’t need to know that. He looked away blandly, viciously ignoring the smattering of guilt that ran down his spine. _

_Danarius was still talking, boring everyone with an introduction to his meditation about the more practical uses of lyrium and Dorian barely refrained from snorting with laughter. The old man was fucking _obsessed_. Allendas stood on his right, smiling placidly. _

_‘Fifty gold says it’s a lyrium tree,’ Felix whispered to Dorian who grinned. _

_‘One hundred says it’s a lyrium cock.’_

_Gereon raised an eyebrow at them both when Felix came down with a sudden fit of coughing, but no one else seemed to notice. _

_‘…further ado, I am proud to present to you, my little wolf, Fenris.’_

_Every head turned to where Danarius was pointing and in walked an elf, clad from the neck down in lethal looking armour, jet black and spiky in the extreme. Dorian was struck by the white hair, by the angular features of the elf, but nothing else. He was adorned with markings, vallaslin most likely but was otherwise entirely ordinary. _

_Judging by the whispers and nudging, many of the others were also disappointed but when Dorian looked at Allendas, the mage was patient and unaffected, his stance beside Danarius full of confidence. _

_‘Fenris,’ Danarius greeting in a rather unpleasantly _pleasant_ manner. __‘Strip off for us.’_

_‘Yes, Master,’ Fenris answered, his voice unexpectedly deep for an elf. He methodically removed the impressive armour to reveal a lithe and well-muscled body. Dorian, despite himself, peered to see better and it became obvious what Danarius had done when the full extent of the markings were revealed. _

_‘Lyrium,’ Felix breathed. ‘Maker preserve us.’_

_The elf had lyrium carved into his body from head to toe, beautiful, flowing lines that flooded the air with the scent of it, but not bottled or brewed__… the kind of lyrium that was still _alive_. _

_That time the applause was very real. Fenris turned in a circle, chin tipped ever so slightly higher than was customary for a slave, like he was _proud_ almost. Dorian__’s gaze wandered helplessly down. _

_‘I win the bet.’_

_Felix called him a foul name in ancient Tevene and Danarius waved down the applause. _ _‘Thank you, thank you, but I assure you, he’s more than just a work of art. I’ve hired several especially dangerous men tonight to assassinate me in my own house, with no one to guard me but Fenris. Would you all be kind enough to take a step or two back? For your own safety of course.’_

_The space around Danarius and the elf cleared rapidly, the mages backing away eagerly, a dark sense of excitement in the air. _

_Danarius lifted his hand and clicked his fingers and all void broke loose. _

_From within the crowd, at least eight men came flying towards him, knives and daggers in each hand, eliciting screams from the throng who had been unknowingly shielding such assassins. _

_Daggers were quaint and crude, but they were dramatic and Dorian gave Danarius points for flair. _

_Fenris moved _impossibly_ fast. He was like a spirit, a ghost. The lyrium lines glowed bright and blinding and he moved _through_ the men, ripping them apart like they were paper, pulling their insides out. The whole thing was over in less than ten seconds and not a single one of the assassins was left intact. The spatter hadn__’t touched Danarius, though Fenris was covered in it, naked and blood smeared and still faintly glowing. _

_The applause was deafening and Dorian watched as Danarius basked for a moment, eyes closed, hands outstretched. Fenris came to stand at his master_ _’s side like a loyal pet and Dorian… Dorian was transfixed by the potential, by the careful, painstaking magic that had gone into such a process. _

_Servants came to clear the bodies even as the applause thundered on. Rather than be allowed to dress himself, Fenris was kept naked and the very few Magisters that Danarius liked, or required favours from, were allowed to see him up close. Dorian watched the small elf as he was obscured from the mage_ _’s vision by taller, hungry men and Allendas stepped forward once again and announced, that in the north facing ballroom, he had a great many other interesting studies to showcase. _

_Riding high on Danarius_ _’s rare success, the audience was in a good and eager mood for more of the same, so they followed Allendas and Danarius, leaving Fenris behind like a loyal dog surrounded by older men and servants cleaning up the mess he’d made with his hands. _

_‘I can’t believe he did it,’ Felix whispered to Dorian, clearly shaken, as they followed the crowd into the other ballroom. ‘The old bastard has been raving about it for years but he’s actually _done _it. Maker, that poor elf.__’_

_‘Poor elf?’ Dorian scoffed coldly at Felix. ‘Did you see him? How fucking powerful he is? He’s unstoppable. _Poor elf.’

_‘How much pain do you think he endured having those lines carved into him?’_

_Dorian shrugged, his focus mostly on Allendas who walked ahead, girl on his arm once more. _ _‘Power for a price and all that, I suppose.’_

_Inside the ballroom four men were bound and on their knees, chests and feet bare. Their heads were down, shimmering chains that glittered like molten opaline around their wrists. _

_‘Oh fucking Maker,’ Felix hissed. ‘What is _this?’

_‘Now, as my good friend Danarius said, the study of lyrium and the unexplored effects it can have upon a subject is an avenue that receives nowhere near the attention and respect it deserves. I myself have joined with Danarius for this study and we have observed some _fascinating_ results.__’_

_Dorian could already tell that this, whatever it was, would be nowhere near as thrilling as what Danarius had to show off, what he_ _’d left behind in that ballroom to be examined and molested but he was curious despite himself, despite the little bitch on Allendas’ arm. _

_‘…ground-breaking research into the properties of lyrium when used on humans, particularly Templars. For years now, we…’_

_‘Maker, I wish I could forget it,’ Felix whispered to Dorian while Allendas droned on. ‘The way he… ripped that one heart out.’_

_‘I’ll never forget it,’ Dorian said, still caught in the rush of it all. ‘However displeasing you found it, you can’t deny it was incredible.’_

_‘Fucking monstrous, is what it was,’ Felix insisted while Dorian rolled his eyes. The servants closed the doors behind them discreetly, making ready for whatever they were about to see next. _

_‘At least he survived the process,’ Dorian said. ‘Imagine how many countless elves died before him.’_

_Felix sighed. _ _‘There are worse things than dying, Dorian.’_

_*_

** _Part I: When it happens, it happens fast. _ **

*

Dorian needed air, but unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one.

Morrigan was lurking around the garden, walking with one hand under her chin, fingers moving back and forth in the universal pose of mental consideration. Dorian wanted to double back instantly, return inside and seek solitude that was actually _solitary _but she’d heard his approach and looked up.

The two stared at each other for a long moment before Dorian sighed and decided to be _polite_. He strolled across the garden, half dug up in preparation for Cullen and Nalari’s miniature farm. A small variety of things had already been planted, Dorian could see. Tiny sprouts and little flares of fresh green peeking up from the earth. Nalari had made progress, even without them.

And there, in a shadowy corner, was the witchgrass. It wasn’t that Dorian had seen it much before then, he cared very little for herbs. He recognised it from his helpless research in the months that Cullen was absent, _ranging_ around the Frostbacks. He read extensively about it, learned all he could as was his wont.

‘Curious,’ Morrigan said and Dorian shook himself, glancing away.

‘Is it?’ he asked wearily, not really wanting to know the answer, not caring what someone like Morrigan found curious. He’d only wanted some Maker forsaken _air_, just to breathe something fresh and not tainted with mass grief for the near two hundred people in the castle who had all died within the same two-hour time slot, beautiful, brilliant Josephine among them.

‘Who found the witchgrass?’ she asked, heedless of his rhetorical question.

Dorian sat himself down on a small, stone bench and rubbed his face.

‘Nalari. She’d been tending the garden, trying to grow more elfroot to replace the stores that had been destroyed when she noticed it. She told the others and Landon, who’d already been suspicious of Keenan… he told Vivienne.’ _Too late_, went unsaid.

‘It is a small growth,’ Morrigan said, crouching beside the little arrangement of lethal plants. ‘Barely ripe.’

‘Morrigan,’ Dorian ground out. ‘I’m in no mood for whatever you’re driving at. If you’re implying that anyone _helped_ Keenan then—’

‘No,’ she said simply, leaning on her knees. ‘I am not.’

‘What, then?’

Morrigan tilted her head. ‘If you were going to poison everyone in the castle, would you grow your supply in a communal garden?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dorian said tiredly, desperately trying not to think of Keenan, of the young man planting the seeds, nurturing them with dark intent. Coming to terms with him _intending_ to murder anyone was… impossible. It was a fucking dagger in Dorian’s heart. ‘Perhaps he wasn’t thinking especially clearly.’

‘There are poisons everywhere,’ Morrigan went on. ‘In the stores he evidently destroyed, there were dozens of them. Spider glands, venom, all manner of weapon-coating agents.’

‘It was personal_,__’_ Dorian ground out. ‘The witchgrass was a personal element of a larger vendetta.’

‘Yes,’ Morrigan agreed slowly, rising gracefully. ‘But for _whom?__’_

Dorian had not the strength to glare, the strength to do anything besides let his gaze slide downward obeying the kind of tiredness that ran beneath skin and bones, lived in the very core of him.

‘You’re going somewhere with Lavellan,’ he stated because it wasn’t a question.

‘We must,’ she said briskly. ‘She and I will venture alone, only a quick trip with _hopefully_ some good news upon our return.’

Dorian stared at the witchgrass. ‘Good news would be nice.’

‘Indeed,’ she said, walking as slow as she ever did towards the door, but she paused a little way away and looked back. ‘Tis… unusual,’ she spoke carefully. ‘A poison acting so fast and then wiping out so many in a contained span of time. If this is the stockpile, it is small. If it is not the true stockpile, then why grow it here at all?’

‘What does it matter now?’

Morrigan stared at him, hard and long. ‘The demon is in the details, blood mage,’ she said, but it wasn't a slur, not at all. _‘Believe_ me.’

*

The last time Dorian had seen Keenan, the young mage had begged to go with him, pleaded almost. If there was blood on anyone’s hands, it was on Dorian’s. He felt that guilt like it was real, coating his hands and wrists when he went to Josephine’s quarters.

No one had been able to move Rainier from her side, not Lavellan, not Sera, no one.

Dorian looked around at the room he’d only seen twice before. He remembered being surprised it wasn’t bigger, some grand suite, something befitting someone of her stature. It was small and extremely neat, tastefully decorated but undeniably spartan. The first day he’d followed her inside was when they were relatively new to Skyhold. She’d been after a change of shoes and had asked if he didn’t mind diverting there before they went about whatever business Dorian had long since forgotten.

He remembered the shoes, though. Josephine had _dozens_ of shoes, all beautifully lined up inside a small wardrobe. Three pairs were what Josephine likely considered comfortable; plain, but stylish leather with a small heel in three colours with matching laces. Those were the ones she swapped out, taking a moment, while Dorian had hovered politely in the doorway. The other pairs were less than comfortable, but absolutely exquisite. High heels, boots, stilettos, sandals. Silks, satins, leather, even some extremely rare _suede. _All colours, all kinds. Beautifully cared for, not a visible scuff anywhere.

She’d seen him looking and smiled, the first time he remembered her doing so. A lovely, relaxed thing as she laughed softly.

_‘I haven’t the need for finery much these days,’_ she’d said, adjusting the laces on her recently changed shoes. _‘But good shoes are a necessity, no matter the state of the world.’_

Dorian hadn’t known her very well then, had just smiled in return and made a comment about how he especially liked the charcoal grey ones with the smaller heel and the day had gone on as usual.

Except the following week, a small package had been on his bed waiting for him. A beautiful box which, when opened, revealed thin, crisp paper surrounding a pair of freshly made charcoal grey boots with just a slight heel, intended for a man. They were the precise same shade, the exact same material, a delicate and impossibly rare suede. They were his size and they fit perfectly.

And Dorian had been new, so very new to the Inquisition. The days when he kept his stare straight ahead so as not to see how people despised him, when he was more than likely to be spat on if he lingered too long near a cluster of soldiers. He’d touched the boots with trembling fingers, the corners of his mouth curling slightly to feel the sensation of the suede. They were _beautiful_.

He never wore them. Too beautiful to ruin, too dazzling for the drabness of Skyhold and a place filled with people who barely tolerated him. He told himself there would come a day when he’d take them from that box, slip them on and walk a little taller, enjoy the clip of his heels as he strolled wherever he went.

He hadn’t thanked her either. The next time they saw each other was across the war table and when he’d made a move to do so, she simply winked at him and smiled before flawlessly laying out every detail and piece of what comprised their political situation, the aspects everyone wanted to hear about the least.

Josephine’s room was as neat as ever, save for the two trays beside her bed and a pitcher of water… and Rainier.

‘Thom,’ Dorian said very softly, closing the door behind him.

‘You’re not taking her,’ Rainier said. There was nothing tired about his voice, nothing in his outline as he sat on her bed. He wasn't touching her, not holding her hand like Dorian expected. It was a respectful distance and Rainier sat like a guard, like a sentinel. ‘No one is.’

‘I’ve not come to take her,’ Dorian said, slowly walking around the other side of the bed and exerting every bit of strength he had left not to break down when he saw her. It was always shocking, to see a dead body but even worse when it didn’t _look_ like a dead body. When it seemed entirely possible that the person was, in fact, just sleeping, waiting to be awakened.

Sunlight filtered gently through her curtains, a lovely shade of sand, and Dorian tactfully opened the window just a fraction before he stood beside her bed and looked down.

Rainier was shock white, his eyes red and his focus unswerving.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Dorian said.

The raven-haired man shook his head, but said nothing. Dorian looked around, wondering how best to proceed. ‘May I?’ he asked, indicating to the pitcher of water.

With a stiff nod, Rainier gave his assent and Dorian poured himself a cup of tepid water, sipping at it silently. He didn’t offer it to the other man, knew what the answer would be.

There was a chair close to her bed, it was piled high with paperwork but yet somehow, extremely _neatly. _Dorian hesitated, not wanting to disturb her things but also not wanting to stand around like he was waiting for something or worse, about to _attempt_ something.

‘Sit on the bed if you like,’ Rainier said roughly.

Dorian did so. It was just wide enough for him to perch on the edge without touching her. ‘Thank you.’

Josephine was half beneath the covers wearing a kind of undershirt. Her hair was loose, lovely curls splayed about the pillow and her shoulders. She looked peaceful.

It was awful.

Dorian sipped the water again. ‘She gave me a pair of shoes once.’

Rainier didn’t quite look at Dorian. ‘She did?’

‘Yes. They were absolutely gorgeous. I’d never seen a pair quite like it. She had them specially made, I think.’

‘She always wears lovely shoes,’ Rainier said and Dorian did not miss the lack of past tense.

‘Exceptional taste, this one,’ Dorian agreed, his throat painfully tight, but he fought it, he fought it with everything he had. Rainier did not need Dorian’s grief, far from it. ‘Smart as a whip too.’

‘And kind,’ Rainier added quietly. ‘Always wants the best for everyone.’

The second time could not be passed off as a mistake. Dorian looked away from her still form. ‘Vivienne said you won’t leave her side.’

Rainier nodded. ‘They’re not taking her.’

Dorian hesitated, fingers tapping the cup slightly. ‘Can I ask… why?’

There came no answer and Dorian quietly, privately despaired. Grief did terrible things to people.

It had been silent for a while when Rainier closed his eyes and spoke.

‘I know what you think,’ he said roughly. ‘That I’m sat here grieving, like she was _mine_ to grieve. She wasn’t. She was a woman unto herself and I’d have been the luckiest man in all of Thedas to earn the right to take her hand in mine for as much to hold it, but that’s not what this is.’

Dorian nodded slowly, taking in Rainier’s stance. ‘You’re guarding her.’

‘The last—’ his breath caught, voice cracking just slightly. ‘The last thing she said to me was _don__’t let them burn us. _Right before she slipped away she said it. She meant everyone, but I… I can’t leave her. I know the second I do, they’ll take her and set her atop a pyre. I _swore_ I wouldn’t let that happen. I swore it.’

Dorian made short work of swiping at his eyes, brushing away what wetness had formed there. ‘Was she… fevered?’

He could tell Rainier was hesitant to answer, which meant she had been. In fever, people said all kinds of things. Dorian would not point that out, would not undermine the importance of her last words nor Rainier’s perceived duty to her.

There were things he could say. He could invoke a sense of duty elsewhere, speak of the world and those still alive within it. He could say that Josephine would not want this for him. He could say that living and letting go was the best way to honour her.

He said none of them. ‘Have some water, then,’ was what Dorian said.

Rainier’s gaze flickered slightly from Josephine to Dorian and back again very quickly, uncertain.

‘If you’re to guard her, you’ll need your strength. Can’t have you passing out from dehydration, can we?’

Slowly, like he hadn’t moved for a long time, Rainier unclasped his hands from his lap and reached warily for the cup. ‘Thank you.’

‘Not at all,’ Dorian said and looked back down at the woman between them. ‘What about some of this exceedingly stale bread? Or what might well be cheese, I’m not entirely certain.’

‘She said other things,’ Rainier told him, handing the water back after draining the cup. ‘She was… before she.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Before she became too sick to walk, she was reading something from your library. A book about plants.’

Dorian winced ever so slightly, hoping Rainier didn’t see. So she’d known, or at the very least suspected, that they were being poisoned. That was somehow infinitely worse.

‘Which book?’ Dorian asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Rainier answered stiffly. ‘It sounds mad, but I think she _removed_ a cover from another book and put it over the one she was reading. It was some kind of history book from the outside but inside, there were… pictures of plants.’

Biting his lip for a moment, Dorian said, ‘You think she… suspected?’

‘I don’t know that either, but she’s far more intelligent than most realise. To hear some talk of her, you’d think she was a fucking administrator. A glorified clerical worker. I do know she was afraid of someone realising she knew something. I asked a few times about the book and she lied to me, said it was a textbook for military numerology. She kept going right up until she couldn’t… acting like she didn’t know anything.’ He looked at Dorian then, dark eyes swimming in half moon bruises. ‘Do you really think she would have knowingly died, let all those others die too?’

Dorian looked at her. It didn’t seem likely, that much was true, but Dorian also knew how insidious things like poison could be. Maybe she thought they had more time, perhaps assumed she could craft a cure without alerting _Keenan_ to what she was doing.

‘No, I don’t think she would have,’ he said softly.

‘The others, they wouldn’t listen. Said I was addled by grief. Medic pronounced her dead. Lack of breath and temperature, heart not beating.’ Rainier gazed intently at Dorian then. ‘But it’s not _right_.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

He seemed distressed. ‘I’m not impugning the medic, he had a hundred others to deal with, maybe more I don’t know. She’s cold but she’s not… _as_ cold as she should be. And her heart,’ Rainier swallowed carefully. ‘I can’t feel it or find a beat but sometimes… sometimes I see something in the hollow of her throat. A little flicker. I can’t leave her. I can’t let them take her.’

‘You think she’s… not dead?’

Rainier fell silent again. He said nothing else and Dorian understood why. To voice such a thing would be to _hope_ and hope was a dangerous thing to a man sat by the bedside of a woman he’d cared for, who he’d watched slip away.

But Dorian began to _wonder_.

‘Thom,’ he said. ‘Where is this book?’

*

‘What do you mean, _they__’re gone_?’

Sera balanced an arrow on her finger and shrugged morosely.

‘They left an hour ago. Urgent Inky business, apparently. Ellie said we all had to stay here but Morrigan slipped right after her. Whatever, innit.’

Dorian looked around fretfully. ‘Right, fine. Sera, I need _your_ help, then.’

The elf looked up eagerly. ‘You do? Really?’

‘Absolutely.’

She hopped down from Lavellan’s desk, eyes wide. ‘What do you need?’

*

‘Nalari,’ Dorian said, trying to keep his voice quiet, unsure of whether or not Dawn was awake. She was sitting with Landon, Saffy and Marcus in her room, Dawn asleep in her little makeshift crib.

The four mages swivelled to look at him. ‘Are you all right?’ Nalari asked in a concerned whisper.

‘I…I need your help,’ he said. ‘All of you.’

Saffy got to her feet. ‘Did you find Keenan?’

‘No, that’s—’

‘Because we’ve all been talking,’ she said, as quietly as possible while still interrupting him and keeping her voice strong. ‘And there’s no way Keenan would do this. He hated Cullen, we all knew that. Jealous of him, we think, absolutely. But he wouldn’t kill people, especially not the people who were so kind to us. Not Lady Josephine. Maybe he was enthralled,’ Saffy said. ‘Maybe that fucker was controlling him some—’

‘I don’t think they’re dead,’ Dorian blurted out. ‘And I don’t have time to explain, I just… please come with me?’

Landon stood up, squared his shoulders. ‘Saffy, I’ve got this.’

‘No, Lan, I don’t think—’

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘I’ll watch Dawn.’

Her lips parted. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah,’ he said and looked down at the baby. ‘No one kicks arse like you, Saff. I’ll stay with Dawn. Go save the day.’

‘Thank you Keenan,’ Nalari said, hurriedly and quietly slipping into her boots. ‘She’s just fed so she’ll—’

Saffy kissed Landon right in the middle of the room; a great big thing and when she drew back, he was left slightly reeling, slightly _dazed_.

Marcus patted Landon on the back, grinning as he swept by. Landon looked at Dorian then and gave a distinctly pleased kind of nod which the mage was helpless, despite every other terrible thing in the world, to return.

*

‘I don’t recognise a lot of these plants,’ Nalari admitted, fingers trailing over the delicate pages of the book Josephine had made to seem was anything _but_ a herbology grimoire. ‘Some of them are cross pollinated, some are bred from rare soil types, magically infused. What language is the writing?’

‘Ancient Tevene,’ Saffy answered quickly, peering at the page over her friend’s shoulder. ‘Right?’

Dorian gifted her a brief flash of a smile. ‘Clever girl. And you don’t need to read them, I just need you to look at the pictures and see if you recognise anything else in the book, anything from the gardens.’

Nalari nodded and began intently leafing through the book one page at a time. Occasionally she would point out something she recognised and Dorian would scan the plant, but it was only a cooking herb or something edible. She recognised many of them herself.

‘Dor,’ Sera said quietly as she slipped inside his bedroom. She took him aside while the others huddled around Nalari on Dorian’s bed, helping with the search. ‘They’re building a massive pyre. Everyone who… y’know. They’re going to do it at sunset. We should tell them now.’

‘If we go without evidence, they’ll think we’re grief addled and they’ll ignore us. We need proof.’

Sera sighed and shook her head. ‘We don’t _know_, though. They all came down with the same thing at the same time.’

‘And that’s not suspicious? Poison affects everyone differently at different stages.’

‘This one?’ Nalari called out, lifting and turning the book. Dorian squinted.

‘Used to enhance existing flavours.’

‘I saw Josie too,’ Sera said under her breath when the others went back to the search. ‘Dorian, she _was_ cold. No heartbeat.’

The mage closed his eyes. ‘Keenan wouldn’t do this.’

Sera sighed. ‘Frigging void, all right. What do you want me to do now?’

‘Cover for me,’ Dorian said. ‘For all of us. If anyone is trying to find out where we are, what we’re doing, come and tell me.’

‘Cullen’s gonna twig really quick,’ she warned. ‘You know how he is, especially with you.’

‘I’ll have proof by then,’ Dorian said decisively. ‘One way or the other.’

Nalari lifted the book again. ‘This one?’

Dorian had to move closer to see, no amount of squinting could help that time. He shook his head. ‘A preservative.’ Nalari lowered the book and Marcus sighed. They were coming to the last chunk of pages.

‘No wait,’ Saffy said. ‘This bit, look. Dorian, look.’

She pointed to a small addendum at the bottom with a slightly different version of the plant. Dorian leaned close to the minuscule print and his heart began to pound. He read aloud rapidly.

‘When grown in Western soil, oft enriched by essence of deathroot pods, the _Parnatiam_ stem can be brewed as a powerful paralytic which induces a deep state of narcosis, an aggressive defensive mechanism of the plant which is rarely observed. First noted in Kirkwall by an apothecary attempting to grow pure deathroot.’

‘We have Western soil,’ Nalari said staring up at him, breathing swiftly. ‘For the radishes and peppers.’

‘Show me.’

*

‘It was here,’ she said, crouching down as a gentle breeze played with her long golden hair. ‘A whole row of it, but it’s gone now. I noticed it just over a week ago. Joy told me it was what they hang around the meat to preserve it.’

‘Yes, grown in Southern soil that’s exactly what it would be,’ Dorian said.

Sera glanced around and then carefully whispered, ‘This has to be it, right? We need to tell everyone.’

‘Not yet,’ Dorian said. ‘We don’t know if it’s reversible and even if it is, we don’t know if we need to brew a cure.’

She fixed him with a stern look, that elf. ‘You _need_ to tell Cullen.’

Dorian hesitated, the reasons why he couldn’t tell Cullen dying on his lips. He knew why he didn’t _want_ to tell Cullen until it was proven fact, absolutely certain. He couldn’t bear to offer him false hope, show him a dim line of light and have him believe it might be true to then snatch it back again.

But she was right and he knew it.

‘All right. Sera take Saffy and make sure no-one gets burned. Nalari, Marcus, you go to the library. Now you have the name for it, there should be a massive index of herbological properties. Scan through it and find whatever you can. I’ll tell Cullen.’

‘Try not to sound crazy!’ Sera called after him.

*

‘I realise that sounds absolutely… well, crazy.’

Cullen had listened patiently throughout the entire thing, not interrupted once. Dorian had been breathless by the time he’d found him and managed to pull him aside. Cullen had assumed that Dorian wanted to discuss Allendas or one of the dozen other issues they were faced with but Dorian, bent double, leaning on his knees, had waved a frantic hand and shushed him before launching into the most inelegant explanation of his life.

He inclined his head, eyebrows flicking up slightly. ‘A little.’

Dorian clutched his stitch, impatience creeping in. ‘So, are you going to help me?’

Cullen looked back at him, expression loosening. ‘Of course I’ll help, but Dorian, if you’re wrong, this is incredibly risky.’

‘I don’t believe that I’m wrong.’

Slowly, Cullen ventured, ‘Because of Keenan?’

Dorian closed his eyes and exhaled steadily. ‘He wouldn’t kill innocent people, Cullen. I know everyone thinks the worst of him, I know _you _think the worst of him; murderous child of the man who poisoned the Templars of Kinloch but…’ he trailed off, biting his cheek. ‘He wouldn’t _do this. _He wouldn’t. I love him as I love all of them and I don’t believe in my heart that he _could_ kill innocent people.’

‘I don’t share your belief in him,’ Cullen said shortly, almost regretfully. Dorian looked down, despair curling low. ‘But I believe in Josephine, in her absolute grasp of a situation, any situation. If her last words were as you say, then we have to work quickly.’

Dorian grabbed him and planted a kiss on those beautiful lips, a great, lovely smacking thing.

‘Thank you. I know it’s a lot to ask.’

Cullen stared at him then, their faces close, eyes moving between Dorian’s.

‘Nothing you ask is more than I wish to give, my love. What do you need from me?’

*

To say that Vivienne was displeased may have been a drastic understatement.

‘Tell me again,’ she implored with forcible calm, facing away from the people who were gathered around in the courtyard and were steadily building a mass pyre from what materials were available. ‘And this time, _quieter.__’_

Cullen rubbed his face and Dorian stood by nervously glancing around. Several people were looking, a sense of mass grief in the air.

‘It wasn't witchgrass,’ Cullen repeated, his tone low and entirely serious. ‘It was something else, specially cultivated over the last couple of weeks by Keenan. It’s… we think they’re not dead.’

‘They’re cold,’ Vivienne said flatly. ‘No pulse, no heartbeat. What would you call it?’

‘Look,’ Dorian said barging in as Cullen rolled his eyes. ‘We realise how this sounds.’

She slanted an eyebrow and crossed her arms. ‘You do, do you? Oh good, I was starting to _worry.__’_

_‘_Josephine was reading a book _about_ herbology, about plants and their properties!’

‘Yes, because she knew she was being poisoned!’

‘Then why wouldn’t she tell anyone?’

‘Maybe by then it had decayed her mind beyond all reason!’

‘No,’ Cullen said, cutting over their back and forth hissing. ‘Witchgrass doesn’t do that. It causes sickness, a kind of weakness and symptoms aligned with the influenza. It would not affect her understanding of anything.’

‘With all due respect, Cullen,’ Vivienne said a touch impatiently. ‘Unless you bring me definitive proof, how can I ask these people to delay the rite of passage for their lost ones? Please feel free to stand on a podium and announce it—no, I was being _facetious_, Dorian!’

But Dorian had had quite enough of whispers.

‘Attention!’ he yelled, waving his arms. ‘Attention everyone!’

Those who weren’t already staring curiously in their direction as the three stood atop the stone staircase leading towards the Great Hall, certainly were now. Hundreds of them milling around outside as the sun lowered in the sky, warm pink light outlining the clouds.

Vivienne hissed, ‘Dorian, I swear to the almighty _Maker_!’

He faltered for a moment, the eyes of so many upon him. ‘Um, well. We need to postpone the ceremonial burning, I’m afraid.’

A rustle of whispers ran through the crowd, frowns colouring the grief.

‘Why?’ someone called.

The mage took a deep breath. ‘We’re not _entirely_ sure that they’re all… that these people are actually dead.’

He gestured to the dozens of stretchers, bodies wrapped delicately in white linen. There were so _many_ of them. No, Keenan would _never_ do that, Dorian couldn’t believe anything less.

‘I was thinking _more_ along the lines of delaying it due to a wood shortage,’ Cullen muttered behind Dorian.

‘Well it’s a bit late now!’ Dorian whispered back and then cleared his throat. ‘Yes, so we’re going to wait just a little longer. A few hours.’

‘What do you mean they’re not dead?’ a woman yelled and Dorian immediately began to regret his impulsive decision.

‘Right,’ he said, slowly looking behind him, pleading with his eyes for help. Vivienne was positively mutinous but Cullen stepped in.

The Commander lifted a hand and faced the people of the Inquisition, currently Inquisitor_less_, and spoke in a carrying, calming voice.

‘The circumstances surrounding these deaths are suspicious to say the least,’ he began. ‘We need more time to investigate.’

‘Nothing suspicious about it! A mage did it!’

Cullen remained absolutely unaffected. ‘We require further information at this time and as such, will be delaying the pyre.’

The same man yelled again. ‘A _mage_ poisoned us all and your _lover_ was leading them! You used to stand against their kind! Against Maleficars! Now you defend them because you _are_ one!’

Dorian _definitely_ regretted his decision.

And yet Cullen remained so masterful, so in control. Being accused of such terrible things, of being a mage himself, but one would never know it.

He opened his mouth to say something else, something doubtlessly _soothing_ and immovable when a scream tore through the courtyard.

It happened _fast. _

_*_

** _Part II: Too fast to think, no road map showing. _ **

The day before their arrival back in Skyhold, a full day before screams began to sprout around the remaining bodies in the infirmary, the residents of Skyhold had been dropping dead, turning dizzy and faint and then simply _dropping_ except it wasn’t dead, it was something very much else.

‘I knew what Hawke was making him do,’ Josephine said, taking a shaky sip of water as Rainier piled yet another blanket over her and she smiled appreciatively. ‘The poor boy, he was terrified. I considered approaching him, but I couldn’t risk it backfiring.’

‘If he thought you knew, he might panic.’

‘And lash out,’ she said grimly. ‘I worried that if he couldn’t convince Hawke he’d done as requested then his hand would be forced to truly hurt people. I had a plan,’ she explained weakly. ‘But I underestimated the strength of the potion. From my studies, I was sure we had another few days. When I fell ill enough to be confined to bed, I was mostly lost to the fever by then but… my dear friend,’ Josephine said, patting Rainier’s hand as he sat beside her on the bed. ‘I knew he wouldn’t let them burn us.’

Rainier coloured intensely enough to put Cullen’s blush to shame and not, Dorian could tell, because of the compliment or the contact. She didn’t seem to realise he had only stayed with _her_, not tried to protect the others. No one rushed to correct her.

‘He grew the witchgrass on the side,’ Vivienne said slowly, leaning against Josephine’s wardrobe. ‘Knowing we would go there in search of poisons.’

‘And Hawke would likely be monitoring the reactions as he left,’ Cullen said quietly, kneeling before Josephine and clasping her hand tightly in his. ‘He might have even remained a while _in_ the castle afterwards for all Keenan knew. It had to look real, it had to seem completely real.’

Dorian kept himself silent but it required monumental effort. He wanted to go after them, to go and get Keenan back because… because, _fuck_, the boy had done everything he could to prevent the deaths of hundreds. Dorian didn’t care about him helping Hawke, about freeing him. Keenan wasn’t a killer and everything else, as far as the mage was concerned, was _his_ fault for not being there for Keenan more, for not helping him when he needed it most.

Keenan had _begged_ to go with Dorian, to leave Skyhold and Dorian had refused.

‘When did you know he was helping Hawke?’

‘It was quite accidental,’ Josephine said. ‘I was checking stocks, I do it when most are asleep, taking the midnight numbers. I took a shortcut through the gardens to check on the chapel, they run through candles so fast in there and with all that people are praying lately, I wanted to make sure there were enough. When I went inside, Keenan was… on the floor, crouched very low to the stone right on the left-hand side. He shot up, poor boy almost had a heart attack I think but I let him pass it off as praying.’ She shook her head. ‘I went back later and there was a very small _hole_ right beneath where he had been kneeling.’

Cullen’s brow lifted. ‘Hawke’s cell.’

‘Yes. I spoke with some of the guards, enquired after Hawke and they told me his mental health was deteriorating greatly, that he was often talking to himself especially at night. Rambling about Commander Cullen in Kinloch Hold, about witchgrass, about getting free and escaping.’

‘Fucking _void,__’ _Dorian growled. ‘We should have killed him before we left.’

‘_I _should have done more,’ Josephine intoned, staring down. ‘I should have stopped him.’

‘You didn’t know, Josie,’ Cullen said softly. ‘It could have gone a lot worse if you confronted him.’

‘I was so close to finding the counter-cure,’ she said wretchedly. ‘There was an element, a variation of elfroot I could have added to the food and it would have prevented the _Parnatiam _from doing what it did. It would have made people sick, still, would likely have caused sufficient distraction but I—’

‘Stop,’ Cullen said. ‘You did incredibly well.’

‘I was afraid,’ she whispered. ‘I was _so_ afraid and I did not have you or Leliana here to ask, not without giving it away. I wanted so much to tell her in my letters but I just could not take the risk. Keenan was everywhere during the day, listening always. I was _afraid_.’

Rainier said, ‘You did the right thing. Any different and it could have gone a lot worse. Hawke fighting his way out of the castle as opposed to walking out is the better choice as far as I’m concerned.’

Vivienne, who had thus far been tactfully quiet, chose that moment to say, ‘Yes, very brave indeed, but why did you simply not have us restrain Keenan? You could have come to me, I would have been discreet, my dear.’

Dorian shot Vivienne a look while Rainier scowled.

Josephine took a deep, rattling breath. ‘You are quite right Madam de Fer, excepting for the fact that at the time, and still to this moment, I remain unsure about whether or not the betrayal was indeed _limited_ to Keenan.’

Something cold and prickling went up Dorian’s spine. ‘You think there was another?’

‘I do. I had the distinct sense that I was… being watched. When I wrote the letter to Leliana, I felt something hovering over me. I was _sure_ someone was watching me even when I completely alone.’

Cullen got to his feet, slowly releasing her hands.

‘We were told the same by Raleigh Samson. He seemed certain we had a spy, someone passing information back and forth. He claimed to have been receiving intelligence from someone close to us for months now.’

Vivienne frowned. ‘That is deeply troubling.’

Dorian snorted ungenerously. _‘Well_ observed.’ It played on his mind, though. The idea of a spy, the idea of it getting back to this _master_ that Keenan had played Hawke, had lied about everyone. The terrible, cold sensation that had been stuck inside his stomach ever since they’d set foot in Skyhold again, bloated and grew. He headed for the door. ‘Unless anyone needs me for anything, I’ll be in the tower.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Cullen said smoothly which was unexpected but Dorian didn’t let it slow his pace. He walked ahead as he heard Cullen tell the ambassador, ‘Rest now, Josie. Anything you need, we’re all here for you. I’ll be back in an hour.’

Cullen caught up with Dorian easily enough. ‘What’s wrong?’

Dorian laughed bitterly just as Cullen took his arm and slowed him manually. ‘What’s _wrong? _Are you out of your fucking—?’

In a no-nonsense kind of way, Cullen took him into his arms and hugged him, right there in the staircase of the tower.

And at first Dorian wanted to resist, he wanted to shove away hard and leave Cullen there, hurt but _distanced. _

‘It’s not your fault,’ Cullen murmured, rubbing Dorian’s back.

Dorian closed his eyes, jaw working. ‘I’m the link to Allendas,’ he said in a threadbare whisper, every word _aching_ to come loose from his chest. ‘I’m the fucking link. All this, _everything_ is because of me.’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘You’ve never even met him,’ Dorian tried to snap but it was _hard_ to snap when he had Cullen Rutherford wrapped around him, patient and caring and so full of love that Dorian could _feel_ it. ‘None of this is about you, it’s _me_.’

‘Dorian, we don’t know for sure it even is this Magister,’ Cullen cautioned as they parted enough to move from hugging to handholding, maintaining their physical connection even as the magic moved through them both, slow and careful, unsure as to why either of them was sad but very much wanting to _help_. ‘The use of his mansion certainly doesn’t implicate him beyond—’

‘Of course it’s him!’ Dorian said, wide eyed and impatient with disbelief that Cullen could be so _naive_ as to still think it had anything to do with him beyond Allendas wanting to fucking _ruin_ him because he was Dorian’s. ‘Fucking _void_, even my Father warned me against him time and again.’

Cullen studied Dorian and then hesitantly said, ‘You were… with him?’

Dorian sighed. He didn’t want to talk about this, he really didn’t, especially not in such a frequently used stairwell. ‘I have to check on Nalari and the others. You have a castle of _no longer dead_ people to see to.’

He tried to pull away but Cullen held fast. The Commander took a deep breath, screwed his face up as if about to do something painful and then said, ‘If Jassen wasn’t my fault then this is not yours.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’ It looked like he was swallowing fucking _glass_, the words were so difficult. ‘If what happened to Jassen really wasn’t my…’ his breath gave out in a shuddering loss, a kind of dark flush appearing at the sides of his neck but he pushed on through it. _‘Wasn’t_ my fault, then _this_ is not yours. I don’t want to spent my life tormented by guilt about the monstrosities committed by other men, do you?’

_This is good logic_, their magic told Dorian. _We like this logic very much. Guilt is sticky and bad, set it down now please. _

‘It’s not that simple,’ Dorian insisted, wrapping his arms about himself.

Cullen dropped his tone, taking a single step higher and closer to the withdrawing mage. ‘I know you’re worried about Keenan.’

It was harder than it looked, arranging his features into those of a normal person and Dorian was fairly certain he failed. ‘I let him down,’ he said. ‘He needed me and I let him down, like every other adult in his whole fucking life.’

The Commander sighed and took Dorian’s hand once more. ‘Well if you’re determined to play this game then I think we’ll both be pitching off the ramparts any day now. Keenan would still have a Father if it weren’t for me. If I didn’t return, he would never have gone to Hawke. It’s _me_ he hates and rightly so.’ Dorian was about to object sharply when Cullen pressed his fingertips to the mage’s lips. ‘But Dorian, he _didn__’t_ kill these people and that, you have to know, is at least partly because of _you_. You have done everything you could for him and it shows here. He went out of his way _not_ to take innocent life, despite whatever madness Hawke was pouring into his ear.’ He squeezed Dorian’s hand tightly as the mage swallowed over a growing lump in his throat. ‘You did _everything_ you could for him and I swear to you, you’ll get him back.’

Dorian bit his lips into his mouth to temper the stinging sensation in the corner of his eyes. ‘All right,’ he said in a rough voice. ‘All right.’

‘Look at me, my love?’ The mage did so, stormy grey to honey brown, the sky and the earth. ‘You’re a good man, Dorian Pavus. The best man I know. No one has ever tried to do more for those mages than you, no one has fought harder for them, no one has cared so much until you came along. No more guilt, no more.’

With a long, trembling exhale, Dorian forced himself to nod in agreement. There were things he wanted to argue against but he was _tired_ and he was weak and Cullen, as always, was strong enough to hold him up, point him North and guide the way. He felt himself moving into Cullen, drawn there as if all his bodily strength was leaving him on the spot, his emotions overwhelming him.

Cullen was ready for it, he was waiting.

‘I’m so tired,’ Dorian whispered, clinging hard to Cullen, fingers sinking into the material of the Commander’s cloak. ‘I’m just so _tired.__’_

_‘_I know you are,’ Cullen said softly. ‘Let me take care of you?’

Dorian closed his eyes and nodded as Cullen shifted his weight, bent at the knees to brace Dorian under his thighs and lift him off the ground, the mage wrapped carefully around him, unable to exist without him in those moments.

He carried Dorian up the stairs, all the way to the bedroom and Dorian was far too tired to care how it looked, how it seemed or how in the void Cullen was _strong enough_ to even carry him in the first place.

His bedroom smelled the same and when he opened his eyes, peeking out from the safety of Cullen’s shoulder, he immediately felt that glow of familiarity. His beautiful things, his place of safety. Cullen carefully deposited him on the large plush bed and went about undressing him.

Dorian let him. He felt cold and shaky, all the adrenaline that had kept him going since… fuck, since when? When _had_ he last slept? That adrenaline was leaving, draining away rapidly now that Skyhold was no longer filled with dead bodies.

He watched, helpless as a child but not resenting the fact, when Cullen went to his drawers and picked out all his favourite sleeping garments. When Cullen pulled his boots off, he replaced them immediately with soft, warm socks, Dorian’s absolute favourites, the ones that ran high, past his knees. He slowly and carefully undressed him, took away bloodied armour and filthy garments, replacing them with soft, silky material that Dorian loved. Leather and buckles replaced with satins and silks, armour for double spun wool.

Cullen was methodical and he was quiet the whole time. Dorian watched him, a strange sensation twining with the slowly dissipating feelings of post-battle fatigue. He wanted to say bold things to Cullen, he wished he could split himself open then and _show_ him what he felt.

But the quietness of the room and the care being applied to him was too precious to break and he had to trust that Cullen knew it, knew he was the thing Dorian loved most in the entire world.

When it was done and Dorian was no longer battle ready, Cullen guided him backwards into the soft, deep pillows and drew the covers high.

‘When you wake,’ he said. ‘I’ll wash your hair.’

Dorian couldn’t really speak, his throat was so tight and he was just so tired, but he knew he could sleep now without fear of… of _becoming_ something else. He could feel how safe it was and he wanted it so much. He managed to nod and Cullen smiled down at him before pressing a soft, adoring kiss to his forehead.

The kiss felt like a benediction. It was forgiveness, it was acceptance.

Cullen closed the curtains and the room darkened beckoningly, the dark blue material making everything inside the room so very peaceful. Dorian turned on his side and burrowed into the pillow and finally, _truly_, he slept.

*

Dorian was very certain that things were happening _outside_ of his room. Those things were likely very important and yet he couldn’t bring himself to send Cullen away when, some time before dawn, Cullen brought him breakfast and tea and woke him by stroking his hair.

At first, he was confused, looking around at the fully dark room, save for Cullen’s small yellow flame hovering nearby. ‘What…?’ he tried but his throat was dry and it caught. ‘How long have I slept?’

‘All through the night,’ Cullen said and he sounded pleased, not angry, that Dorian had shut out the world, shut out those who needed him, the thousand things that required attention and planning and maintenance. ‘Joy made you a pie.’

Dorian rubbed his eyes and sat up, the silky covers warm around him. He felt… _rested_. His bones no longer hurt, his head no longer buzzed. He wasn't brimming with energy but he could tell he had honestly _slept. _

_‘_A pie?’ he echoed, trying to keep the scepticism out of his sleep roughened voice. ‘Is that… a Ferelden thing?’

Cullen half smiled and brought Dorian the tray, setting it carefully on the bed beside the mage. ‘It’s not that kind of pie. Morning.’ He kissed Dorian then, a sweet, slow press of lips that left Dorian _wanting_ more, always wanting more but then his stomach growled and Cullen laughed, drawing away. ‘It’s a fruit pie, more of a pastry.’

Dorian eyed the plate curiously. There was indeed some sort of pastry, glazed and sprinkled with sugar. There was also fruit, porridge, tea and juice.

‘It’s an apple flip,’ Cullen explained, stealing an orange segment and popping it into his mouth as he sat on the bed, careful not to disturb the tray. ‘They’re extremely good, a kind of Ferelden speciality.’

‘There’s apples in it?’ Dorian asked, poking it with a fork, undeniably curious.

‘Just try it.’

After a few blissfully hot mouthfuls of tea, Dorian did just that. He took a small piece from the side and saw a thick, golden _ooze_ come out from the flaky pastry, small chunks of what did indeed seem to be apples among it. He ate it, prepared for some terrible Ferelden monstrosity to attack his senses but…

‘Oh fuck _me_,’ he moaned as Cullen’s smile widened. ‘This is incredible. What did I do to deserve this? Did you bribe her? Can _I_ bribe her? Oh Maker no, I’ll be so fat but…’ he took another bite, a bigger forkful that time. ‘So hard to _care_ when it tastes this good.’

‘She made it especially for you,’ Cullen told him, slipping off the bed now that he was happy Dorian was eating. He went to the bath, drawing on the magic. The pull was instant and between them, their magic sprang to life happily. Ice and heat and then _more_ heat for a hot bath. Cullen was a little clumsy, he hadn’t taken into account the expanding nature of ice and water sloshed over the side of the inbuilt pool and over the floor more than once but Dorian didn’t care, couldn’t get enough of the apple flip, delightful rural name and all, and he let Cullen mess about with the bath.

‘This is harder than it looks,’ Cullen admitted. The sun was slowly rising, a deep blue glow radiating through the curtains.

‘Elemental properties,’ Dorian said, mouth stuffed with the final chunk of sugary apples and glazed, flaky pastry. ‘The basics need to be observed and studied.’

Cullen rolled his eyes with a hint of good humour nonetheless and began to undress as Dorian finished off his tea, stomach pleasantly full of delicious things. Dorian lifted his hand and resolved the issue with the bath, making the water temperature even throughout, removing the chunks of ice that had stubbornly refused to melt because they were too dense.

It was adorable when Cullen wrinkled his nose, clearly displeased that Dorian could master such a simple aspect where he’d failed.

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Dorian said, socked feet dropping down the side of his bed. ‘About why I was the lucky recipient of an apple flip?’

Cullen’s slight sulk vanished in an instant and he came towards Dorian, gloriously naked and absolutely covered in _war mess. _Blood and mud and new scars. ‘Oh, yes. Well, you saved her daughter from being burned so, I think she wanted to show her gratitude.’

Dorian stood experimentally, finding his feet were no longer tingly and useless. ‘Her daughter was… one of the people who got sick?’

‘Yes,’ Cullen said, pushing Dorian right back down on the bed again, causing the mage to sigh. He undressed Dorian quicker that time, whipping away the silky shirt and fluffy socks with an ease that really wasn’t fair.

‘I can undress myself now,’ Dorian pointed out gently.

‘I know.’

He let Cullen do it anyway. It was a kind of care that they both needed, he realised. Dorian needing to be taken care of and Cullen needing to _take_ care of Dorian. How… _strange_.

How wonderful.

When Dorian was naked, the mage knew exactly what Cullen was going to do next and before he could make a customary protest, he was swept up like a princess and carried over to the bath. Cullen walked down into the steaming water and lowered them both, water sloshing over the sides again because it was much too full.

It was perfect, hot, _clean_ bliss. Cullen set Dorian on the lower step.

‘This whole carrying me around thing is hardly necessary,’ Dorian outright lied, sinking slowly into the scalding heaven that loosened all the dirt and grime from his skin and removed every trace of an ache. ‘I _can _walk, I assure you.’

‘Whatever you say, my love,’ Cullen said, examining the array of bottled oils and extremely expensive soaps he’d taken from the nearby shelf and arranged neatly on the floor beside the bath. He was peering curiously at the labels, most of them in Tevene and Dorian said nothing, content to wait, content to simply _be_ in those beautiful, stolen moments.

‘This one,’ Cullen said slowly. ‘Is lavender and rose oil.’

‘Very good,’ Dorian praised lightly before he went underwater.

*

Cullen was extremely thorough in washing Dorian and his hair. The whole experience was deeply relaxing and soothing, Dorian felt like he was being cared for right down to the very core of his being. The mage could never recall being cared for in such a way, being taken care of to such an extent. It made him feel vulnerable and almost_ nervous_ but there was no one he trusted more than Cullen so he didn’t allow the feeling to morph into anything else.

Perhaps it wasn’t _always_ a bad thing to feel vulnerable.

And it was fucking _delightful_, what Cullen was doing to him. Fingers working all the grime and dirt from his hair, massaging his scalp, carefully scrubbing every inch of his back and then rubbing scented oil into the clean, hot skin and using those clever fingers to work out knots and aches.

But something _else_ was building and with it came a sense of unusual trepidation.

Dorian was shaking with the effort of restraining himself from kissing Cullen. It was especially hard to resist when he washed his face, beautiful brown eyes staring deeply into Dorian’s while making him clean, making him whole again.

Wanting Cullen was so natural, so primary in nature to the mage and his body was very far ahead of his brain in those terms. He could tell by the delicate flush trailing up Cullen’s chest, the way he breathed shallow and fast, swallowing now and then, that the Commander was similarly affected and even if Dorian was _stupid_ and hadn’t noticed any of that, their magic began to swirl and twist and contract, telling tales of the other’s desire.

Dorian wanted it so much, maybe _too_ much and it was a problem because Cullen was so very hesitant. Had been especially hesitant ever since he’d washed Dorian’s newest _scar_ on the side of his neck.

‘You don’t want to?’ Dorian asked calmly.

Cullen was washing the last part of Dorian that required attention; his fingertips. Dorian saw him frown slightly, avoiding the mage’s gaze.

‘It’s fine,’ he told Cullen and truly meant it. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too,’ Cullen said. ‘I just… I’m sorry.’

Dorian touched his face, wet hand trailing rivulets down Cullen’s cheek and neck and the Commander’s washing came to a halt, something sad and pained clouding his expression.

The mage understood. He knew Cullen, he _knew_ him. Kinloch had altered him forever, had made him into something he would never have been without the forceful hand of blood magic fuelled desire. He’d been made to violate and hurt someone he loved, however misguided that love was. It had changed him, changed the way he saw the world and the way he considered things like trust and consent.

And Dorian also knew that what had happened in the Wilds had deeply struck Cullen. He wanted to _believe_ what Cullen had said to him yesterday in the stairwell, about not carrying the fault of others, but this was different and he knew it. This was so much more complicated and Dorian would not, for _anything_, push.

‘Sorry for what?’ Dorian said, lifting his chin with his beautifully clean fingertips. ‘For taking care of me? For making me love you even more?’

Cullen smiled but it was sad. Dorian stroked his cheek with his thumb, the pad glancing over a new scar coming down from his hairline. It was thin and it would fade, not like the one on his lip. Not like the one on Dorian’s neck.

‘My turn now?’ Dorian asked. ‘I can’t promise apple flips and the amusement of flooding my bedroom, but I’m pretty damned good at washing hair.’

*

Clean and whole and feeling like he might actually be able to face what was ahead, Dorian left the safety of his room while Cullen filled him in on what he’d missed while he’d been blissfully asleep.

‘I checked in on Nalari often,’ Cullen assured him as they walked towards the War Room. ‘And the others, of course. They were all asking after you. I said that after the meeting, once their studies finished, you’d probably go see them.’

The mage threw Cullen a sideways smile. ‘How was little Dawn?’

Cullen rubbed the back of his neck and smiled in return. ‘Lovely as ever. Nalari seemed…’ he considered for a moment. ‘Relieved about Keenan’s true intentions, but guilty too. She was set on blaming herself, much like a certain _other_ mage I know.’

Dorian shook his head. ‘As if any of this is anywhere _close_ to being her fault.’

‘She said that Keenan had been withdrawing for weeks, ever since Dawn, really. Apparently he warned her to stay away from the tea.’

‘Really? That’s… rather obvious of him, isn’t it?’

‘Nalari said he told her that there had been an accidental cross contamination with magebane in the latest supply and to avoid it just in case. None of them drink tea anyway,’ Cullen said. ‘Or so Landon told me.’

‘How is Landon?’

Cullen smirked. ‘He and Saffy seemed rather close.’

‘We’ll need more witherstalk,’ Dorian sighed. ‘How is the castle overall? Still decrying you as a mage?’

‘Not as such,’ Cullen said as they entered the hallway leading to the War Room. ‘There is a general consensus of gratitude towards _you_ though.’

_‘Fasta vass_,’ Dorian grumbled, opening the door for Cullen. ‘I did very little. Saffy and Nalari were the ones who made me pay attention to the _Parnatiam _variant and for Maker’s sake it was Blackwall - sorry, _Rainier_ \- who refused to let them take Josephine. He was the one who told me her last words, about the book.’

‘Ah, but you made the big speech,’ Cullen said. ‘That counts for a lot, I’m afraid.’

Inside the War Room, Lavellan, Morrigan and a once more beautifully dressed Josephine were waiting. Dorian wasn’t certain what to expect but when Lavellan swivelled towards the door, her eyes widened and filled with _love_ and _gratitude_.

She wrapped her arms around him. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you, Dorian.’

The mage allowed himself a blissful moment before he cleared his throat and said, ‘It really was the others, though. Even Morrigan pointed out to me about how little witchgrass there was and—’

‘You fought to keep them from being burned,’ Lavellan said firmly. ‘You fight for everyone who needs it, Dorian. Shut the fuck up and allow yourself to be _thanked_.’

Dorian managed an awkward kind of smile, the kind he hoped was entirely lacking in hubris. Within, his magic swirled proudly, basking in the idea of being worshipped and praised.

_We are indeed great_, it sighed archly. _We are the power that will sweep the world, root out corruption and rot. We are magnificent, we are the light._

Dorian barely kept his eyes from rolling but he could feel, on Cullen’s end, the mental equivalent of a pleasant, praising caress and the magic writhed all the more, happy and deeply smug.

‘…the dragon. That’s how we defeat him, that’s how we stop him from hopping into another vessel like we saw in the Wilds,’ Morrigan was saying, apparently very much eager to get past the duller aspects of life such as friendship and affirmation. ‘Our _journey_ took us on quite the path of discovery,’ she added a touch bitterly. ‘Suffice to say, I no longer envy the Inquisitor being the one who drank from the Well.’

Dorian frowned, looking to his best friend. She was pale, Maker she was so fucking _pale. _When had she last slept? Last eaten? He wanted to take her by the hand and give her everything that Cullen had bestowed upon the mage. Kindness and _care_ because she _needed_ care, she needed it, look at her.

She could clearly tell he was about to ask because, to prevent such a thing, she moved away and towards Cullen at the war table. ‘There’s a great deal to go over but the most important thing at the moment is that we’ve found a working Eluvian in the Deauvin Flats, two miles north of the Wilds in an abandoned Chateau.’

Cullen looked up sharply. ‘Truly?’

Lavellan gave a pleased nod. ‘Yes, we’ll be able to bring the others here while the armies march back. I’ve sent scouts through already to reach Leliana and divert them to the Chateau.’

For a moment, Dorian felt almost dizzy with relief. It was impossible to even reconcile how off base he felt without Leliana being at the joint helm of all the big decisions, all the crises they faced. He’d come to rely on her steely pragmatism, her cold logic cutting through to the heart of every problem and presenting them with the best, however distasteful, outcome.

‘They’re all well?’ he asked quickly, standing by the table. ‘Bull, Cole, Varric? _Cassandra_?’

_‘_Yes, we received word this morning confirming such. We have informed them about Josephine and the others, or we _hope_ we have, by way of calling Cole. Solas seemed certain of his presence when we informed him that the deaths were not, in fact, actual deaths, but there’s no way of truly knowing until the scouts divert and then return our people.’

Dorian followed Lavellan’s gaze into the north-most corner of the room and saw the tall, glimmering mirror they’d used to escape Corypheus’s wrath in the Wilds. They’d had it brought into the War Room.

‘I’ll be monitoring it from here so that when they arrive, I can bring them through. I’m hopeful it will be soon, we sent them in hours ago.’

‘Where is Solas?’ Dorian asked with a frown. ‘I’ve barely seen him since we got back, save the one time he glared at me while healing Vivienne.’

Though it wasn’t _obvious_, Lavellan seemed to perhaps share some of his concern. ‘He’s been… withdrawn since the incident with the Well,’ she said slowly. ‘So has Sera.’

‘You did the right thing,’ Morrigan said while Cullen’s lips pressed into a thin line, focusing purposefully on the figures atop the table. ‘Even if we could not know it at the time.’

‘Yes,’ Lavellan said quietly. ‘Beholden to Mythal for all time, wonderful.’

_‘What_?’

The elf’s attention was pulled to the mirror abruptly, though to Dorian it seemed the same as ever; grimy and still. ‘They’re close,’ Lavellan said, relief smoothing out her previously furrowed brow line.

*

She opened the gateway and one by one, they came through.

Varric, Bull, Cole and Leliana.

The commotion had attracted the attention of the others and amid the hustle and bustle, Sera, Solas, Vivienne and Rainier joined them, filling the room to the brim.

The Spymaster wasted no time whatsoever in crossing the distance between her and her friend, taking Josephine in her arms and muttering something that couldn’t be made out over the low-level chit chat of the others.

‘Cassandra is staying with the forces to route them back manually,’ Bull explained as Sera hopped up and wrapped her arms around him, effectively climbing him like a tree. ‘They’ll march better knowing they’re not coming back to a castle of dead bodies.’

‘Cole,’ Dorian said, yanking the boy into a hug when he came close, heart hammering.

‘Dorian,’ he greeted, serene as ever. ‘It was green and then white, all five mice heard tales of splits and cracks but they didn’t know how to read so they couldn’t write ahead.’

‘Precisely that,’ Dorian said, allowing himself a moment to bask in the relief of having _almost_ everyone he cared about under one large roof again. He moved back and brushed off bony shoulders, seeking out dark eyes swimming in that pale, narrow face, all angles and sharpness. ‘How are you? Are you all right?’

‘I cut into them, cut them down in the name of the Inquisition and of friends,’ Cole said with a small smile. ‘It didn’t like it, didn’t really care but I made it clear and when things are clear it becomes cloudy. It’s difficult to explain about such things. Water cannot touch oil, can it?’ He stared at Dorian expectantly, clearly awaiting an answer.

‘Um, no,’ Dorian said earnestly. ‘It definitely can’t. The two don’t mesh at all.’

Cole seemed relieved. ‘That’s what I thought. I wish it wasn't so angry all the time, it’s hardly my fault for being such a bad window. I’m going to cut it out, I think.’

‘Whoa,’ Dorian said quietly, holding Cole gently about the shoulders. ‘Cut _what_ out? Please don’t cut anything out without discussing it with me first, yes?’

‘Words are strange, aren’t they? What and who and where and why all matter so much and yet they sound the same, interchangeable but for a different stroke of the hand, a swipe of a quill in a variant style.’

‘Cole,’ Dorian said, moving closer. ‘Are you all right?’

Something came over him then, that young boy with the spirit inside. ‘Yes, I think so,’ he answered in the same voice as before but something was off, something was most definitely _off_. ‘I’m tired, Dorian. So tired and I miss porridge. Is there porridge in the hall, do you think? It’s morning isn’t it? I’ll go and see.’

And he vanished, leaving Dorian to interact with the air in his wake. Solas had been watching Cole with the kind of frown that Dorian felt deep in his bones but the two didn’t look at each other and Dorian wasn’t about to ask the taciturn elf for anything but distance, moody fucker that he was.

Josephine, Cullen and Leliana were speaking quietly in a little triangle in the corner. There was a lot of _hugging, _Dorian observed. Exuberant chit chat and laughter, the kind that stood in the in place of tears.

Dorian didn’t really have the opportunity to feel awkward, everyone kept _grabbing_ him and hauling him in for hugs and back slaps. Bull mussed his hair like he was a fucking _five-year-old. _Sera stayed close to him sometimes, determinedly avoiding Lavellan’s repeated attempts to catch her eyes. It was a noisy bustle. Cullen had waved Dorian over to the triangle and Leliana had hugged him too, thanking him as she had Rainier, for following his instincts.

She spoke in vivid detail of the lengths she would go to in helping them retrieve Hawke. Josephine winced but Cullen nodded solemnly.

‘There can be no imprisonment this time,’ the Spymaster said in a fierce and terrifying way. ‘He is an agent of chaos and destruction and must be put down.’

‘Right,’ Dorian said, nodding in agreement because _fucking void_, the intensity in her eyes was something else entirely. ‘Right, I agree.’

‘I will dispatch agents to track him and Keenan immediately,’ she went on. ‘Truly, this could be an opportunity for us to find out more about his master, this _Allendas_.’

Dorian and Cullen’s gaze met just as the room lit up green and Lavellan cried out.

*

** _Part III: Hindsight flares bright for all that is past. _ **

‘Absolutely not.’

‘You can’t possibly think we’d let you.’

‘Could be a trap, Boss.’

‘Listen to Tiny here, he’s set enough of ‘em to know.’

‘Ellana, please consider the dangers for just a moment.’

‘Yeah, Ellie, maybe _consider_ the danger before you dive headlong into it this time, eh?’

Lavellan winced again as the green light crackled viciously. She grit her teeth and said, ‘Yes, I hear you all and I’m deeply—ah! Very grateful for the sentiment but look _outside_! He’s waiting for me. I… I have to go.’

Morrigan could always be counted upon. ‘She has to go, you all know it. It is destiny and duty intertwined.’

Varric rolled his eyes. ‘We’re not saying don’t go, we’re saying don’t go _alone_.’

Lavellan was determinedly mutinous. Dorian, who hadn’t said a word since her hand had flared up, watched her gaze slowly move to him. ‘I need you all to stay here. I can’t risk any of you. It’s me he wants, let him have me.’ Sera mumbled something and shook her head. Lavellan’s jaw worked. ‘What was that? Speak up, Sera, now’s the time.’

‘I _said_, you’re a self-sacrificing _arse!_ Loud enough for ya, was it? And good frickin’ luck trying to get us to stay behind nice and safe while you’re off fighting for your life against… who again? Oh yeah, the shitting fuckface who wants to destroy the world!’

The pair glared at one another while everyone else watched.

‘I can’t ask anyone to die for me,’ Lavellan said tightly.

‘You don’t have to _ask_ it,’ Dorian said. ‘We’re your friends. Where you walk, we walk. Marshland, snow, sunny skies or pelting rain, we’ll follow you until you have no more need of us and even then, we’ll always be your friends. Friends don’t _ask_ friends to die for them and that’s why we’re all here. That’s why we’re coming with you. That’s _why_ we’d die for you.’

After a moment, she turned away and the room was near silent until Josephine said, ‘We are with you until the end, Ellana. Whatever end that may be.’

Dorian watched her back shudder once as she took a shaking breath.

‘All right,’ she said quietly. ‘All right then.’

*

Preparations were swift and there was a kind of electric tension in the air as Dorian put on his armour. It was the best kind a mage could ask for; the thickest leather that twisted and bent with him, fluid in allowing his arms absolute freedom of movement.

But he couldn’t get his buckles done up without Cullen’s help.

‘It’s so stupid, isn’t it?’ he said, trying and failing to make it into a laugh, into something said with a smile while Cullen strapped him into his protective gear, intent on the task. Without the connection between them, Dorian might have been at a loss for how Cullen was feeling then, such was his unreadable nature, his closed off expression. He _could_ feel him though. The fear, the worry, the dread. Cullen was staying behind. Lavellan had been immovable about that at the very least. ‘These buckles really _are_ a bit redundant. Fashion over function.’

Cullen looked up at him then and the bond came alive with _feeling_. With every beautiful, bittersweet feeling Dorian could name and many he couldn’t. It was a rush of sensation inside the most precious part of him, it was speaking without ever parting lips. The intensity there in those eyes, it hit Dorian in the back of his knees, in the centre of his chest and yet still Cullen was silent.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me not to die again?’ the mage asked, attempting to get _something_ out of him.

Cullen swallowed, gaze lowering carefully. ‘It seems to affect precious little whenever I make such a request.’

He was always formal when nervous, that beautiful man. The boy from Honnleath, the Templar who had secretly loved magic, whose kindness had been repaid with evil, love with cruelty, service with corruption. The Commander who loved a mage enough to almost become one.

‘I’ll be back before you know it,’ Dorian said lightly. ‘I’ll be back and then together, we’ll find Hawke. I’ll be back in time to meet him at Gherlen’s Pass tomorrow. How far is it from here?’

‘A day’s walk, quarter day’s ride,’ Cullen answered shortly.

Dorian nodded, voice coming out too light and almost _chatty_. ‘Well that’s good. That’s… we’ll end _all_ of this. Get Keenan, kill that bastard and then turn our attention to Allendas in Tevinter.’

Finished helping with the buckles, Cullen took a step away. A chasm of awkwardness bubbled between them, even in the privacy of that lovely round room. Cullen paced slightly, stopping before Dorian’s bookcase. He was looking at the middle part, where two books sat, one crimson red, one deepest blue.

He slid the blue one out and opened it while Dorian watched.

‘This is _your_ book,’ Cullen whispered, leafing reverently through the pages. ‘Your copy of it.’ He looked up at the mage. ‘Your Father sent it to you?’

‘He did, yes.’

Cullen looked back down. ‘It’s… beautiful. Your version, I mean. The book is… obviously beautiful too. It’s still my favourite, I’ve never read anything else that…’ he cleared his throat and seemed annoyed with himself, perhaps for rambling and Dorian took a step forward, trying to bridge the strange space between them.

‘I know,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s magical in its own way. I know.’

Cullen nodded and looked down again, calloused fingers turning the pages unhurriedly. ‘I much prefer your copy,’ he said after a moment. ‘I think I would like to get rid of mine and only have yours. To um. To share. If that’s all right with you.’

Dorian’s gaze flickered behind him to the crimson copy, the one that had first drawn the mage’s attention all those months previous, that had contained terrible things. ‘You don’t want it anymore?’

Cullen’s shoulders were tight, deeply taut all over when he said, ‘No. Not when I have yours.’

‘But…’ Dorian said, unable to let it go so easily. ‘Cullen, you’ve had it since you were a child. I don’t think you should just—’

‘It wasn’t mine,’ he cut across, turning the page, expression determinedly neutral. ‘Not at first. It was—_he_ gave it to me. Wrote my full name in it, the stupid way I introduced myself to him, and he left it on my pillow on my third day.’ He closed Dorian’s copy of _The Watchful Ambler, _though he still held it very tight. ‘It was Jassen’s before it was mine and I… I would only like your copy now, to share, to read from. Please.’

There was subtext in his request, a deeper meaning and Dorian hoped he was understanding correctly. Any _letting go_ of Jassen sat perfectly well with him.

‘Yes, of course,’ he said softly. ‘Whatever you want.’

Cullen closed his eyes. ‘I just want you.’

Something inside Dorian cracked then, something heavy that was slowly becoming accustomed to the weight of heading off into battle, to saying goodbye and knowing it could be the last time.

‘I’m yours, Cullen,’ he said simply, letting the truth of it ring clear. ‘And I’ll be back soon, eager to be read to from our book, our _one_ book. We can stay in here all night once this is done, bring the girls in and… and you can read to them, to all of us.’

Cullen nodded, half holding the book to his chest, the way Dorian had once done with his crimson copy, the book he hadn’t known had first been _Jassen__’s_, inscribed with the writing he had once confused for Cullen’s, assuming it had changed greatly from child to adult. But no, it had been Jassen’s writing. Jassen lived on in so many aspects of Cullen.

When Cullen opened his eyes, he said, ‘I never knew I could love anything the way I love you.’

It felt like… like _goodbye_ and Dorian couldn’t cope with that, couldn’t _handle_ it especially not when there was no need for it. They had a solid plan, not necessarily a _great_ plan for how to defeat Corypheus, but it was better than nothing.

‘Nor did I.’

Cullen took a deep breath. ‘When you come back, everything will be better.’

‘Of course it will,’ Dorian said. ‘I am rather wonderful.’

Cullen smiled but it didn't quite touch him, Dorian could tell.

And there wasn’t time, there just wasn’t _time_ to push and seek and find out what it was inside Cullen then, even their magic was confused. Lavellan was waiting with all of the others, everyone who wasn't an advisor was going with her and Dorian meant what he’d said before, he _would_ die for her but it was a struggle to break himself from the quiet contained world of that place where only he and Cullen existed.

‘And when I return,’ he said. ‘We’re going to make this right.’

‘Get Keenan back,’ Cullen asserted. ‘I know how much you love him, Dorian. I know what he means to you.’

Dorian’s throat felt suddenly very full. ‘I can’t just leave him to Hawke.’

‘I know that,’ Cullen said and Maker, but it seemed like he really _did_. ‘We’ll get him back, I swear it. Your mess, my mess, it doesn’t matter at the end of the day. All that matters are the people we love.’

It felt like goodbye, why did it feel like _goodbye?_

Someone knocked gently on the wood of the door and time had run out, as surely as the hourglasses Dorian had once set for Cullen, always making them a tiny bit more glittering and beautiful than truly necessary just because Cullen had been entranced by them, by the mage’s magic.

A variant of which, stronger and wholly more alive, now lived between them. It took no pleasure in being made to stretch, in residing more in Dorian than Cullen, but it was _necessary_.

Cullen handed Dorian the book and said, ‘I’ll see you soon.’

Dorian grabbed the book and loosely tossed it aside on to the bed, pulling Cullen’s wrist to bring them flush against one another. ‘I’m coming back, do you hear me?’ he demanded quietly, insistently, hoping the reason for Cullen’s strange withdrawal was simply the fact that Dorian had been on the receiving end of so many close calls. ‘I swear it to you.’

Sword wielding hands grasped carefully at the mage’s face and Cullen closed his eyes. ‘Tell me you love me.’

Dorian lost the ability to breathe for a long, torturous moment. ‘I love you,’ he swore, but it felt insufficient, entirely lacking to prove to Cullen _how much_ he loved him, that he was so in love with him that Dorian’s north was wherever Cullen pointed, his happiness tied intricately into the Commander’s. ‘I love you, I love you, I fucking _love you, _Cullen Rutherford and when I get back, you can drag me to some quaint little chapel and put a stunningly cheap Ferelden ring on my beautiful, magic wielding finger if you want.’

Cullen exhaled a laugh, eyes averted. ‘You wouldn’t wear a cheap ring.’

‘If it comes from you, Cullen, I’ll wear a fucking length of _twine_.’

The atmosphere lightened somewhat and Cullen pressed a very light, very brief kiss to Dorian’s lips, though their proximity remained tangled and perilously close, especially when someone else was outside, patiently waiting for Dorian to head off to battle a living God.

‘Everything will be all right,’ he whispered to the mage before slowly, purposefully letting go.

*

The bad feeling that followed Dorian all the way out of Skyhold towards that bright green fissure in the sky, had some competition to say the least. It was a half day’s journey to the middle and highest point of the Frostback Mountains, the Valley of Sacred Ashes, and it was too treacherous to go on horseback.

Parting had left Dorian’s heart so heavy that each step closer felt like he was slowing even though he knew he was moving faster as they closed in on the breach, nearing the Elder One. Saying goodbye to his mages, making sure they knew how much he loved them without making it clear that this was a battle from which he may well not return had been no simple thing. It was easier not to think of it, but he didn’t allow himself the luxury. He needed to keep their faces close in his mind, the worry they felt, the tears Nalari had shed, Dawn’s little yawn as the rest of them clamoured for a hug. Saffy promising to take care of them all if anything _happened_.

It was better to know what his death would cause than to go into the battle lightweight and reckless, the way he’d gone through most of his whole life.

They were _gravity_, the people he loved who loved him in return. They _did_ weigh him down and it was the best fucking thing in the world. To be heavy, to walk solidly, to have ties. He was _needed_.

Dorian Pavus was needed.

But Cullen’s face, his strange stilted silence and the distance between them that had still existed even as they parted ways, that was best set aside for the time being. Tethered to reality, yes. Unfocused, no.

‘Everyone stay safe,’ Lavellan said as they looked upwards. The darkening skies called out, unnatural lightning flashing every now and then as the Fade simply _flooded_ mana. Dorian’s skin broke out into full gooseflesh, he positively _crackled _with it. His magic was highly keyed up, desperate to lash out and rent this creature apart once and for all. ‘No heroics, you understand?’

Varric quipped, Morrigan advised and Bull snorted. Vivienne postured and Rainier complained. Cole riddled, Sera deflected and Solas queried.

And Dorian… he just smiled at his friend and then followed her into the fray.

*

Corypheus and his dragon were all that remained of a once great army that had threatened Thedas. The two of them directly called Ellana Lavellan out for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for refusing to die, for refusing to allow _others_ to die. All those months, all the time spent forming an Inquisition, training and accumulating strength… it all came down to one fight.

It was brutal and it was as close to death as Dorian had ever come.

Not because he almost died, which he definitely did, but because Corypheus was death incarnate. He was death come calling and it had never been clearer why they needed to stop him.

And when that dragon landed and screeched, shaking all the rocks around them, when Dorian’s heart clenched hard and panic threatened to drown him, render him useless because he remembered that fucking thing _so very_ well…

Dorian breathed through it. He focused, walked right through all that sickly, writhing fear and he _fought, _just like they all did.

When Sera’s hand became trapped beneath a falling rock and she tore it back, breaking fingers and shredding skin, she drew arrows with the other hand instead, screaming at Corypheus, _‘Eat it!’_

When Vivienne’s staff was shattered and crushed, she wielded magic with her fingers, abundant mana clouding the very air they breathed.

When Bull’s axe was swung against him by the force of a red, vicious magic, he pulled it out of his own shoulder and roared, charging.

When Varric was hit with something too bright that sizzled the very air and it sent him to the rocky ground, clutching his chest and unable to stand, he fired arrows from where he lay, Bianca’s wrath whistling through the air.

When Cole was picked up and _held_ by Corypheus, the boy _screamed_. It might have been the absolute worst thing Dorian had ever heard before, but Cole wasn’t done and when he slashed at the Elder One’s face, those clawed hands let go of his fragile body. He got to his feet, shook it off and spun his blades, deadly little assassin that he was at heart.

When Rainier’s leg shattered and broke as he was thrown against a wall of stone with enough force to crack him like an egg, he lifted his sword high and bellowed, casting guard for them all, protecting them with what little he had left from where he lay.

When Solas was stabbed through the shoulder with jagged rocks sent through the air like spears, the elf’s eyes narrowed and he didn’t pull it out and heal it, he kept his energy on healing the others, on protecting them, especially Lavellan.

And Lavellan, who Dorian had weakened when he burned that poisonous shit out of her strong, elven body, she fought the Elder One with every single bit of strength she had. Every piece of what she’d clawed back in the tiny space between the Wilds and this very battle, she expended on bringing him down, on deflecting his magic, on poking holes in him. The others did everything they could to protect her because she was _still_ weak, she was nowhere near strong enough to take him down herself. Dorian knew that had she come alone, she would already be dead.

But in the end, it was Corypheus who fell before her. She shattered his face and sent him into the Fade.

And she managed to do it right before she passed out.

As the rocks were falling, as the whole unnatural world Corypheus had attempted to build around them came crashing down, Bull picked her up and the others helped who they could, leaning on each other, running from falling masonry, from huge heavy things that could crush them into jam.

Together, they ran.

*

It wasn't until after Solas had healed himself that he was able to fully heal the others. Sera’s hand no longer exposed like a gloveless skeleton, Varric able to breathe and no longer clutching the heart Dorian had once pushed to its limits. Bull no longer gushing blood, though in all fairness he hadn’t even seemed to _notice_. Blackwall able to stand, Cole shaking with post-battle adrenaline and Vivienne applying what little healing magic she _did_ know wherever she could, determined to help.

Lavellan opened her eyes once as Dorian held her and tipped water into her mouth. She grinned slightly and it caused the water to spill and Dorian to tut.

‘Not bad for the Herald of No One,’ she whispered to him before falling back into unconsciousness.

*

‘Where—where is Solas?’ Josephine called out, hand over her heart as they made it to the gates.

The walk back had spilled over into night but no one had wanted to camp, no one wanted to be away from Skyhold a moment longer than necessary.

So they’d walked slowly and painfully back to their fortress, Bull carrying Lavellan, Blackwall flanked with Vivienne and Sera, Cole muttering quietly to himself while Dorian hung back a little to stay with Varric who couldn’t quite meet the pace of the others.

‘Elf vanished,’ Bull told her. ‘Not dead, just _gone_.’

‘Chuckles probably just wanted some time to brood about the orb,’ Varric suggested, breath a little short. ‘Never seen a guy so down after winning a battle.’

Sera snorted. ‘Yeah, now’s the _perfect_ time to go off and cry about what is lost and shall never be again. Maudlin dick-hole.’

‘Is Ellana all right?’ Josephine fretted. ‘Are you all—’

‘We’re fine,’ Rainier promised as they made it inside the courtyard, stretchers and medics ready and waiting. Dorian looked past the smattering of guards, of people crowding to offer help and saw Nalari, little Dawn in her customary sling, hurrying over, rubbing her hands to draw her healing magics down into them.

Before she could heal anyone though, she caught sight of Dorian and her face crumpled with relief. The two hugged awkwardly and carefully so as not to crush Dawn.

‘I knew you’d be fine,’ she said, blue eyes glittering with _relief_. ‘We all did.’

The other mages were not far behind.

‘Dorian!’ Landon yelled, throwing himself gracelessly around the mage. The others piled on, heedless of appearances and Nalari wasted no time in applying careful, methodical healing magics to Blackwall as he sat on the stretcher, her magic lighting up the dark night around them even better than torches. ‘We saw the sky heal itself, we watched it happen! We knew you’d make it,’ Landon gushed, his eyes a little over-bright.

‘How many demons did you kill?’ Pick demanded. ‘Millions?’

Dorian thought. ‘Uh, three.’

Before Pick could denounce Dorian’s achievements, Finn swiftly took over.

‘Is he dead, Corypheus? Because then you could raise him like he did with the dragons and have him fight for you!’

‘Well, no_._’

‘No, he’s not _dead_?’ Marcus enquired, horrified.

‘No, he’s trapped for all time in the Fade and even if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t call on him to fight for me if my life depended upon it.’

‘Did you use blood magic?’

‘Did you use lightning?’

‘Was it a long fight?’

‘You only killed _three_ demons?’

‘No, yes, medium and they were bloody _big_ demons, Pick.’

‘Give him some air,’ Saffy ordered sternly, glaring at Pick when he opened his mouth to argue. With enough room, she and Dorian embraced.

‘Darling girl,’ he said quietly. ‘To the rescue as always.’

She snorted at that. ‘Hardly. I’m so glad you’re back safe.’

He could tell she meant it. ‘I wasn't about to leave any of you.’

‘Dorian,’ came Leliana’s voice. He winked at Saffy and went towards the Spymaster. She seemed stressed, though that wasn't anything out of the ordinary given the circumstances. ‘You require healing?’

‘No, I fared better than some,’ he said, watching the stretcher carry Lavellan away, awake but still incredibly weak. ‘She needs rest.’

Leliana watched the Inquisitor too. ‘I don’t think anyone will disagree with that. I need to speak with you, if you’ve a moment?’

Oh shit.

Dorian froze. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s better to speak when we’re alone,’ she insisted firmly.

But it came suddenly, _so_ fucking suddenly that Dorian felt lightheaded. How could he have not even _noticed? _

‘Where… where is he?’

‘We really should be—’

But Dorian wouldn’t hear it. His heart was smashing against his ribs, sickness crawling up his spine and burning in his arm pits. _‘Leliana, _tell me right now, where is Cullen?’

The Spymaster pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘Where the fuck do you think?’

*

** _Part IV: And we return to fate_ ** ** _’s curve, unknowing. _ **

Dorian had been ten years old when he fell from the side of a canyon he’d been trying to climb, determined to be the first to reach the top without using magic. The feeling had become a part of him in many ways, he knew that. It had wiped clean his previous definitions of the word _thrill, _of _risk_. His life for so many years after had been in pursuit of that feeling once more, of _topping_ that feeling.

It had defined him. It had _become_ him.

Dorian Pavus was thirty-one years old when he experienced the sensation of falling without any trace of thrill, numb to everything except the fact that Cullen had a head start, a significant one. It was all he could think of, all he could process.

Leliana had yanked him into a quiet, shadowy corner of the outer courtyard of Skyhold, the air crisp and bitter, and explained in a harsh whisper that Cullen had left within an _hour_ of their departure to the Valley and that he’d gone in the opposite direction.

‘He didn’t say a word to me, knew not to engage me,’ she said, seeking out Dorian’s gaze, regretful and almost apologetic. ‘I would have stalled him, he knew it. If I’d had the slightest idea of what he was about to do, I would have trapped him somehow but he moved fast and he _is_ the Commander, in Lavellan’s absence he… Dorian?’

The mage was staring blindly to her left, barely hearing what she was saying. ‘He’s too far ahead,’ Dorian said, voice oddly devoid of tone. ‘He’s a better rider than me, he knows Ferelden better than me.’ He very slowly brought his gaze back to her. ‘Leliana, I… I’m not going to be able to catch up to him, am I?

‘Listen to me,’ she said sternly, torch light illuminating one side of her features. ‘He knew what he was doing, leaving then, you’re right. He knew I couldn’t follow, knew I couldn’t order anyone else to follow him but that hardly means I _didn__’t_.’

Dorian exhaled shakily. ‘You had him followed.’

Leliana seemed slightly put out that he doubted her. ‘Of _course_ I had him followed.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘My last update came hours before sundown,’ she said, distinctly displeased. ‘I am due another one any time now, but he was most definitely headed for Gherlen’s Pass as expected. Gone to meet Hawke.’

Dorian leaned against the cold stone wall. ‘He’s going to trade himself for Keenan.’

Leliana frowned, though she didn’t seem especially surprised. ‘You truly think so?’

How was anything _less_ than that even possible? All Dorian had talked of was Keenan and fuck, but looking back, he could see it all so clearly.

‘Yes, I do.’ He looked around the dark courtyard and blinked slowly. ‘I can’t stay here. I have to go after him.’

Leliana grasped his hand briefly, just the way he’d once seen her do to Cullen. ‘I know. I’ve readied a horse for you and some supplies. I would go with you if I could.’

He shook his head and managed a watery smile. ‘No, I know. You have to be here, this is a monumental moment and Ellana needs you here to protect her while she’s vulnerable.’ Dorian faltered then, a duel sense of duty pulling in opposite directions and Leliana sensed it, stepping in quickly before he could mope.

‘You’ve done more than enough for the Inquisition,’ she said firmly. ‘We can manage here. Go after him.’

There were people he needed to tend to, spend time with, check in with. His mages, Josephine, Rainier and his leg, Varric and his _heart_.

Leliana squared her shoulders. ‘_Dorian_,’ she said. ‘I can see quite plainly what you’re thinking. Let me make it clear - I am _ordering_ you to go after Cullen and please feel free to punch him in the face when you find him.’

Dorian squinted slightly. ‘I don’t think you can order me, Leliana.’

‘And yet I just did.’

*

True to her word, a horse had been readied for him in the stables. Dorian quickly checked the bags, finding food, water, a map, clothes, spare weapons, bless Leliana and her never ending cynical pragmatism.

He was halfway up on his horse when he sensed the presence of someone. Dorian peered into the suspicious darkness, all of his _Parental_ instincts coming fully into play.

‘No, Saffy,’ he said hauling himself fully atop the steed.

‘I’ve already got a horse ready,’ she replied quickly. ‘Got my own supplies. I won’t slow you down, I’m about as good a rider as you meaning I can stay upright.’

Dorian wanted to slightly object to that mild insult but it was a trap to indulge in debate when a line needed to be drawn.

‘Absolutely not, you’re staying here. I need you to look after the others.’

Saffy stepped out into the low light and scowled impressively. ‘You can’t shunt me off with that excuse forever. They’re all safe, this is the safest they’ve ever been. I’m coming with you this time and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop me.’ In a quieter voice she added, ‘I won’t get in your way and I’ll hide when you tell me to hide. I promise.’

Dorian cocked his head, eyebrow lifting with doubt. He saw so much of himself in her, that young, headstrong mage, desperate for adventure.

‘It’s too dangerous.’

She gave a haughty huff and tossed her jet-black hair, adjusting the satchel over her shoulder. ‘I survived things you couldn’t dream about. Keenan is my friend, my brother in every way that matters. If I can help him, or _you_, then I’m coming one way or another.’

_‘Sapheria_,’ Dorian said in what he hoped was a Leliana kind of way, trotting out the use of her much-despised full name for purposes of seriousness. ‘There is no way in void you’re coming.’

*

‘It’s a _map_,’ Saffy complained, lighting up the darkness with her magic, a few soft blue orbs floating nearby similar to Dorian’s. ‘How can you not know how to read it?’

Dorian didn’t glare at his travel companion but it was a near thing.

‘I can read a map I just… it’s all very dark and I don’t know how to find North!’

Dorian looked around, taking in the horizons, the positions of the moons. They’d been riding for less than an hour before stopping to check position. Dorian fretted internally but kept himself admirably under control. ‘There must be a way of discerning it. I think I remember reading about a needle in water inside a leaf, perhaps? No, that can’t be right. What about the stars, is there a way we can… read them? But they move all the time so that can’t be right either. All right, maybe we could—’

‘Use a compass?’ Saffy suggested, whipping one out of Dorian’s saddle bag, her grin far brighter than the orbs she’d made.

‘Don’t get cocky, you.’

‘Bit late for that,’ she said and handed it over. Dorian aligned it with the map, staring at the tiny indicator of Gherlen’s Pass, a tiny dot on the map. He stared at it properly for the first time since setting off, the map as a whole. He looked to the left of the Pass and saw a lake, a big one. Lake Calenhad stretched wide and vast, but relatively close to the Pass on the other side was a name that had his gut tightening.

_The Circle Tower_.

_‘_We good?’ she asked, looking down at the map and seeing nothing unusual, nothing to give her pause.

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, turning his attention to the compass. ‘Uh, yes. We’re on track. Let’s keep going. Remember what I said?’

Saffy hauled herself high atop the horse and sighed. ‘If there’s trouble, run. If there’s danger, run. If I sense something bad, tell you right away.’

‘Damned right.’

*

They’d been riding for less than three hours judging by the movement of the moons, something Cullen had showed Dorian to track more than once. The terrain was flat and easy to traverse even for Dorian. Even though he knew it was futile trying to catch up with Cullen, who had a half day of travel ahead of them, _doing_ something made him feel better somehow.

Three hours of riding and letting himself embrace the sensation of _action_ as opposed to sitting around and being eaten alive with worry, they came across a figure stumbling through the darkness.

They wouldn’t have even noticed the figure, had he not been lighting the way with magic.

‘Stop!’ Dorian called to Saffy who pulled on the reins and slowed her horse to match his. Across a clearing obscured by a smattering of trees the figure walked. He slid off his horse and looked up at Saffy. ‘Stay here,’ he told her sternly. ‘Make sure my horse doesn’t make a run for it.’

‘All right,’ she said, staring at the poorly lit figure across the way, judging by the continued, determined trudge, they hadn’t yet spotted Dorian and Saffy.

Heart beating hard in his chest, Dorian walked through thick, damp grass, carefully navigating knolls and dips in the near total darkness, moons obscured by heavy clouds, the air in his lungs cold and slightly damp. The closer he got, the quicker he began to breathe because he recognised the shape, the _outline_, the way the traveller walked.

‘Keenan,’ he said and then louder, ‘Keenan!’

The young man stopped dead and turned in his direction, everything about him rigid with fear of an incoming attack. As Dorian began to run, he saw that Keenan was clutching his stomach, had a spatter of blood running vertically across his face.

‘Dorian,’ he gasped, his whole body sagging with relief as the Tevinter mage stopped before him, hands on his shoulders, barely keeping himself from hugging the boy because he was injured. ‘Fuck, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’

‘Stop, it’s-it’s fine, let me see your stomach, Keenan.’

‘No, please,’ the boy said, face clenched in agony, both physical and beyond. ‘I fucked up, I should never have started talking to him! Dorian, I’m so sorry!’

‘Keenan!’ Dorian said sharply, not meaning it to come out in such a way but gnawing worry was eating through his ability to remain calm. ‘None of that matters right now. I need to see where you’re hurt. Kneel down for me, all right.’

Keenan didn’t kneel. The light he had conjured was fading rapidly and Dorian replaced it with several of his own, allowing him to see Keenan’s face in some detail. The grime and the blood there, his hands that pressed over his stomach were red and sticky. ‘I… betrayed you,’ Keenan whispered wretchedly, his expression screwed tight and he shook his head. ‘I went behind your back and I… you’ve only ever been good to me, to us.’

‘Keenan, shut the fuck up, I couldn’t care less about betrayal right now and you didn’t betray _anyone_. I knew you wouldn’t kill anyone.’ Dorian put his hand to the mage’s face. ‘You’re a good man,’ he told the boy who could not be a day over twenty. ‘You’re _good_, Keenan, all right? You’ve always been good, always.’

Keenan’s expression collapsed, tears cutting through the bloodstains on his cheeks.

Behind, Dorian could hear the approach of horses and he was relieved that Saffy had decided to wholeheartedly ignore his command to stay away.

‘Oh Maker,’ she said, sliding from her horse with far more grace than Dorian managed. ‘Keenan, shit!’ She grabbed potions from her satchel and hurried over. ‘Fuck, what happened?’

She handed the uncorked bottle to Dorian who then coaxed a crying Keenan into kneeling, making it easier to keep him upright when he fed him the healing potions. ‘That’s good,’ Dorian said soothingly, trembling fingers moving over where Keenan was clutching his stomach. ‘I’m going to need to see it now, Keenan.’

Face bloodless, body shaking, Keenan managed a stiff nod as Saffy knelt beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. ‘You’re cold,’ she said quietly, slipping off her cloak and wrapping him up in it as Dorian slowly, carefully pried the boy’s rigid arms away.

‘N-no,’ Keenan tried to say, looking at her. ‘You keep it.’

‘Oh Keenan, seriously!’ she snapped, something in her voice wavering. ‘I’m heat personified, don’t you know?’

He managed a shaky smile as Dorian conjured additional light and heat for good measure, peeling back layers of blood soaked clothing. There was a thin line, a kind of _split_ across Keenan’s upper stomach, just beneath where his ribs started.

‘What did this?’ Dorian asked.

Keenan exhaled carefully, Saffy taking his blood soaked hand. ‘It wasn’t a sword,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you’re asking.’

Dorian glanced up. ‘I wasn’t.’

‘It was Hawke,’ Keenan said after a long moment of Dorian studying the wound. ‘Cullen… told me to run and Hawke’s magic got me as I ran.’

He said it like the words choked him. The mere mention of Cullen had Dorian’s entire system _alight_ with focus and burning need to know more, magic swirling like a typhoon inside him. There was too much distance between them to feel anything except… except that the magic, the _bond_ itself had not snapped. He had to be alive. Dorian had seen Cullen best Hawke before.

But that _had_ been with the use of Dorian’s magic.

Dorian shook himself and focused on the task at hand.

‘Keenan, I’m going to pour elfroot over the wound to help it close,’ Dorian said. ‘It’s going to be extremely painful but there isn’t any internal damage from what I can see.’

Keenan managed a kind of breathless laugh. ‘Where’s Nalari when we need her, eh?’

The mage met his gaze then and there was so much pain in those young eyes that Dorian could scarcely stand it.

‘She’s safe,’ Dorian said. ‘Everyone is safe.’

‘They are?’

‘Yes.’

‘Everyone?’

Dorian nodded. ‘Yes.’

Keenan let him pour the potion over the gash and Saffy held his hand tight, the two of them huddled together as Dorian did what he could.

‘It’s better I think,’ he said, hands sticky with the young man’s drying blood. ‘It’s closing at least. How do you feel?’

‘Not dead,’ Keenan said, teeth chattering, despite the tepid air, despite Saffy’s cloak. Adrenaline and blood loss, Dorian knew from experience. ‘Which is more than I deserve.’

Saffy stared down, silent and still as she held him but Keenan looked at Dorian then and before the Tevinter mage had time to once more assure him that such a statement was untrue, Keenan said, ‘Cullen came just after sundown.’

Dorian got up and withdrew clean clothes from the satchel, a simple set of decently armoured mage robes. They would be a little long on Keenan, but better than the cold, blood soaked clothes he currently had on. ‘Here,’ he said, offering them to Keenan. ‘You can’t wear this, it’s far too cold to be damp.’

It was a strange moment, crouched in the dark wilderness of Ferelden, on the outskirts of the mountain range essentially telling Keenan not to catch a cold. Some part of Dorian didn’t want to hear about Cullen, couldn’t bear what Keenan had to say because he knew the blood spatter across his face wasn’t from the young mage’s _own_ injury.

Slowly and carefully, Saffy helped Keenan to remove the shirt and replace it with thick, woollen robes, then a clean pair of trousers. The blood had run all down his legs and Dorian worried about the loss of so much precious fluid, but Keenan didn’t seem especially lightheaded or woozy.

With clean bandages from Leliana’s life-saving pack, Dorian wrapped Keenan up tightly, the cut now having narrowed to something much thinner, only trickling blood at the edges and then not at all once bound.

‘Here,’ he said, tipping a regenerative potion down the boy’s throat. ‘Last one for now.’

Keenan wiped his mouth with a shaking hand. ‘He saved my life. He… he came for _me_.’

Dorian swallowed, gaze fixed downward. ‘I know.’

A moment of silence grew between them, thankfully broken by Saffy when she said, ‘Where are they now? Were they at the Pass when you got away?’

Keenan’s voice was thin. ‘They were still fighting when I ran.’

‘You did the right thing,’ Dorian said quickly. ‘And you’re going to be fine, I promise. Everything will be fine. You and Saffy are going back to Skyhold.’

They both looked up and said, in perfect, outraged indignation, _‘No_!’

‘Yes,’ Dorian went on patiently. ‘Go straight to Leliana, no one else.’

‘I’m not leaving you!’ Saffy insisted hotly. ‘Keenan can ride with me, he’ll be fine.’

‘I feel fine,’ Keenan chimed in which was an absolutely atrocious attempt at lying considering he winced to even say it. ‘You can’t go after them alone!’

‘I can and I am and please don’t even think about arguing.’

‘Dorian,’ Keenan grunted, pushing up onto his knees. ‘We can help you.’

‘You can both be extremely helpful by going back to the castle.’

‘Without me, you’ll get lost!’

‘I can still provide a shield, I can back you up!’

‘…even know we had a compass until I showed you…’

‘…my fault in the first place and I know where Hawke is…’

‘All right!’ Dorian said, raising his hand over the cacophony of youthful objections. ‘Keenan, tell me what you know and then you’re _both_ going back, that’s the end of it. Two on a horse will be too slow to keep up with me and I am _hardly_ going to risk you in this state.’

The two of them exchanged a look, seemingly coming to some understanding.

‘Leave me here then,’ Keenan said though it clearly cost him something to say it. Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘I can walk back, I feel fine. Take Saffy, she’ll help you more than I can. Please.’

Dorian moved closer to the young mage. ‘Keenan,’ he said seriously. ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood. You cannot go back alone. You could pass out, roll into a ditch and then we’d never find you.’

Keenan winced and whispered, _‘So?_’

‘You are _not_ rolling into a ditch,’ Dorian said very strictly. ‘Because I love you, Keenan. I love you and for whatever it’s worth, I forgive you for what you’ve done.’

The young mage blinked hard, fresh tears spilling as he grit his teeth. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick, especially when you don’t know what’s happening with Cullen and Hawke.’

‘Whatever is happening between them has _nothing_ to do with you.’

At that Keenan huffed a breathless, thin little laugh and Saffy held him closer, her eyes meeting Dorian’s. ‘I thought Tevinter mages were good liars.’

‘Most are,’ Dorian said, adjusting his bandages needlessly. ‘I seem to have lost my knack for it but that doesn’t make it any less true. You’re a _child_, Keenan.’

The mage closed his eyes, everything about him _brittle_ with bitterness.

‘I’ve never been a child.’

‘Well, you’re _my_ child,’ Dorian said before he could stop himself and Keenan’s eyes flew open. Dorian was beyond the point of restraint what with Keenan’s blood on his hands, with having seen him cut open and hurt, stumbling through the darkness with nothing but a flickering light to guide him. ‘And _yes_, you have caused untold trouble, but you didn’t kill anyone. Hawke is a conniving piece of shit who would have likely cut a bloody swathe through innocent people to get free if you hadn’t done what you did. We should never have left him alive.’ Dorian put his hand over Keenan’s. ‘I shouldn’t have left you behind, I know that now, but I _can__’t_ bring you along this time, neither of you. I know you’re a man, Keenan. I know it the same way I know Saffy is a woman but to me, you’re children because I love you and I want to protect you. Please, _please_ let me protect you once more.’

Keenan and Saffy shared another brief look and he subtly nodded at her. ‘We’ll go back together,’ Keenan said, oddly quiet. ‘You need to go help him, Dorian. It was a trap, obviously and Cullen… he was holding his own when I looked back, but he… he was only using his sword.’

Within, Dorian’s magic mourned. _We cannot reach, we are too far. _

‘When we left the castle, we moved around a bit at first. He took us to this shack. Got a mirror and… what I think was Cullen’s fur thing and then we went to the Pass and waited. He was expecting you _both_, not Cullen alone.’

Dorian’s stomach clenched hard. He was at least an hour from Gherlen’s Pass, maybe more with his less than stellar riding skills.

‘Did he use the mirror to contact someone?’

‘Yeah, it was a man. I only heard him once. Didn’t see anything.’

‘What did he say?’

_‘Bring them both to the Tower_. That was it, that was all I heard, but then Hawke saw me listening and he took it further away. They talked for a while and then he came back and he said I was to sit still and look vulnerable.’ Keenan’s eyes darkened then. ‘He laughed at me when I asked why and he told me I was _bait_. That _obviously, _I was bait.’

Dorian got to his feet and retrieved the map and compass once more. He could cross the water _fast, _possibly faster than on horseback. Create a raft of ice and use force to act as wind behind him.

But he had to be sure.

‘Keenan, did Hawke say anything else?’

‘He talked constantly,’ Keenan said, wiping his nose on his sleeve, mouth curled with disgust. ‘He’s… I think he’s losing his mind. Kept talking to someone called _Garret_ like he was there with him. Talked about you, about Cullen, someone called Fenris.’ Keenan held Dorian’s gaze and said, ‘You need to go help him. Whatever is coming, I don’t think Cullen can handle it alone.’

Saffy wrinkled her nose. ‘Why _did_ he go alone in the first place?’

Dorian very carefully did not look at Keenan when he answered, ‘He was probably thinking it would be easier to trade Keenan for himself if I wasn’t there. Why did they end up fighting if he offered a trade?’

Keenan hesitated only a tiny amount before he said, ‘Hawke said something about you. About… you and Cullen in the Arbor Wilds. Cullen just _snapped_.’

Had the spy been in the Wilds then? Dorian shook himself, he couldn’t focus on such things, not when he had to cross the lake, find the ruined Circle Tower and then…

And then _what_? Maker, what was he going to find when he arrived hours behind them?

‘We’ll go back now,’ Saffy said. ‘It’ll be fine.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, clinging to the hope that for the two of them it would be true. ‘Yes, thank you, darling girl. What would I do without you, hmm?’

She managed a weak smile and slowly, she got Keenan to his feet with some help from the Tevinter mage. Getting him on the horse required more magic than muscle, but with Saffy sat behind him on the saddle, her arms wrapped securely around his middle, carefully avoiding the bandages, Dorian was confident that at a slow pace, they would make it back safely.

‘Follow our tracks back,’ Dorian said. ‘And if in doubt, just look for the bloody enormous castle in the mountains.’

Keenan held the reins tightly, throat working. ‘I uh,’ he said to Dorian in a voice the mage barely recognised. ‘I… I hope you get to him in time.’

‘That means a lot, thank you.’

‘I’m sorry again, for everything.’

‘You’re probably going to be saying that for a while, Keenan, but you don’t need to say it to me anymore, all right? I’ll see you when I get back.’

‘Make sure you come back,’ Saffy said tightly. ‘Both of you.’

Dorian stepped away and watched them melt into the night before turning his gaze to the north east, at least according to his compass. He tried not to think about Cullen having to go _back_ into that place, that fucking void hole that had chewed him up and spat him out again. It was a cruel place to take him, chosen specifically for such a purpose and it made Dorian’s blood boil, fingers trembling as he pulled up onto the back of his horse.

‘I’m coming,’ he muttered under his breath, turning the horse towards the lake shore roughly a mile away. ‘I’m coming for you, Cullen.’

*

The lake was like black glass, so still and silent with a rolling mist lit up by occasional flashes of the shy moons above. It was vast, even at the narrowest point. The shore beneath Dorian’s boots was gritty and pebbly, crunching beneath his sole. He conjured a thick, very dense chunk of ice and planed it away to make the top flat. It wobbled when he crawled onto it and Dorian expanded it more at the sides, making it harder to tip over. Once he was kneeling upon it, reasonably certain he wasn’t about to pitch over the side, he looked back at his horse.

‘Sorry old chap,’ he said shakily. ‘I don’t think you’d enjoy this part.’

He dug into the ice with one hand and with the other, he conjured _force. _The whole thing wobbled dangerously but he began to move, and once he had control of direction he began to move _fast_.

In terms of dryness, he definitely hadn’t thought it through. Water crashed all over him, his knees and thighs were soaked through, the water already freezing without the fucking _ice_ he was kneeling on to make things ever worse. He grit his teeth and pushed on.

At one point, a deep sense of quiet horror filled his insides. The darkness around him was total, absolutely impenetrable and he couldn’t make out shoreline, skyline, horizon… nothing. There was only darkness, there was only water and a black, terrible lake that seemed to stare at him like a giant, all seeing eye, watchful of his foolishness, patient for his mistakes.

He had to switch hands frequently so that the ice didn’t burn his skin too severely but every time he did, the slowly melting raft wobbled and sent his stomach lurching. It was only water, only a _lake_. During the day, it was probably blue and beautiful but this wasn’t the day and Dorian’s fear of going in was deeply primal.

When at last a great and looming tower came into view, he could have cried with relief.

*

The oppressive silence was so cloying that Dorian’s own breath sounded worryingly loud to his own ears. He dried himself best he could, not wanting to expend unnecessary mana, but needing to not freeze to death. The Tower was _huge. _An ugly, hulking thing reaching skyward, casting a vast shadow whenever the moons were brave enough to peek out from behind their clouds.

Dorian sensed, with some heretofore unknown ability, that the sun would rise soon. It was _extremely_ dark, a total absence of light that, Cullen had taught him, preluded false dawn and then true dawn. The sky was a _void_ of light without the moons and the clouds were excessively thick. The mage tightened his satchel over his chest and took a deep, centring breath.

_He is close_, the magic whispered eagerly. _Our Cullen is close by but oh, others are close too. Dorian, tread carefully. It is waking. _

With a frown, Dorian looked inward. **_What is waking? _**

_The evil no longer slumbers, it wakes with a smile, wide and cruel_.

** _Do you mean my curse_ ** **?**

_It is watching,_ the magic said, sounding afraid but determined. _It waits, it has waited a long time. Be careful, Dorian. Please_.

‘Right,’ he said aloud under his breath, as if to steady himself. ‘I’ll be careful, somehow.’

He moved carefully from the shore towards the Tower, barely able to make out the edifice in such darkness, a low, coiling tendril of fear in his stomach. While he was relieved that Cullen was nearby, he couldn’t _feel_ him beyond the acknowledgement that their magic was correct, Cullen was somewhere nearby and he was alive.

Dorian was debating how best to get inside the actual building, when light blossomed to his right, some twenty feet away.

‘I knew you’d come,’ Hawke said, feral grin all lit up by green and glowing light. ‘Took your fucking time, though!’

On his knees beside Hawke, bound in chains Dorian recognised all too well from that day in the Great Hall, was Cullen. The chains shimmered and glowed, moving like liquid and he was gagged.

Without warning, their magic _fled_ to him, or at least it tried to. It tried with everything it had to rush to him, to their Cullen, but… it couldn’t.

Cullen was subdued and still. So like the Templars Dorian had seen on display nine years ago. Dorian couldn’t make out his expression, couldn’t see his eyes, but he was breathing and that would have to be good enough.

‘Now,’ Hawke said, running a blood soaked hand through his filthy brown hair, the scar Dorian had given him standing out starkly against his pale skin. ‘Before you rip me to pieces, you should know it’s not me controlling the chains this time. They were left out here especially for him and killing me will _not _free your precious little _Templar_, got it, Splendid?’

Dorian glared, making sure all his movements were very still. ‘Yes.’

Hawke grinned again, it was an _awful_ thing. ‘Lovely. Now, we’re going inside and we’re going to trade. Fenris is in here and I’m going to swap you and Cullen for him.’

‘You really believe that?’

With an owlish, uneven blink, Hawke said, ‘I have to.’

Dorian chanced a step closer. ‘Hawke, work with us. We’ll go inside no matter what, we’ll play along and when the moment comes, _help us_ and we’ll get you and Fenris out, I swear it.’

‘You hear that?’ Hawke whispered, crouching low beside Cullen who only flinched away slightly and very sluggishly when the Champion ran that bloody hand through Cullen’s hair. ‘We can all work together! How _fun!__’_

Insides curling with disgust and innate _wrongness_ to see Hawke petting Cullen in such a manner, Dorian said, ‘At least do it for Fenris.’

Hawke snatched Cullen’s hair and yanked his head back, a pained sound slipping past the Commander’s gag. ‘This!’ Hawke spat. ‘_All_ of this is so that I can save Fenris! Do you think I’m stupid? I know I’m not walking out of there, but neither is this piece of shit Templar! Fenris is all that matters to me!

‘All right,’ Dorian said reasonably, eyes rooted to Cullen’s face now that it was wrenched back, full array of dull, lifeless pain visible in those unnaturally illuminated features. ‘All right, let’s go inside then. We’ll go together.’

Hawke seemed suspicious for a moment, considering Dorian’s sudden acquiescence but then he slowly released Cullen and got to his feet again.

‘No tricks,’ he warned, hauling Cullen up by the chains. ‘For _your_ sake.’

*

Getting inside the Circle Tower was harder than it looked and the ruins were silent and deeply unhelpful in the deep gloom of the darkest ebb. Dorian found it hard to concentrate, his focus all on Cullen who seemed… utterly subdued and subservient. Dorian knew it was the chains, Cullen had been the same way in the Hall that day but they were preventing their magic from entering him too.

When climbing a narrow wall of rock to reach the level that would lead to the main doors of the ruin, Cullen, who was being led by Hawke, slipped and fell. Dorian used his magic thoughtlessly to catch him, throwing out his hand and suspending Cullen mid-air.

It was simple and it was accidental, hardly _anything_ in terms of power… but the air hummed and vibrated, a deep and terrible trembling filling Dorian’s senses like a _warning. _Like the very Tower was warning him against using magic.

Even Hawke looked shaken, but he didn’t comment, only yanked Cullen back and took greater care after that not to let him slip.

They made it up on the platform leading to what had once been double doors but were now sad splinters left behind, sticking out of rusted hinges. Hawke held Cullen’s chains very tightly as Dorian created a small orb of light to guide them through the darkness inside and again, the warning sensation rolled over him.

_It remembers,_ the magic whispered to Dorian. _This place is soaked in magic born of blood. It remembers pain and curses. Screams that shatter glass and the Fade locked outside. _

‘Do you feel that?’ Dorian asked Hawke as they moved through the doors. ‘When you use magic?’

Hawke was mostly focused on the way ahead but he glanced quickly at Dorian anyway. He created more light of his own, luminous green and reminding Dorian of Ellana’s hand. The feeling returned, far stronger than before. It trembled in the back of Dorian’s neck, causing his teeth to chatter.

It didn’t last long and when it passed, Dorian shook himself.

‘Yeah,’ Hawke said hoarsely. ‘I definitely felt that.’

They moved on through the ruin, taking care not to trip over debris or wood. Shattered furniture was scattered about, chairs and what might have been tables, bed posts and wardrobe doors. The smell of _death_ was thick in the back of Dorian’s nose and magic or not, the _feeling_ that crawled over his skin was more akin to an instinct and it screamed at him to _flee_.

‘Where is he, then?’ Dorian snapped quietly after they had most definitely walked twice in a circle. ‘Do you even know where we’re going?’

Hawke shot Dorian a scathing glare. ‘The fuck should I know?’

‘Well,’ Dorian drawled. ‘It’s a shame we don’t have anyone with us who _knows the way_, isn’t it?’

With a scowl, Hawke grudgingly removed Cullen’s gag. Dorian wasted no time. He didn’t move as close as he was desperate to, kept himself back so as not to alarm Hawke.

‘Cullen,’ Dorian said and the former Templar’s eyes moved to his slowly, sluggishly. ‘Can you hear me?’

Cullen swallowed and then nodded. Dorian slid his pack around to the front. ‘Can I give him some water?’

Hawke peered around in the darkness. ‘Don’t try anything.’

Dorian’s hands brushed over sheathed daggers and other weapons but he didn’t risk it, not with Cullen bound in such a way. He withdrew the waterskin and opened it.

‘Here,’ he offered it to Cullen who tipped his head back obligingly, _obediently_. Dorian’s skin crawled, eyeing the familiar chains. He fed Cullen water in small doses, wary of him choking. When Cullen nodded, Dorian recapped the waterskin and moved back.

‘Are you all right?’ Cullen asked Dorian. He sounded almost… drunk, like he’d just woken up from a deep sleep.

‘I’m fine,’ Dorian said. ‘I’m going to smack you silly once we’re out of here, but otherwise fine.’

Cullen closed his eyes and smiled. Everything was _slow_, everything he did was so very slow. ‘’M sorry,’ he said. ‘Thought this was… easier. Safer for Keenan.’ He opened his eyes, wide and concerned, even through the dull haze. ‘Keenan?’

‘He’s fine too,’ Dorian said. ‘He’s back at the castle with Saffy and the others.’

‘Shame,’ Hawke commented, scratching his nose. ‘Kid had potential.’ Before Dorian even had time to process such a thing, Hawke added, ‘Right, so where are we, Templar? This is your domain.’

Dorian threw up another orb of light, wincing in anticipation of the backlash. It lasted longer that time, rang in his ears unpleasantly. Cullen looked around, taking in the wreckage, the walls, the ceilings.

‘F-first floor,’ he said quietly. ‘Apprentice quarters and the library over there. Stairs are this way,’ he added, nodding to the left.

‘Righty-oh, then,’ Hawke said in a jarringly cheerful voice, giving Cullen’s chains a yank.

‘At least let me help him walk,’ Dorian asked as Cullen stumbled and narrowly avoided tripping over on the mess scattered throughout.

‘So you can slip a dagger or whatever into his hands,’ Hawke snorted. ‘I think not, Splendid.’

They made it up a flight of stairs, massive overhanging ceilings above them. The air was stilted and stale, despite the door downstairs being non-existent. Dorian wondered how often the place had been turned over by raiders and thieves?

The Tower was enormous, Dorian realised. Nothing like an actual _tower_ save for the circular layout. Each room they peered inside was simply massive, the enormous ceilings negating any sense of it feeling like a prison, though Dorian supposed that was the whole point.

Dorian burned to speak to Cullen, to ask him if he was injured, if he was all right but he held his silence, trusting that if something was seriously wrong Cullen would say so.

‘The Great Hall,’ Cullen said when they reached the third floor. ‘Don’t go that way, they barred it. There was a… a hole in the wall here.’

Cullen led them around a hallway so cluttered that Dorian couldn’t see past it and through a narrow room strewn with books and shattered glass. The glass crunched beneath their boots and true to his word, part of the wall had been knocked through, leading to a most welcome shortcut.

‘Fourth floor,’ Hawke said as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘What was this?’

Dorian looked at Cullen. Even sluggish and dazed, there was no way to miss Cullen’s struggle now. It had been minimal in the levels below, he’d swallowed it down, Dorian knew, but this level was different.

‘Templar quarters,’ he said. He wasn’t _moving, _Dorian noticed. Not only were his feet planted to the stone at the top of the steps, but he wasn’t moving at all, barely breathing and still as a statue.

Hawke frowned. ‘Well, come on then. Don’t dilly dally!’ He gave Cullen’s chains a vicious pull, yanking Cullen to the side as his hands were bound behind him, but Cullen did not fall, nor did he move as Hawke had instructed.

Dorian stepped forward. ‘Cullen,’ he said softly, hoping to be reassuring. He lifted a hand to place carefully and obviously on Cullen’s shoulder. ‘We have to keep moving. I’m sorry, but we have to.’

Cullen was staring ahead, likely at some place where something fucking awful had happened, but he nodded and rolled his gaze to Dorian for a moment.

‘All right,’ he said. It broke Dorian’s heart because he sounded… so trusting.

The Templar quarters had seen some carnage. Littered amongst the debris of broken furniture and ruined books, there were bones. Some, when Dorian accidentally stepped on them, crumbled like chalk. Hawke tripped on something and fell and when he kicked at whatever he’d tripped on, a skull came rolling out from beneath the wood, rocking backwards and forwards until entropy claimed the movement entirely. Cullen stared down at the skull, breathing through his nose, lips bitten into his mouth.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Hawke grumbled. ‘Very sad and all, but keep it moving!’

They were bedrooms, Dorian realised as they passed each door, most of which had been knocked down. Rooms where the Templars had lived. He wondered if this was where Cullen had been allowed to sleep sometimes. He recalled the Commander telling him: bed and clothes and… and Uldred brushing his hair.

Dorian swallowed down a grimace and when he came to the next set of stairs, all the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Light trickled down the staircase from the room ahead, a fine layer of dust visible for the first time. Whatever was up there, Dorian knew it was more than old ghosts and memories.

‘The Harrowing Chamber,’ Cullen said in a dead voice, staring to the right at a space beside the staircase. ‘It’s up there.’

As they began to ascend, Dorian deftly dipped into Leliana’s bag again and withdrew a small knife, the blade no bigger than the palm of his hand. He whipped off the small sheath and then pressed it into Cullen’s fingers before walking past him. ‘I wonder,’ Dorian said aloud. ‘If I ask your _master_ pretty please, will he let me kill you once he’s done with you?’

Hawke stopped dead at the top.

‘You can ask him yourself.’

There, in the room ahead, a chamber filled with low light and dead air, was Allendas.

*

The last time Dorian had seen him, he’d been older, gaining weight and losing all the things that had made him handsome.

He looked… far, _far_ worse now.

All the weight from before had been completely shed. He was gaunt and painfully thin, massive hollows beneath his sunken cheeks and his rounded eyes. His hands were skeletal.

And they had parted on bad terms; an argument, a spiteful one… but Dorian took no pleasure in seeing the man in such a way, no matter what he was the root of.

He was dressed in moth-eaten robes and they were absolutely _filthy_. That above all else struck Dorian, the sheer _state_ of him. Allendas, once proud and powerful, now reduced to what were essentially rags.

‘I brought them both,’ Hawke said, voice strong and clear all of a sudden. ‘As you asked.’

Allendas’ mouth opened and a sound came out of it, a kind of crackling rasp. Hawke dragged Cullen into the room and Dorian followed, not daring to glance back and see if he’d hidden the small weapon.

Inside, the chamber was not in disarray. There was no debris, no shattered furniture or ruined books, but there were cages.

The entire room, in fact, was lined with cages and they weren’t empty.

Behind them, the door closed with magic and Dorian saw it glow faintly blue, indicating a magical lock. He turned his attention back to Allendas who was, up close, almost _rotting_.

‘So this is it?’ Dorian demanded quietly. ‘This is what you wanted.’

Allendas blinked slowly, like he could barely understand Dorian.

‘Where is Fenris?’ Hawke growled. ‘You said he’d be here.’

The older Tevinter mage turned his head slowly to the right, to the cages that were too shrouded by darkness to make out the inhabitants, save to confirm their existence. He moved like he was underwater, like Cullen almost, only far slower.

Hawke stomped over to where Allendas had indicated and Dorian caught a flash of something shiny, something glittery around Allendas’s ankle.

The chains, the same fucking chains Cullen was bound in.

Dorian drew a sharp breath, not knowing entirely what to do with it. He grabbed Cullen by the upper arm and held him close, drawing his magic down into his fingers, ignoring the now painful warning vibration at the back of his skull.

‘Hawke,’ Dorian said, much against his own will. ‘It’s not him, it’s not—’

The Champion of Kirkwall made a kind of _gurgling_ sound. Dorian’s head whipped around and he saw Hawke fall, saw him scramble back from the cage clutching his throat. Light erupted inside the room like a benign explosion. It burned the back of Dorian’s eye sockets, blinded him momentarily.

‘Do you know how _long_ I wanted to do that to you, filthy blood mage?’

Dorian squinted against the light emanating from above, a powerful glow born of magic, but not the kind that required the Fade _or _blood_. _Something else, something familiar. Cullen tried to nudge Dorian behind him as he stepped away from where Hawke had fallen. As Dorian’s eyes adjusted, he saw Hawke scrambling wildly, legs trying to grant him distance from… from a man, someone walking out of the cage.

And like the magic, like the _voice_, like so much about this man before he ever clapped eyes on him… he was _familiar_.

Dorian recognised him, he wasn’t sure yet from where but he _recognised_ that face. Light brown hair, strong shoulders, muscular body, attractive features and his eyes...

‘Oh fucking Maker,’ he breathed.

Dorian never forgot a pretty face.

Hawke’s back hit a wall and the man laughed, it was a _beautiful_ laugh, full of joy and genuine amusement. He wore leather trousers, a rough spun white tunic, somewhat ruined by an artful spray of Hawke’s blood. He was otherwise clean and fresh faced.

‘Take your hand away,’ he suggested to Hawke. ‘You’ll die a _lot_ quicker.’

It wasn’t common, the accent. There was a distinct affectation of modern Tevene there in the ends of the words, in the slight curl of the vowels.

Cullen tried to move in front of Dorian completely but the mage wasn’t having any of it. He glanced around the chamber, at the brightly lit cages and the men inside. His heart lurched sickeningly.

Halward Pavus was inside one of them, bound and kneeling, mouth gagged and eyes blindfolded tightly.

The man got to his feet and brushed his hands off. When he turned his attention to Cullen, and it was on _Cullen - _there was no doubt about that - his pace faltered, his confidence _faltered_. Something soft came over him then, a light behind his eyes, a touch of a smile

‘Hello, lover,’ Jassen said.

*


	27. Masterful

*

For the longest time, they stared at one another. Dorian couldn’t see Cullen’s face, partially obscured by the Commander as he was, but if Jassen’s expression was anything to go by, Cullen had to be at least half drowning in astonishment.

‘You’re so…’ Jassen said, taking in all of Cullen’s face, dark brown eyes moving down his neck and his chest. Without warning, the dazzling, liquid chains melted away as if they’d never existed and Cullen’s arms sprang free. ‘_Beautiful_.’

In the absence of chains, Cullen swayed and staggered slightly and Jassen - fucking _Jassen_ \- caught him by the upper arms, chuckling kindly.

‘Whoa there,’ he said, steadying Cullen with ease. ‘It’s all right, they leave you dazed, I know. I’m sorry, I hate using his tools but they’re useful.’ Dorian watched a ringed thumb move up and down, reassuringly _stroking_ Cullen as he held him upright.

Dorian was certain he’d left his body at some point, standing there feeling like an interloper in someone else’s nightmare except Jassen didn’t _seem_ like a nightmare. He seemed kind and so _happy_ to see Cullen that he was almost trembling with it.

‘Jassen,’ Cullen exhaled and from this angle, from where Cullen had stumbled to the side, Dorian could see part of his face. ‘Jassen… please.’

It was soft and breathless. Dorian knew what he was asking for, what was on Cullen’s mind despite the shock writ large across him. The _please_ was for Dorian; for some doomed request to let the mage go, to protect him, to keep him from harm.

But Jassen took it another way entirely.

Fluid and unreasonably _fast_, one hand slid up Cullen’s shoulder and around the back of his neck. Dorian’s mouth fell open as Jassen kissed Cullen, as he pulled him gently but _firmly_ into a kiss that Cullen had no time to prevent or struggle against.

The sensation wasn’t unlike being _gutted_, Dorian reflected dully.

By the time Cullen pushed away, Jassen had already let go. It had been a thing of _taking, _of Jassen seizing contact, not giving. When that man ran his tongue over his bottom lip, expression positively drunk with desire, primal fear coiled low in Dorian’s stomach.

Fear that was entirely justified when Jassen seemed to remember that Dorian _existed_ and moved his gaze to the mage, the desire not draining exactly, but certainly plummeting in temperature.

Deceptively soft, Jassen said, ‘Remember me, blood mage?’

Dorian stepped out entirely from behind the well-meant shield that was Cullen Rutherford and clung hard to every bit of strength and mettle within him.

‘I remember you, yes.’

Cullen’s gaze snapped to Dorian’s, the three standing in a kind of wonky triangle while behind Jassen, Hawke’s hands glowed as he silently tried to heal his throat. Dorian didn’t react, didn’t look.

‘Even after all these years? I’m _touched_.’

The word was deliberate, chosen to hurt and to hint and lead Cullen to ask…

‘What does that mean?’

Hawke got to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall and Jassen sighed.

‘Oh, good,’ he said without turning. ‘The _Champion_ rises.’

‘Where’s Fenris?’ Hawke snarled, his throat sticking horribly, one hand pressed tightly over the worst of it as he continued to try and close layers of skin and muscle. ‘If you hurt him—’

Jassen smiled again and shook his head. ‘You’ll do _what_? Team up with the two you betrayed and cut my heart out?’ He turned partially, stepping back enough to make the triangle a square. ‘Look around, mage. Do you see a shock of white hair in these cages?’

Dorian had already scanned them, already taken account of who he recognised, six other Magisters inside cages, not including his father, and two he didn’t recognise, but no elves among them.

‘You said…’ Hawke hissed through a rictus of abject loathing. ‘You _promised_…’

‘I lied, repeatedly and extensively. I would never kill Fenris, obviously. He is more useful than you, _Garret_.’ Jassen closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Maker, imagine if I’d been able to enthrall _Fenris_ and send him to Skyhold. How much easier this would all have been, but the lyrium interferes with my ability to control him like I do with the others,’ he said, gesturing to the shaking _ball_ on the floor that was Allendas. ‘Fenris was always so strong,’ Jassen added, something darkening in his features as he stared down at the once proud Magister who Dorian had thought himself in love with long ago. ‘I’ll remove his memories after this and he’ll accompany Cullen and me voluntarily, I’m sure.’

‘Jassen,’ Cullen said sharply, his voice echoing around the room. His stance was ready for confrontation. ‘Let them go.’

‘Ah,’ the man with the dark eyes said. ‘Here it comes. Let them _go_, Jassen. Let my precious blood mage leave, he’s nothing to do with this. Let him go and you can have me.’

‘So _do it,_’ Cullen said quickly. ‘I’m the one you want.’

That brought Jassen up short for a moment but then he simply blinked and smiled. ‘Yes, you are. You’re _all_ that I want and just… _look_ at you. Seeing you with my _own_ eyes after so long… it’s everything.’

As Dorian’s shock began to wear off, something positively incandescent replaced it within the confines of his heart. ‘So it was _you_ in the Wilds then?’ Furious, vivid_ anger_ crashed into his magic, flooding his fingers and itching to be unleashed but the warning hummed low in the air.

Jassen’s gaze rolled down the length of the mage’s arms, languid and unhurried, to Dorian’s fingertips and he grinned, like he was _pleased_. ‘A piece of me, yes. The piece tied to the letter, at least. I’ve been inside you since the day you bled to recreate it, but you know that now. I thought I’d give you a little something, a make-shift version of a Templar brand as a thank you.’ Jassen lifted his hand to his neck, to the left side and his fingers traced the same place where Dorian bore a scar of Cullen’s giving. ‘Did you like it? Your _gift_?’

Everything happened very fast then.

The air around Cullen turned abruptly, impossibly _hot. _He conjured that terrifying brand of fire just as Hawke snatched up his staff, the crystal glowing in warning and Dorian… Dorian couldn’t do a fucking thing because the pain of Cullen _withdrawing_ their magic was crippling. It felt like someone had sunk meat hooks into Dorian’s chest and were _pulling_. He clamped down on a scream that begged to burst free and at the same time, Allendas writhed and moaned as Jassen, with implacable calm, raised his hand.

The awful vibrating became a _gong_ but it didn’t seem to affect Cullen or Jassen. Hawke let out a roar of agony when his staff exploded in his hands.

The Commander threw his palm out, aiming a thick jet of purple fire at Jassen with impressive precision. Jassen conjured a shield. A thick one made of shimmering, red glass. The fire died as soon as it touched the shield, hissing furiously and the room simply _flooded_ with steam. It singed the air, filled Dorian’s nose with the overwhelming scent of burning ozone and the pain was such now that he couldn’t contain the scream. It tore from his throat, that terrible pitch and fear-stricken timbre and Cullen’s fire faltered when he turned, seeking the source of the sound.

The fire dissipated and Jassen stood untouched, lowering his hand as Cullen did the same, though Dorian noted the Commander’s was trembling.

‘Dorian, are you—?’

‘I’m fine,’ the mage managed, both arms wrapped over his chest as if to stop it from physically spilling out. ‘I’m fine.’

‘It hurts them when we withdraw from them in here,’ Jassen said, deliberately approaching Cullen. ‘Oh, but you’re so _powerful _now,’ he praised. ‘It’s so much better when the source is a blood mage, isn’t it?’

‘Just let Dorian go.’

Jassen laughed, his brow lifting in surprise. _‘Just_ him? No Hawke, no Daddy Pavus? No potentially innocent people in cages?’

‘You can still…’ Cullen’s words tapered off, cut loose with uncertainty but Jassen caught it, seemed to know what he meant anyway.

‘Still use them against you?’ Sadness clouded his previously light expression. ‘Yes, I hate that I have to do that now.’

Cullen took a deep, steadying inhale. ‘Let Dorian go and I will stay here _willingly _then.’

‘No, no,’ Jassen chided gently, such patience and _care_ in every part of him when facing Cullen. ‘I can’t do that, you need him. At least for a little while longer,. You need his _magic_.’

‘Jassen, I—’

‘Did you miss me, lover?’

The word rolled down Dorian spine, eliciting a vile sensation. Dorian vaguely remembered his own mouth shaping the unfamiliar word. He could practically feel Cullen’s conflict then, not knowing which way to proceed, which way was safer for Dorian.

Quietly, every part of his voice threadbare, Cullen managed to utter, ‘I missed you every day for ten years.’

His answer seemed to please Jassen, though a kind of sceptical amusement remained in those dark brown eyes.

‘Only ten?’ he queried, stepping closer to Cullen, who did not walk backwards to compensate. ‘Until you met _him_.’

‘If you let him go, I swear to you—’

Dorian’s patience broke with a stinging _snap_. ‘Oh, shut the fuck _up, _Cullen! I’m not going anywhere without you, you absolute—

‘_Fucking moron_?’ Jassen filled in swiftly, his eyes glittering. ‘Oh, I like it when you call each other that. It’s so… _sweet_. Endearments by day, choking by night.’ He took another step closer, Dorian’s instincts flaring dangerously. ‘I love the game where you _switch_,’ Jassen whispered, like it was a secret, like they weren’t in a cavernous hall where Dorian’s own father and eight others were caged, Hawke trying and failing to heal his face and throat amid the unfailingly intense sensation in the air that clamped down on magic born of mages. ‘Where you take control from _him_. That might be my favourite.’

‘Stop it,’ Cullen said, jaw locked tight.

Jassen smirked playfully, glancing over. ‘Yes, that’s what you say, isn’t it? But if it’s not the special word then it means nothing. Words are everything, aren’t they?’ His expression sobered. ‘He can’t leave and you know it. We’re too tangled up, we three.’

Cullen let slip a low growl. ‘He’s _nothing_ to do with this.’

Jassen’s familiar eyes bored into the Tevinter mage’s. ‘Still so naive, Cullen,’ he chided patiently, but there was something _missing_ when he stared at Dorian. It was like staring into the void. ‘Still so very _trusting _when it comes to mages.’

*

_‘That’s a touch dramatic, Felix,’ Dorian complained, watching Allendas gesture enthusiastically, the four men before him on their knees still and obedient. ‘Even for you.’ _

_‘…incredible results, even from a preliminary round of experimentation. Now, for the demonstration, I require a volunteer.’ _

_A shiver of anticipation went through the crowd, but no one stepped forward. From across the other side of the room, Halward caught Dorian_ _’s eyes and minutely shook his head. _

_That tipped the decision nicely. _

_Dorian stepped forward, even as Felix groaned. _

_Allendas didn_ _’t seem surprised, not at all. He smirked and nodded politely. _

_‘Dorian Pavus,’ he greeted, like he _hadn’t_ intimately trained the mage__’s body to expect pleasure when he used that tone of voice. ‘Thank you.’_

_Dorian gave Allendas his absolute best and brightest smile. __‘No, thank _you_ for the opportunity. Never could resist a man on his knees, let alone four.’_

_The rush of whispers and murmured comments was entirely worth it. _

_‘Wonderful,’ Allendas said. He raised his hand purposefully, as if lifting something and sure enough, one of the men, former Templars apparently, was lifted by his chained hands. He brought him high enough to straighten his legs out and then set him on his feet like a doll._

_The man was young for a Templar, around Dorian_ _’s age. His light brown hair was long enough to be tied back, upper body exceptionally pale and sunless, but clean and bearing the customary scars associated with slavery, especially across his front. He was attractive, pretty even. _

_He kept his eyes downcast like all good slaves did. _

_‘Now, what we have here is a Templar of the South, used to beating and defiling mages however he pleased.’ The whispers turned to hisses, a few people openly calling him names. The man never flinched, never even blinked. Dorian began to regret stepping forward, no matter how good it had felt to see his father look away or to stand in front of Allendas and hold his head high. ‘Until he defected, of course. All four of these were expelled from or fled the Order and as such, their physical state in the absence of their usual routine intake of lyrium sets them quite apart. Dorian,’ he said, addressing the mage with the warm friendliness of a polite stranger. ‘Would you push your magic into him, please?’_

_Dorian’s lips parted and he stared at that man, at the hand-print shaped scar on his chest, something burned into the skin lightly through repeated contact, he realised. _

_‘I didn’t realise torture was academic study,’ Dorian said with disdain. _

_‘If you find it too shocking, I’m sure there are others more willing.’_

_And Dorian wanted it not to affect him, would have given anything to about turn there and then and walk the fuck _away_, secure in the knowledge that he couldn__’t be baited, that he was strong and that Allendas meant _nothing_ to him anymore. _

_‘Shocking, no,’ he said, giving the young man an emotionless, weighing kind of stare like he was analysing something potentially valuable and bartering down the price. ‘Perhaps rather dull, especially after the _glittering_ display Magister Danarius put on for us.__’_

_Behind the smile Dorian knew so well, something cracked. The young mage revelled in it, took strength from it even though it was a low blow. _

_Fuck him, fuck _everyone_. _

_Before Allendas could speak, Dorian moved into the young former Templar__’s space. ‘But, of course, I’m happy to add_ sparkle_ to your little presentation.__’_

_Unexpectedly, when within arm__’s reach of the man, he looked up at Dorian. There was a flash of defiance and the set of his mouth… so much _hatred_ there. The quintessential Southern Templar, the kind who wouldn__’t think twice before making someone like Dorian Tranquil, maybe even killing him. _

_‘Yes,’ Allendas purred, chuckling. ‘He’s still relatively unbroken. The young ones take longer to break, but they do break so very well.’_

_The man was no younger than Dorian, bound in glowing chains and staring at him as though he__’d like nothing better than to spit in his face. Dorian’s fingertips itched with misplaced fury, with so much _anger_ that it was fairly drowning him. Allendas__’ cruelty was alive inside Dorian, taking form and demanding release. _

_Dorian reached out with his preferred hand and hovered it over that bare chest, over the pre-existing burn scar of a somewhat larger, more blurred hand. His magic rushed into his veins, lilac and intuitive and prepared for what little Dorian was willing to shove into the slave before him. _

_‘Go ahead,’ Allendas encouraged, something hungry and smug in his voice. _‘Sparkle_ for us.__’ _

_The audience held their breath, the slave looked away and forced his eyes shut and Dorian, unable to prevent his anger from bleeding into his magic__… _pushed.

_*_

‘I _am_ sorry,’ Dorian said, despite how fucking_ ridiculous_ it was to apologise when this man had been the cause of untold misery, had _possessed_ Dorian and tricked Cullen into… fuck, it was ridiculous but Dorian didn’t care. ‘For what I did.’

Cullen’s strength was almost fully returned, Dorian could tell. Whatever restriction it was in the air that affected Dorian’s ability to cast, clearly did not extend to Cullen and as such, the majority of their magic resided in him instead of Dorian.

Hawke was writhing behind Jassen and Allendas remained on the floor, head buried beneath his hands, curled into a defensive ball.

Jaw clenched, Cullen demanded, ‘Sorry for _what_?’

Jassen smiled; it was rootless, fathomless. ‘Blood mage,’ he said with malicious kindness. ‘You have nothing to apologise for. I should be thanking _you_, truly. Your magic changed me, changed _Cullen. _How fate plays with us all, to bring you two together again when really, you’d already met in some small way.’

Jassen advanced towards Dorian and Cullen stiffened, his magic hand thrown out in warning, the atmosphere shifting.

‘No!’

‘Rest easy, lover.’

Fear tightened all around Cullen’s eyes. ‘Don’t.’

‘I wouldn’t hurt your pet,’ Jassen said, frowning at Cullen who was a full head taller than him. ‘I’ve no _need_ to, not when I have his Father over there.’

Dorian could just about feel Cullen’s confusion, a sense of pounding _terror_ through the bond, though only distantly. The static buzz in the air interfered with all it’s might, with Dorian’s ability to connect to the Fade, to Cullen but he could still feel him.

‘Jassen,’ Cullen tried again, that time in a tone more befitting _friends _and Dorian recognise that he was stalling, trying to keep Jassen _from_ Dorian. ‘What happened? They told me… they said you killed yourself.’

‘I did,’ Jassen said simply. ‘They were going to break you and I couldn’t bear it. I was…’ he sighed, frowning for a moment. ‘I was so tired. It was weak of me, but I wrote you that letter and I drank the tea.’

Behind Jassen, Hawke was on his knees once more. Jassen didn’t seem concerned with him, staring at Cullen like he was the centre of the world. ‘Did you die?’

‘I think so,’ Jassen said with a soft earnestness that reminded Dorian of a child. ‘I remember falling unconscious and I remember being awoken by Uldred and the others. They fed me something that made me sick, I vomited until I passed out again, but I still heard them laughing.’

‘Where did they take you?’

The silence that followed was extreme. It took a long time for Jassen to even register as if he’d heard the question.

‘Away,’ was all he said and when he blinked, his eyelashes fluttered lightly, his smile verging on something unstable. ‘Away from you.’

It clearly cost Cullen greatly to take a step towards Jassen and away from Dorian, but he did it. ‘I’m so sor—’

_‘No_,’ Jassen said quickly, almost alarmed. ‘No, you stayed with me when I asked. You grieved for me, I felt it. They took me so far and yet I always _felt_ you.’ Jassen swallowed. ‘When I cried, _you_ cried. When they whipped me, you suffered. When I prayed to the Maker to let them die in front of me, you exacted my vengeance, you let all my hatred for their kind pour out and you…’ his breath caught, eyes wide and wondrous. ‘You kept me _alive!_ You kept a piece of me with you. You stayed with me.’

It was so quiet, Dorian could hear his own blood crashing through the confines of his heart.

Cullen pushed on, heedless. ‘Jassen, I’m _sorry_.’

There was something like _pain_ visible in Jassen for the first time and it suited him ill, clashed jaggedly with what he seemed to have built himself up into. _‘Never_ be sorry. You’re all I want, Cullen. I only want _you_, just as you are now. The way I’ve shaped you, made you just like me.’

The two stared like no one else existed and now Dorian felt like an interloper in his _own_ nightmare.

It was a long, drawn out moment before Cullen, despite everything, said, ‘I’m nothing like you.’

Dorian expected backlash and by the set of his stance, so did Cullen. Jassen simply tilted his head, expression creasing with confusion. ‘Cullen,’ he said, eyes swimming with a variant of _pity_ that bordered on adoration. ‘You _became _me.’

Allendas let out a strangled scream and the air crackled with unnatural magic. The kind made permissible by the tight, heavy atmosphere that sought to cage Dorian. The only kind that Kinloch Hold approved of.

Jassen lifted his hand, fingertips outstretched and he wrought his own fire; a torrent of vibrant, red flames, crimson and pure. He directed it at the cage nearest to Dorian and the mage scrambled away as fast as possible, moving instinctively towards Cullen. Jassen’s other hand was aimed at Allendas, drawing the magic _from _him in manual fashion, Dorian realised. The fire simply _devoured_ the cage and the man within, leaving only a structure of ash that crumpled and fell like a poorly build house of cards. It took _seconds_ and though the flames vanished immediately after, the fire had filled the chamber with impossibly dry heat, disintegrating any moisture in the air. Dorian’s mouth was positively arid, his eyes watered and he fought the urge, deep in his stomach, to heave.

Closer to Cullen then, but not close enough for the Commander to yank him behind him as the mage was certain he wanted to, the two shared a brief look.

_You have to get away from here_, Cullen’s said.

_Not without you_, Dorian’s insisted plainly.

Allendas’ screams reduced to throaty sobs.

‘You see? We’re the _same_,’ Jassen said breathlessly, eyes for no one but Cullen as he approached the Commander. His chest rose and fell heavily, some aspect of his adoration for Cullen turning darker, animalistic. ‘We’re the same now, just how I wanted us to be. The first of so many.’

‘Jassen, no.’

‘Still so stubborn, though,’ Jassen laughed, seeming a little mystified as he surveyed them both and in the background, Hawke retched dryly. Jassen was close enough to touch Cullen now. ‘Don’t you _understand_? The reason you fell for your mage was because of _me_. The reason his magic was “_made to fit inside you__”_ … is because it was inside _me_ first when you were already bound to me.’

Dorian’s blood turned to water_. _

Jassen lifted his hand, reaching for Cullen but that time Cullen caught his wrist, preventing the intrusion.

‘Don’t touch me.’

‘You love him only because of _me_.’

Cullen’s grip of Jassen’s wrist had to be bruising, hard enough to almost _break_ but Jassen didn’t once flinch_. _‘Shut up.’

‘That love at first sight, that _electricity_ you felt for him…’ Jassen said, his voice intimate and low, rough and yet spun like silk. ‘It was recognition. His magic was inside me once, many years ago, did he never tell you that? About the enslaved Templar he tortured in front of a room full of Magisters back in Tevinter? Oh, it was only for a moment. A single _moment_ before he lost his nerve and fled but it was _here_,’ Jassen said, touching his chest, staring at Cullen with wonder and with _love_. ‘Just like you are.’

Still holding Jassen’s wrist in an iron grip, Cullen turned fractionally to Dorian, seeking confirmation or denial and how Dorian _wished_ he could provide the latter.

His silence said it all. Cullen’s mouth thinned.

‘That doesn’t… that doesn’t mean _anything_,’ he told Jassen.

‘Did you never _question _it, Cullen? Why you longed for him, for his blood? For his _magic?_ He was inside me _first_ and we are bound, you and I.’

Teeth bared, he yanked Jassen closer. ‘We are _not_ bound!’

‘We were bound from the day we met,’ Jassen went on, heedless of what Cullen was doing to the bones of his wrist, of the intense, terrible anger spilling over from the Commander. ‘You were _mine_ that very first day, _Cullen Stanton Rutherford_.’

‘No.’

‘I _possess_ you, don’t you know that? You are mine. You’ve always been mine.’ Then, quietly, Jassen whispered, ‘Go on, break it. Snap my wrist in half, I want you to. Crack me open, lover. Make me bleed and taste yourself when I do.’

Cullen let go abruptly like he’d been burned. The other man laughed softly but when he blinked, tears spilled down his face, the contrast of emotions deeply discordant.

‘You’re a _curse_, nothing more!’ Cullen spat, trembling all over.

Jassen’s soft intake of breath and the way the laughter died seemed to turn the air to powdered _glass_. It was already cold in the Circle Tower, already chilly and unpleasantly wintry but when Cullen said that, the temperature plunged and it hurt to breathe.

‘Take that back.’

‘You cursed me,’ Cullen insisted wildly, shaking his head. ‘You _cursed_ me and you corrupted me, nothing more!’

There was no smile, no laughter playing about dark eyes anymore. Jassen was pale, deathly so. Cullen’s words had struck a grave chord and it reverberated, a physical _sensation_ closing in around Dorian.

‘Take it back, _now_.’

‘You kept me with you in this place for a _decade_! You twisted me into a fucking _animal_, into… into _you_! You are a curse to me and _nothing more!__’_

The last two words were screamed. They echoed around the room as Dorian tasted blood in the back of his throat and trickling down his nose.

Cullen, at last, seemed to notice it.

Eyes wide, mouth agape, he looked at Dorian and horror dawned there, true and glaring.

‘No, no, no,’ he said quickly, moving towards Dorian but then thinking better of it. Panic came over him, shattered the strength of his previous convictions. ‘No, I’m-I’m sorry, I didn’t… I take it back. Jassen, I take it back!’

The air had formed a death grip around Dorian’s entire body, as if being held in the hand of a giant. Jassen’s magic lifted him up, his bones groaning, arms stretched wide, his insides _bursting_. His mouth opened in what would have been a scream, had he air to make one.

‘Stop it, _stop! _I’m sorry, Jassen, I’m-I’m sorry, please!’

‘Admit we’re bound.’

‘Yes, _yes_, we are, we’re—we’re bound. We are, we have been for a l-long time, please! Please stop hurting him, _please_!’

Dorian could barely even _hear_ Cullen’s voice. Distantly, he wanted to _scold_ Cullen for giving in so easily. His eyes rolled back, body fully prepared to give up and die because anything would be better than this, than his bones being bent the wrong way, his skin tightening and threatening to split, his intestines strangling him while he drowned in his own blood.

There was screaming, there was _pleading_ and then there was simply nothing.

*

‘Dorian?’

It had been years, but Halward Pavus’s voice was instantly recognisable. More than enough to yank Dorian from unconsciousness, albeit with precious little understanding of _why_ it was his father’s voice waking him.

Groggy and _achy_ in a way that best resembled a hangover, for a few strange seconds, Dorian distantly wondered what trouble he’d gotten into last night and what pathetic attempt to punish him his father was about to inflict.

And then he opened his eyes and reality returned with a stinging smack.

He was _inside_ a cage with his father who was no longer blindfolded or gagged, but facing away from Dorian entirely, holding the bars at the other end, kneeling on the metal floor of the enclosure. The whole thing was big enough to hold maybe seven or eight people at a low crouch.

Neither mage was restrained in any other way, hands and feet free.

_‘Dorian_? Are you awake now?’ his father asked insistently, though quietly.

It hurt to speak. ‘Yes, I’m _awake_, why are you—?’

Dorian remembered in a rush.

Jassen.

_Cullen_.

He turned hastily, looking all around but they were no longer in the same hall as before, no longer in the Harrowing Chamber. It was dark and small, littered with debris as much of the ruined Tower had been. Communal quarters perhaps, the air stale and silent.

‘Where are we?’ Dorian croaked.

‘I don’t know,’ Halward said. ‘I haven’t opened my eyes since he told me why he captured me. He put you in here with me and removed the blindfold. Don’t come near me, Dorian. If I look at you—’

‘If you look at me, then what? _What_?’ Dorian snapped, every single bone in his body aching like it had been hit with a hammer.

‘Then you’ll die!’ Halward snapped right back. _‘This_ is the curse, Dorian, he told me, that man. _This_ is the curse I placed upon you years ago. I must not look upon you, mustn’t _see_ anything because you are, apparently, very much in love with another man.’

Dorian felt suddenly, intensely _stupid_.

‘Oh fucking _void_! _I__’d see you dead before_…’ He scowled viciously, _hating_ that the wording had truly never occurred to him. ‘So, if you look at me, then I’m dead, is that it?’

‘Dorian, I’m so sorry,’ Halward gasped wretchedly as his son looked intently around the cage, trying to conjure the energy to at least _contemplate_ escape. There was a meagre amount of sunlight coming from somewhere in the next room, the light reflecting off of dull grey stones in the corridor. If it was daylight then it had been at least an hour since…

‘Where’s Cullen?’

‘Listen to me, son.’

‘I’d prefer _not_ to, if it’s all the same,’ Dorian ground out, gripping the bars so that he could move. He needed to see where he was, where _Cullen_ was. Experimentally, he tried to freeze the bars but they vibrated in warning, flat grey steel flashing opaline. The bars contained the brief use of his magic entirely, caging it within and not allowing an ounce of mana to leak beyond. ‘When did he move us in here? Did he say anything?’

_‘Dorian_!’

‘Fucking _what?__’ _the mage spat. ‘This is not the time for a heart to heart! Just keep your head turned and don’t look at me, should be easy after a lifetime of—’

‘You’re going to have to kill me!’ Halward interrupted. ‘Do you understand?’

Dorian slumped down, blinking rapidly. ‘What?’

‘You need to kill me, Dorian,’ Halward ground out, his knuckles white around the bars. ‘He explained to me about the curse, about what I… what I did to you. You have to kill me.’

For a long moment, Dorian was rendered dumb. He stared at his father’s back, at his dirty robes. He saw that his hair had grown too long and it was unkempt, filthy. Then his wits returned, a good measure of fury along with them.

‘So that’s it, is it? Giving up? Like you gave up on me?’

‘I _never_ gave up on you!’

‘Andraste’s _arse_, listen to yourself! Attempting to redeem your good image before you pass off responsibility for ending your own life? Some fucking _legacy!_’

‘I don’t care about legacy,’ Halward said tightly. ‘I don’t care about the family name, about _anything_ except you. If I look upon you, you will _die_, Dorian. Kill me and make yourself safe. That’s all I care about. That is all I want.’

Dorian glared, though it did precious little when Halward couldn’t _see_ it.

‘Well, Father,’ he said in a clipped manner, turning his attention back to the cage. ‘True to form as ever, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you there too.’

‘The risk is too great!’

‘Make a fucking blindfold out of your robes then, I’m _not_ killing my own Father!’

‘He’s going to use me to kill you,’ Halward said in a shuddering voice. ‘He _told_ me.’

‘What else did he say? How did he even know you were coming South?’

Halward sagged. ‘I cannot be certain, but I believe he was using Allendas to lure me here.’

‘To the Circle Tower?’

‘To the South.’

‘So you _weren__’t_ just swinging by for a visit then?’ Dorian muttered, astonished by his own ability to generate petty _resentment_ at such a time.

‘I’ve been concerned about Allendas for a while,’ Halward said grimly. ‘Many of the Magisters in the Imperium were vanishing. Allendas was the common link to most of them. I was… I recently came to believe he was involved with your Mother’s death too.’

It was a _thing_ Dorian never let himself think about, not in anything but an abstract kind of way. Not since the day he had received the letter, formal and clipped, informing him that his mother had succumbed to illness and died despite the best healing magics in all of Tevinter.

Slowly, Dorian turned to his father.

‘You think she was murdered?’

‘Oh, _shit_,’ came a bright voice from the hallway. ‘Did I not mention that already?’

Jassen leaned with his arms crossed in what had once been a doorway, the very jamb torn out, exposing crumbling stones around the edges. He seemed quite cheery, chipper even.

Cullen was not with him.

_‘Dorian_,’ Halward ground out, making it sound as if he were angry with his son for anything other than the insanity of what he’d actually asked of him.

‘Come on now, Daddy Pavus,’ Jassen said, shaking his head with mock seriousness. ‘Your son isn’t going to kill you, I already told you that.’

He entered the room casually, like he had all the time in the world, crouching in front of the cage, eye level with Dorian.

‘Where’s Cullen?’

Jassen smiled. ‘Do you _miss_ him? Imagine eleven years of it.’

‘So, you put me in here with my Father hoping he’d kill me, did you?’ Dorian sneered, pushing forward onto his knees so he could be closer. ‘Not _man_ enough to do it yourself?’

‘I’d never sully myself with one such as _you_.’

‘A mage?’

‘A _blood_ mage,’ Jassen corrected lightly. ‘Well, after I got through with you, at any rate. I thought it would be harder, you know? I thought it would take months, maybe _years_ for the great Altus Pavus - protester of corruption in Tevinter and blood mages worldwide - to succumb to blood magic. It took _weeks_,’ he chuckled. ‘Fucking weeks. Your kind are all the same.’

‘For someone who hates mages, you don’t seem to mind the magic.’

His smile darkened a touch. ‘Your power is undeniable, that’s true. It took many years to master drawing it into myself instead of having it forced inside me. I still remember the first time I did it on purpose, a real spell, not just instinct. A memory spell to wipe something _bad_ from someone I cared about. That was the first time I realised that I could _pull_ as well as be _pushed. _Take instead of be taken. Everything before that was accidental. Binding Cullen to me was accidental, despite what you might think.’

Dorian took hold of the bars and faced Jassen dead on. ‘Did you kill my Mother?’

‘No, of course not!’ Jassen said, false indignation making a mockery of his excitable features. ‘I had your old lover do it. He used poison, it was all very poetic.’

Dorian spat in his face. His mouth was dry as the bones scattered around him, but it was worth it, so fucking worth it to see Jassen’s smile _fracture. _A splinter of hatred became visible then and Dorian had the sense that, were he not necessary to Jassen for something, he would already be dead.

‘Y’know,’ Jassen said, wiping the meagre spit away with his fingertips. ‘I _did_ always wonder what it was Cullen sees in you. I mean, beyond the _enthrallment_ you both denied so vigorously and beyond the siren call of your own blood curse. Cullen _liked_ you, I could tell and it just made no sense to me. Even when I was in your body, fucking him with your skin, I couldn’t feel anything extraordinary. You’re an arrogant, shallow waste of power. A worthless vessel for something you don’t even _deserve_.’ Thoughtfully, he put his fingertips into his mouth and tasted Dorian’s spit as if sampling a delicacy. ‘You have _panic attacks, _for fuck’s sake. You’re literally _pathetic_. It was baffling to me. But _now_,’ he said, leaning even closer. ‘Now I can see it. You’re a _fighter_. He likes that you fight back, doesn’t he?’

Dorian had never wanted to kill someone so much. His whole body was consumed with hatred, aching and violent.

‘Yeah,’ Jassen said, nodding sagely, mouth quirked. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You’re his _wild thing_. I see it now. I never gave him that before, but I will. I’ll adapt, I’ll… hmm, _incorporate_ it.’

‘He’ll never be yours,’ Dorian scathed quietly, confident for the first time. It was simple statement of fact. ‘Never.’

‘He was _always_ mine, long before you.’

‘You had to _curse_ him to keep him.’

‘Just like you, blood mage!’ Jassen snarled, eyes flashing. ‘Just like _you!_’

‘I never—’

‘When you bled for my letter, you brought a part of me to life again. It’s strange, to have something of yourself be _separate_ from your being. When Cullen burned it, that little part almost died completely. I couldn’t _feel_ anything of him anymore, couldn’t find him in the darkness but you… you brought me back, inside _yourself_. Your curse is a beautiful thing; so clever, so _patient, _so unlike you. It knew the moment you clapped eyes on Cullen that this was what it had been waiting for… and so did I.’ Jassen held onto the bars then, eyes wide and locked on Dorian’s. ‘You were the perfect one to make him just like me, to show him how to use the power mage’s wield so _carelessly_. It was all right _there_, inside you and inside him. And in the end, all your _weakness_ and your self-destruction,’ he chuckled cruelly. ‘Your _anxiety_… it was just what I needed. You pushed him and you _herded_ him right into everything I dreamt up. Magic was made to serve man and Cullen is the living embodiment of that. All thanks to you.’

‘I’m going to kill you,’ Dorian swore when Jassen fell silent.

‘No,’ Jassen said simply. ‘I’m going to wrap your Daddy up in chains and command him to open his eyes. I’ll give your curse what I promised it and then all that _magic_… all that strong, sentient power, will live on in Cullen.’

‘No it won’t.’

‘Are you certain, blood mage?’

‘Cullen can’t generate magic, he can only manipulate and draw from mine. He has no connection to the Fade.’

‘Ah, but blood magic requires no such connection and once the magic is inside him completely, we’ll keep it powered with as much blood as it needs. Once I learn _why_, of course.’

Dorian frowned despite himself. ‘Why _what_?’

Jassen sobered. ‘Why your magic wants to be inside him, why it… _chose_ him.’

‘Because you want to replicate it?’

‘Well, yeah. It would be nice not to have to haul around a bunch of crusty old blood mages, that’s for sure,’ Jassen said and then he clapped his thighs and stood straight. ‘_Anyway!_ Let’s go, shall we? Don’t want to keep them waiting.’

He touched the lock and the cage shimmered like a mirage, the true metal of the prison making itself known once more.

The door opened smoothly and as Jassen gestured for Dorian to leave the confines, the mage asked, ‘What _is_ this stuff? The chains, the cages?’

‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Jassen commented lightly. ‘Allendas’ creation; years of work and research all to improve a Magister’s ability to enslave. When you step away from it, you might feel a little rush of adrenaline.’

Cautiously, Dorian left his father inside the cage and moved away as far as Jassen seemed willing to permit. At first, nothing was different and Dorian was about to tell Jassen precisely that but then slowly, something began to drain away. A feeling of sick, oppressive dread that he hadn’t even realised was _there_. It left gradually, like water between cupped hands and Dorian began to feel like himself once more.

Jassen was watching, dark brown eyes dancing with amusement. ‘See? In chain form, it renders you almost entirely subservient, though you held up well even being near it. It’s clever too, it can mimic other metals and it responds to commands.’

‘What _is _it?’

‘A liquid blend of fade-touched veil quartz and cursed Amaranthine opals, but the enchantments are dwarven. Even I don’t understand that part too well.’

Keeping his gaze demure, Dorian nodded and tried to seem uninterested. ‘It obeys a key-holder, I suppose?’

‘Coin-holder, actually, but yeah. The old man’s crowning achievement,’ Jassen sneered. ‘Well, except for _me_.’

Dorian met his gaze. ‘Where’s Cullen?’

‘Waiting for you, of course, they all are.’ Dorian took a single step forward when Jassen’s hand flew out to grab and stop him. ‘Not yet, we can’t go without _Daddy_, can we?’

‘No!’ Halward barked from inside the cage, gripping the bars even harder. Dorian looked down at Jassen’s hand on his arm, briefly wondered what would happen if he tried to fry him with lightning. The air was thick and cloying with whatever oppressive anti-magics were in operation. He could likely _hurt_ Jassen, but not kill him.

Not quick enough, anyway.

‘Come willingly or be dragged by the chains, old man,’ Jassen offered with a touch of impatience.

Halward hesitated still, clung harder to the treacherous metal.

Dorian blew air between his teeth and rolled his eyes. ‘Come on, Father. I’ll help you.’

*

Arm linked through his father’s, Dorian walked behind Jassen as he led them expertly through the wreckage of Kinloch Hold, chattering brightly the whole time. In daylight, Dorian could make out more detail of the debris; he saw more bones, he saw claw marks and ancient but undeniable arterial spray up the walls, turned black with time.

‘How did you get out of here?’ he asked when Jassen finally stopped talking and hopped over a fallen wardrobe in the hallway. Dorian had to slow his pace yet again to guide his father through the veritable obstacle course that was the hallways of this place.

Jassen looked back and stared coldly. ‘I didn’t _get out_, blood mage.’

Highly aware of his father on his arm, hobbling around obstacles at every turn, Dorian tried to be diplomatic.

‘Cullen never found you, your body. He thought they fed you to a demon.’

There was something very detached about him when Jassen simply said, ‘They tried to,’ and then continued onward through the broken labyrinth without another word.

Finally, on the fourth floor, he led Dorian and Halward into a large, well lit room and Dorian clapped eyes on Cullen, sat around a rectangular table with Allendas, Hawke and… _Fenris. _

Cullen’s gaze caught Dorian’s like a physical touch. Dorian’s heart lurched painfully sideways because he seemed all right, he didn’t seem _hurt_, but Maker, the relief Dorian saw there in those light brown eyes as he took in the mage. Cullen let out a small, shaky breath, clearly trying not to show too much but it was palpable and it made Dorian’s heart flip painfully.

What the fuck had happened while he was in the cage?

Their magic moved back and forth between them, dulled and made weak by the interference in the air, desperate to help somehow, to _do_ something but there was nothing it could do, there was nothing _either_ of them could do.

_It__’s sickly and bad, _the magic whined. _Get it out of him, Dorian. _

‘Told you he was fine, healed him up with Hawke’s magic,’ Jassen said to Cullen, plonking himself at what was ostensibly the head of the table and gesturing for Dorian to take a seat. ‘Let’s have Daddy next to his future son-in-law, shall we? You can sit opposite, blood mage.’

The room was mostly empty save for the table and a massive, incongruous wardrobe in the corner which Dorian didn’t like the look of. Allendas sat like a statue, like a _mannequin, _eyes fixed on some unseeing point across from him while Hawke seemed barely alive but in a different manner; slouched and panting heavily, half asleep on the table. Fenris was sat still and ramrod straight, much like Cullen.

And Cullen didn't take his eyes off of Dorian.

Quietly, he asked, ‘Are you all right?’

‘Of _course_ he’s all right, look how _pretty_ he is, Cullen!’ Jassen exclaimed before Dorian could even open his mouth. ‘Sit down, the pair of you. You’re like ghouls at a feast.’

A feast of empty, metal plates and dirty cracked glasses. Dorian looked back at Cullen who nodded once. The mage walked his father around to Cullen’s side and helped him find the chair. In the corner, Dorian thought he heard a tiny noise coming from the wardrobe.

‘That’s good,’ Jassen said, pleased. ‘Now you sit opposite, blood mage. Make sure that if Daddy opens his eyes, you’re the first thing he’ll see. His _darling_ boy, so very in love with a Templar.’

‘I’m not a Templar,’ Cullen said flatly. ‘And neither are you.’

As Dorian sat opposite on a reasonably sturdy chair, Jassen rolled his eyes and sighed.

‘Semantics!’ he grumbled in an exaggerated manner. ‘It’s all in the imagery. I bet Halward is imagining you marrying his son while wearing your Templar armour. That would be something to see, wouldn’t it?’ Jassen was practically hyper, his excitement tangible in the air. He looked around the table, surveying his _guests. _When his gaze landed on Hawke, he kicked the table viciously and awoke the Champion with a jerk. ‘Don’t be _rude_! You’re supposed to be entertaining everyone with your thrilling tales! Tell us about the first time you fucked your brother, I bet that’s a great one. You may want to cover your ears Daddy Pavus, you’re the only one in here who doesn’t like cock after all.’ Jassen snorted at his own joke, heedless of the silence from everyone else.

Dorian looked around the table. Fenris and Jassen sat at opposite ends, the elf dressed similarly to Jassen; plain, clean tunic that was slightly too big for his slender, smaller frame. He stared down, had yet to lift his eyes at all. On Dorian’s right, Hawke slouched between himself and Jassen, his breathing laboured and irregular. Allendas sat opposite Hawke like a propped up corpse, but with air moving in and out of his lungs. Cullen was beside him and then Halward sat beside the Commander, his eyes screwed tightly shut, facing down.

And Jassen, head of the table, was watching Dorian without ever blinking.

‘Well,’ he said, dark eyes shining. ‘This is nice, isn’t it? All the _family_ together at last.’

Dorian wanted very badly to point out that this was not a family and even if it was, Jassen was no part of it, but peripherally, he saw Cullen shake his head and so he bit down instead.

‘You haven’t met Fenris officially, have you?’ Jassen asked, drawing a small amount of magic from Allendas. The effect on the Magister was instant; his face screwed up with momentary pain as the former Templar filled a filthy looking jug with ice, melting it even as it formed. It was practised and intuitive, the way a mage would make water, so unlike Cullen and his fumbling with the bath the other night. He poured water for himself and then placed the jug in the middle of the table. Weak light poured through a high window above, a strip of broken glass, too high to climb through. The light made it clear that the table, at some point, had been used for far more than mere mealtime activities. There was dried blood in almost every crevice, several man-made indents in the centre, thin lines indicating daggers driven deep. ‘Fenris, say hello to our new blood mage.’

Dorian glanced at the end of the table. Fenris wasn’t blank, not like Allendas, who sat with chained hands neatly folded in his lap. When addressed, something mutinous moved behind the elf’s expression, a closed mouth sneer and a narrowing of his eyes. He wore a collar, Dorian noticed, and when he moved, the mage thought he heard the faint jangle of chain links.

‘Hello, _Dorian_,’ Fenris said, lifting his eyes to Jassen with an unmistakable element of defiance, the _fuck you _variety.

Jassen tutted, but it didn’t dent his delight. ‘Now then, Halward. Have you officially _met_ Cullen? I don’t think you have.’ He directed a look at Dorian then. ‘Now might be a good time for you to make introductions, blood mage.’

Dorian and Cullen shared a long moment staring apprehensively across the table before Dorian capitulated. ‘Cullen, this is my Father, Halward Pavus. Father, this is Commander Cullen Rutherford.’

‘Yes,’ Halward ground out with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, managing to sound remarkably dry. ‘I _gathered_.’

Jassen drank his water and waved his hand, gesturing for _more_ of something. ‘_And_?’

Dorian squinted slightly. ‘And _what_?’

‘Commander Cullen Rutherford… and?’ When Dorian stared blankly, Jassen grinned wolfishly. ‘_And_ he’s my fiancé. You left that part out.’

Cullen closed his eyes. ‘Jassen.’

‘Oh come on, are you really going to pretend like Dorian _didn__’t_ propose to you, while I was still inside him I might add? Daddy Pavus deserves to know, doesn’t he? It’s big news!’

Halward’s jaw worked but when he spoke, it was quiet and oddly absent of inflection. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Now _that__’s_ what I’m talking about!’ Jassen yelled, manic grin wide, eyes dancing with amusement. He slammed his hand into the table, causing everyone to flinch except for Allendas whose impression of a statue was second to none. ‘Champion, did you hear that?’

Hawke was half slouching off his chair, close to tipping over entirely when Jassen threw the water from his tankard into his face. Hawke jolted violently, spluttering. ‘Wh-what?’ he slurred.

‘Stop being rude!’ Jassen warned with a mild frown, as if speaking to a poorly behaved child. ‘I thought mages were meant to be _tough_. I barely gave you a teaspoon, you weakling.’

Dorian chanced looking at the mage on his right. Hawke’s skin was almost grey and he was drooling. ‘What’s _wrong_ with him?’

‘I poisoned him,’ Jassen answered pleasantly, refilling his water. ‘Not witchgrass, sadly. That would have been wonderful. It’s only bogroot, grows around the lake.’

‘You poisoned him,’ Dorian echoed dully and Cullen’s shoulders squared, his posture tightening.

‘I poisoned everyone. Well, not you and your Daddy, but everyone else.’

Dorian stared. ‘_What?__’_

‘It’s a game,’ Jassen said animatedly. ‘We used to play it all the time, didn’t we Cullen?’

Cullen winced, mouth tightening. ‘_You_ did.’

‘And you never told anyone, never stopped me,’ Jassen countered easily. ‘Which means you were the lookout, but still a part of the game. I would give six mages poison and offer five tiny bottles of the cure to whoever was left standing after I locked them in the basement in the dark. It was easier in the dark, not knowing who they were killing.’ He began to laugh, a kind of rolling belly laugh as he looked back at Cullen. ‘Do you remember?’ he gasped, caught in the throes of apparent hilarity. ‘When we opened the door one time and they were _all_ dead? Oh Maker, that was a bitch of a report to file!’

Sickness pooled in Dorian’s stomach. ‘So you’re going to have us fight each other for the cure?’

_‘You’ve_ not been poisoned,’ Jassen reminded him coolly. ‘Just the other four. There’s three bottles of cure. You choose, blood mage.’

Dorian studied Jassen for a long moment, leaning back in his chair. ‘Do you think that rattles me?’

Jassen sipped his water. ‘Nope.’

‘Because you know what I’ll do.’

‘I do.’

‘So then, what’s the point?’

‘_Well_,’ Jassen went on. ‘Obviously, the bottles aren’t _free_, but because I’m so generous, I’ll _give_ you the first one. Here.’

He raised his hand and Allendas groaned weakly. Into that hand flew a small bottle of something glinting. He then rolled it across the uneven surface of the table towards Dorian who caught it quickly. It was small and pleasantly warm. Within, the liquid rolled and glittered.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Jassen said, leaning on his forearms, nodding sympathetically. ‘If you give it to Cullen, will he simply hand it over to Fenris? And what if it’s _not_ actually the cure? What if it’s an accelerant, like what your little boy blue gave to your friend the elf?’

The mere mention of Keenan and Lavellan had Dorian’s stomach tightening with a dangerous measure of _hope._ Suddenly, he remembered what Leliana had said about her spies, about people following Cullen. Maybe she knew where they were, maybe help would be coming soon. Keenan had to have told them too, he knew they were headed for the Circle Tower.

‘Come on,’ Jassen urged. ‘Decision time, I think.’

Dorian looked up at Cullen. ‘Give it to me,’ the blond said calmly and so Dorian did just that. He passed it across the table, wishing he could touch Cullen’s hand but Jassen was watching and he was wary of drawing attention to any amount of connection between them.

Cullen uncorked it and held it in front of his mouth only for a moment, just a _touch_ of hesitation before he downed the whole thing.

‘Now you’ll be strong enough to help the others should they need it and if it was poison, best to try it on you first anyway. Still thinking like a Templar, lover.’

Dorian’s jaw worked. ‘What do I need to do for the others?’

‘Ooh, that’s tempting, the way you say that. Would you really do _anything_, I wonder? You don’t _know_ Fenris and I know you don’t like the Champion, no one does. How far would you debase yourself to save a life, blood mage? Is there any goodness in you at all?’

Dorian clung hard to every memory of Cullen being brave in the face of danger. ‘Try me.’

‘What if I told you,’ Jassen said slowly, voice low, vowels stretched. ‘To fuck yourself on Cullen’s lap while your Daddy listens? Would you do it?’

Cullen said, ‘Jassen, please.’

‘I’m curious!’ the former Templar said, shrugging defensively, all exaggerated, all so very _false_. ‘Would you do that? To save Fenris? Look at him, sat there. He’s been through so much, more than you could ever know. More than me, even. Would you do it to save him?’

It was a gamble, a test. Dorian took a careful, steadying breath. ‘Yes, I would.’

Jassen clapped his hands together. _‘Done_! Do it!’

The feeling was beyond words. _Dread_ came nowhere near it, hopelessness was simply a word compared to the sensation that slid down Dorian’s spine and spread through him, grey and despairing.

But he stood anyway and moved around to the other side, all the while hoping it _was_ a test and that any second, Jassen would burst out laughing, admit it was a prank, he just wanted to see if Dorian would actually follow through. Instead, the man was uncharacteristically silent, observing Dorian’s journey with dark satisfaction.

Jaw locked tight, Cullen moved his chair back to make room for Dorian. The mage was shaking all over. Fuck, how was this going to work? How was _any_ of this going to _work_? There was no way to avoid brushing against his father as he swung one leg across Cullen’s lap and the Commander took his hand, lacing their fingers together.

The proximity that should have been reassuring was tantamount to a death sentence. They were silent, utterly wordless when Dorian braced his other hand on Cullen’s shoulder and carefully exhaled, trying not to show how terrified he was.

The skin to skin contact, though, was enough for their magic to move between them faintly.

Dorian could _feel_ Cullen on the other end of that magic, distressed and weakened as it was. Cullen was… fucking Maker, he was drowning in despair, in anger, in sadness, in hate, in frantic love and worry for Dorian but most of all _fear_. Fear because Dorian didn't know Jassen, didn’t know what he was capable of, didn’t know what he was—

‘Kiss him first, blood mage. Do it properly.’

Cullen swallowed. Dorian could hear it.

A deep, new voice said, ‘Cullen, you don’t need to do this.’

Dorian didn’t allow himself to look at Fenris when the elf spoke. Didn’t look at Allendas or especially his father whose eyes remained determinedly shut. Behind him, he suspected Hawke was unconscious and he knew if he turned to the right, a pair of dark brown eyes would be fixed upon him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he uttered, lips shaping the words with barely any breath behind them. Cullen squeezed his hand and shook his head, jaw working furiously.

Fighting back nausea, Dorian reached with a free hand for his belt and at the same time, pressed his mouth to Cullen’s.

It felt almost clinical; a mockery of every other time they’d kissed. Forced and false, stilted and neither willing, neither _wanting_. Dorian blinked back tears and tried not to sob when Cullen broke away, pressing his forehead to Dorian’s seeking reassurance where he could get it.

It was monstrously loud, the metal clink of Dorian’s belt. The room was quiet and cold and all his magic was buried beneath static, beneath the physical hatred of mages manifested as an air-born fucking _plague. _He could feel Cullen’s pulse beneath his skin, he could smell him. He tried to lose himself in what was familiar, tried to imagine anything outside of the awful reality.

Cullen’s hand moved to his own belt.

‘That’s enough,’ Jassen said with deceptive composure and Dorian could have _cried_. Part of him wanted to babble his _gratitude_, trip over himself to express his thanks. ‘I believe you. You can have it.’

Once more, a vial of cure flew into his hand and as Dorian climbed shakily off of Cullen, their fingers lingering last.

‘Here you go,’ Jassen said, offering it from his outstretched hand. Dorian walked around the other way to take it from him, taut with fear and fully expecting some other _condition_ to present itself, he carefully plucked it from Jassen’s thickly scarred palm.

Nothing happened, nothing else _came. _Dorian returned to his seat and held the vial tightly.

It was difficult, the next part. He hated himself for it, wished he were different in those moments but it didn’t weaken his resolve.

He took hold of Hawke, who was face down on the table, and slung him backwards, held him upright. He was clammy and damp, but still warm, still _alive_.

Hawke needed it more. He was nearly _dead_ and Fenris, though pale and sweating, was not_. _That didn’t make Dorian feel any better about it as he tipped the tiny bottle down Hawke’s throat, rubbing his thumb down the front of the column to make sure the Champion swallowed reflexively instead of spitting it out and wasting it.

When it was done, he lowered Hawke to the table once more and met Jassen’s waiting gaze.

‘Hmm,’ the former Templar commented impassively. ‘Well, that puts a _lot_ more pressure on your ability to win the last one, doesn’t it?’

Dorian thrust his jaw and deadened his gaze. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense then.’

Jassen let his gaze wander, slow and purposeful to the large wardrobe in the corner and it slightly shuddered, small noises coming from inside.

‘It’s _big boy_ time,’ Jassen said in a serious voice as he used borrowed magic to open the doors. ‘No sucking or fucking your way out of this one.’

Inside the wardrobe were two bound figures, instantly recognisable from their sage green uniforms, shrouded headgear. Leliana’s agents, likely the ones who’d been following Cullen. They were tied with a thinner, finer version of the opaline chains. It took Dorian a few seconds to recall their names, but he’d spoken to them both before and his memory returned. Thrask, the woman and Lehad, the younger man. Lehad, Dorian knew, was relatively new to his profession. Both seemed resigned and dulled into subservience by the restraints, both were gagged.

Cullen turned to look as Fenris peered around, trying to see and Halward muttered, ‘Would anyone care to fill me in?’

‘I _do_ hope you weren’t pinning your hopes on being rescued any time soon,’ Jassen said and he withdrew a small dagger, the same one Dorian had given Cullen earlier. He placed it in the middle of the table. ‘Now, I’ll make this fair because I really do believe you were going to let Cullen fuck you at this table and that was impressive, even for a slut like you. So, here’s a weapon since you can’t use magic. Kill one and I’ll wipe the other’s memories and let them wander off, dazed and confused, seeking a new life elsewhere.’

‘I’m not—’

‘And let’s just _skip _right ahead to the part where I remind you that Fenris is dying at the end of the table, that if you don’t kill one of them, I will kill _both_ of them and that will enormously piss me off.’

Dorian ground his back teeth together. ‘If Fenris dies, you’ll lose too much leverage.’

It was glacial, the way Jassen laughed. ‘Don’t talk to me about leverage, _blood mage_.’

‘You won’t let him die.’ Cullen glanced at the mage quickly, eyes widening in warning but Dorian wasn’t _having _it. ‘No, I don’t buy it. I’m not playing this fucking game with you, _Jassen. _You weren't expecting me to save Hawke over Fenris and when you whipped these two out, you knew I wouldn’t want to kill them and you… you expected me to let Hawke die along with Allendas.’ Dorian tipped his chin and said, very clearly, ‘Fuck your games, fuck your _petty_ vengeance! You’re going to kill everyone in this room except Cullen anyway. _Fuck you!_’

When he finished, he was shaking, breath coming hard. Dorian didn’t look at Cullen, didn’t dare look anywhere else but at the man whose suicide note he’d once corrupted himself to read.

‘Did that feel good?’

‘You’re not going to kill them.’

‘Oh really?’

‘You haven’t killed _anyone_,’ Dorian went on and now his voice was shaking too but not with fear, with something terrible and thrumming and _so angry_ it was too big to contain anymore. ‘You use people as _puppets_, you’re not the one to shed blood. You’re a coward!’

‘_Dorian!__’_

‘You had Allendas kill my _Mother_, you had Hawke running around the Frostbacks and you instructed a _child_ to murder hundreds. You use _poison_ and you slip around in the shadows, but you… you’re a coward! You’re just a weak, useless _coward_!’

He was so ready for the backlash, part of him _needed it, _ready to battle, ready to cut through this stilted pantomime and take some fucking _action_. He expected Jassen to do anything beyond what he _actually_ did which was to burst into surprised laughter.

‘Oh,’ he gasped, shaking his head, brow raised. ‘I see it so _clearly_ now. No wonder you love him, Cullen. He’s _energy_ incarnate, isn’t he?’ Jassen shook his head and got to his feet, walking over to the wardrobe. ‘And you’re right, I’ve had to skulk around in the shadows for many _years _now, but there’s a good reason for that.’ He ran his hand through Lehad’s short brown hair in a mockery of something friendly. ‘I can’t kill _anyone_, not directly. I made a bargain many years ago, you see. A friendly spirit, not dissimilar to your useful yet _tragically_ inquisitive Cole. Compassion came calling for me in Tevinter and I befriended them. When they offered me a bargain, a way to get free, to accelerate the plans I was making but struggled to execute, I accepted it, but they made me _swear_…’ He pulled the two agents out of the wardrobe and shoved them to the floor, disgust playing about his features. ‘That I would never, _ever _lay hands on anyone with intent to kill. I agreed, o_f course_ I agreed but it left me rather… restricted.’

He lifted the pair of them up with magic, levitated them onto the table and sat them there right in the middle like some grotesque centrepiece.

‘Now, I can’t kill them _myself_, you’re absolutely right but there’s no reason why Allendas’ chains can’t tighten like cheese wire and split them into little chunks. There’s nothing to stop me from having Allendas himself kill them, from enthralling any one of those sacks of shit in cages and having them do it. _But_,’ Jassen sighed in a pleasant way. ‘I’m not going to do that. I really _will_ let Fenris die because you are going to learn—’

But there was no time to discover what Dorian was going to _learn_ from Jassen because Hawke, with heretofore non-existent strength and acuity, burst suddenly to life, grabbed the dagger from the table and drove it as hard as he could, dead centre into Thrask’s chest.

Dorian staggered back, knocking his chair over as he did. It was too fast to process, too quick to realise what the fuck had even _happened. _Lehad was screaming weakly into his gag, Thrask was already dead. Allendas showed no reaction beyond an owlish blink. Fenris… Maker, his face was bloodless. He stared at the two in the centre, eyes dark and full of torment.

Hawke had done what Dorian could not… to save Fenris. The Champion slouched back down in his chair as Thrask’s blood began to run rivers in predestined grooves across the table. Halward was demanding to know what was going on and if Dorian was all right.

‘He’s fine,’ Cullen told him while Lehad screamed weakly, still tied to Thrask. ‘Dorian is… he’s fine.’

Halward wasn’t reassured. ‘Dorian?’ he called out, though it was closer to a yell. ‘_Dorian?__’_

_‘_Yes,’ the mage answered weakly, staring at the blood, at the dagger. ‘I’m not hurt, Father. I’m all right.’

‘Give him the cure,’ Hawke ground out. _‘Now!’_

‘Well,’ Jassen shrugged, like it was a reasonable compromise from an interesting outcome. ‘Fair enough.’

*

It wasn’t satisfying at all to watch Allendas die but Jassen made them sit at the table while Lehad cried softly and Thrask’s blood spilled over the sides. It happened without Allendas even being _present_ in his own body, such was the extent of his enthrallment by whatever method Jassen was employing. It was a sickly, awful thing and Dorian gained no pleasure from it. The poison took him and by the time it was done, Dorian was relieved _for_ Allendas.

They left him there at the table, face down in his own fluids and Jassen led them onward using the chains to bring Lehad, Fenris and Halward alongside him. One room at a time, he dipped inside and deposited someone into a cage. Fenris first, then two doors down was Hawke. Halward was last, put back in the cage where Dorian had woken up. Jassen seemed to take great pleasure in having Dorian close the lock on his father’s cage. He wrapped an arm around Lehad like they were old friends and grinned at Cullen and Dorian.

‘Shall we, then?’

Without the other three, the dynamic had shifted subtly. Now Jassen spoke mostly to Cullen and occasionally Lehad, essentially taking them on a _tour _of the fourth floor. Jassen became more animated, more excited and he looked back at Cullen increasingly.

‘Remember that?’ he asked, pointing to a small corner in what might once have been a common room of sorts judging by the wrecked furniture. ‘We used to play chess there,’ he told Lehad when Cullen only nodded silently. ‘He was pretty ruthless, beat me four out of five times but every now and then, I’d sneak up on him, wouldn’t I, Cullen?’

‘Yes,’ the Commander answered in such a subdued manner that even Jassen rolled his eyes and hugged Lehad closer.

‘He’s still grouchy because I nearly crushed his pet mage into jam,’ Jassen whispered loudly to Lehad. ‘Ah, look! Greagoire’s _chair_! Fucker would haul you off if you ever dared sit in it!’

Jassen dragged the poor agent along with him deeper into the common room and Dorian hung back, reaching for Cullen’s hand quickly.

Cullen turned, eyes wide shaking his head. ‘Don’t,’ he warned in a low whisper. ‘If he sees you touching me—’

‘What are we going to _do?__’ _Dorian hissed, keeping Jassen in his sights. ‘You can use the magic, you’re going to have to kill him.’

‘I can’t use it without hurting you!’ Cullen insisted desperately. ‘Killing him might actually kill you. There are safeguards in place you don’t know about and this whole place is connected to him; the walls, the lake, the ceilings, he’s in all of it. The chains make it so that he can kill Fenris and your Father from anywhere.’ But then, despite his insistence that they not touch, Cullen took a quick step forward like he couldn’t help himself. ‘Are you all right?’

Dorian faltered somewhat, caught between the truth and his desire to lie. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, I promise. What about you? What happened while I was—’

‘Hey!’ Jassen called back sharply. ‘_Keep up!_ Lehad will be sad without you both!’

It felt like giving up, the decision to play along for now and hope for an opportunity later on. The trudge through the fourth floor went on for longer than Dorian could bear. He walked behind Cullen for a while until Jassen came to a dormitory.

‘Look!’ he said, shoving Lehad onto a nearby mattress. The boy stumbled and rolled, only just avoiding toppling off entirely. ‘Cullen, look! This one was yours!’

Dutifully, Cullen came forward.

‘How can you tell?’

‘The sides,’ he explained, something in his excitement flickering then. ‘Don’t you remember? Look.’

He knelt low and pushed Lehad off the mattress as if he was an irritating object. Jassen lifted the side and revealed a thin slice along the filthy, darkened material, straw peeking out from within.

‘We used to leave each other notes here,’ Jassen explained a touch quieter, something soft and worryingly _vulnerable_ about him. ‘Little letters, don’t you… don’t you remember?’

Lehad read the moment wrong in spectacular fashion, perhaps taking Jassen’s vulnerability for opportunity. ‘Please let me go,’ he whimpered.

Jassen’s entire demeanour shifted, turned predatory and hostile as if Lehad was an intruder and even as Dorian moved forward, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to save him.

But Cullen took a swift breath and put himself between Jassen and the young man who was only a few years older than Keenan, if that. ‘I do remember,’ Cullen said, kneeling besides Jassen as the boy began to sob. ‘I remember the last one you left me.’

Maker, but his _voice_ was so calming, so soothing. Dorian put his absolute all into the warning glare he shot Lehad while Cullen worked to appease Jassen. It made Dorian wince to see Cullen carefully place his hand on Jassen’s shoulder.

‘What did it say?’ Jassen asked, childlike and still.

Cullen thought about it only for a moment. ‘It said, _if you__’re feeling better, meet me on the roof tonight.’_

Jassen let out a shuddering sigh and nodded, grasping Cullen’s hand with his own. He seemed so _relieved_. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said shakily and Cullen smiled at him while Lehad pulled himself together, nodding at Dorian to show he understood. ‘That was the night before everything wasn’t it?’

‘It was.’

‘You weren’t feeling better, though.’

A shadow moved behind Cullen’s eyes. ‘No, I wasn’t. I’m… sorry I didn’t meet you.’

Jassen took hold of Cullen’s face, it was slow and almost shy. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘I was the one who let them grow flowers on the windowsills. You warned me not to show them kindness. What happened here _was_ my fault, there’s no way of denying it.’

‘Cullen,’ Jassen said intently, _lucidly_. ‘They would have risen up no matter what. They were practising blood magic, we knew it. We couldn’t prove it because they hid their marks well. It was inevitable. _Evil_ is inevitable when it’s determined to rise. You were kind and you… you just didn’t _understand_ them.’

Dorian stared in a dreamlike state at the scene before him.

‘But you understand them now,’ he went on, rubbing his thumb over Cullen’s cheek bone. ‘We both do.’

Cullen’s throat worked. ‘Yes, I think so.’

The silence stretched on for a while before Jassen said, in a completely different voice, ‘Help the kid, blood mage. Still more to see.’

*

_More to see_ apparently involved being shown the entirety of the fourth floor. The picture Jassen painted of life as a Templar with Cullen and their friends, all of whom were long dead now, was positively glowing. He showed Dorian the little corner where they first kissed, where they would eat together. It was all very… intimate and cheery. Jassen’s moods were deeply unstable but terrifyingly _vivid. _Lehad was thankfully wary of even _looking _at Jassen, let alone speaking to him again even as the former Templar rambled on at him as if he were an eager tourist of the place that had almost destroyed Cullen.

Dorian fucking hated it. He hated the bone strewn floors, the walls splattered with darkened blood, the _smell_, the oppressive nature of whatever the fuck it was all around him that punished him for being connected to the Fade. He hated seeing the little _pieces_ of Cullen’s life with Jassen, good or bad, he couldn’t bear it because of how much it hurt Cullen.

Though dulled and somewhat mangled with interference, the bond let him know just how much Cullen was suffering throughout. Tangled with the all-consuming worry for Dorian, there was a deep growth of something thorny, something _awful_ and he was being dragged through it by _Jassen_ of all fucking people.

Dorian was almost relieved to be led back to the Harrowing Chamber as it meant that Jassen had run out of little _pockets_ to reminisce about.

Or maybe _not_.

‘Right there,’ he told Lehad, pointing to the raised platform in the centre. ‘Right there was the first mage I ever killed. Failed Harrowing, a nasty one. It was incredible, even though I messed it up. Cullen, you remember?’

Cullen walked around the platform, deliberately slow. ‘I remember.’

‘I swung my sword wrong, cut her open but not in half. It took ages for her to die, barely even an abomination. Blood like a burst riverbank. Amazing. You ever killed anyone?’ he asked Lehad, who blanched at being addressed directly.

‘Yes,’ he answered.

‘That’s good,’ Jassen said releasing him. They stood in the very centre of the platform, the place where these apparent _Harrowings_ had taken place. ‘Killing makes you a man. Did it feel awful, that first time?’

Cullen seemed nervous, eyes moving back and forth between Jassen and the young agent. The atmosphere, already precarious and unbearably tense, shifted into even worse territory.

‘It felt… strange. Not necessarily bad, though.’

Jassen nodded. ‘Good benchmark for someone of your vocation. You ever killed a blood mage?’

Lehad glanced at Dorian and then back again, keeping his expression neutral. ‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Ever seen blood magic at work?’

The young man straightened. ‘No.’

‘Well,’ Jassen said calmly. ‘Now’s your chance.’

It happened too fast to even _see_. There was a blur, a flash of something that glinted as it moved and Lehad blinked, seeming confused as he looked down at his tied hands, bound with the same filigree chain, the tail end of which was now… red.

Then his throat burst open and all the air in the room _evaporated. _Dorian couldn’t scream, though he wanted to. He saw Cullen through the thick light that surrounded Jassen as he drew power from beneath him, from the cages and used Lehad’s blood to fuel it. The boy’s body _disintegrated_ in front of Dorian’s eyes, something consuming him whole; blood, bones and all.

The walls of Kinloch Hold groaned and trembled as Jassen spoke words that Dorian couldn’t make out, paralysed by the force of something flooding the atmosphere around them.

Then Jassen looked right at Dorian for the first time in what felt like hours and he _smiled_.

The weight of that magic hit Dorian hard. It was incredible, the sheer _force_ of it. Knocked him down and winded him completely. He gasped, he struggled but it hadn’t only flattened him, it was _ripping _into him too. Smashing through skin and ribs and organs to reach the very heart of him and corrupt it.

Jassen’s blood magic _despised_ him, he could feel every droplet of hatred in it as it took him over.

Cullen was screaming his name, screaming Jassen’s too. It felt like he was being _possessed_, like his blood was being boiled and it brought about a monstrous form of… desire.

The magic was raking through him the wrong way, upsetting every single nerve it touched, setting him on edge, his teeth grinding together as something unbearably angry twined with that _need_.

Dorian pushed up onto his elbows and tried to clear his head, tried to focus but it was impossible. There was no rational part of him left, he was entirely caught in the prickly heat of whatever was inside of him and it demanded to be set free.

When his gaze landed on Cullen, staring at him with an expression of dark dread, that need curled into a claw, desire turned razor sharp and every single moment away from Cullen was nothing less than purest agony.

The pair of them were speaking, but Dorian couldn’t make it out, none of it. He crawled forward enough to push onto his knees and then got to his feet. His heart punched out a catastrophic rhythm, Cullen’s name in the base of it. He forgot his own name, he forgot _everything_ except the fact that he needed Cullen, he had to take him and make him his. Get to him, touch him, own him, fuck him, claim him as deeply as humanly possible.

Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and his fingertips trembled.

Cullen looked at Jassen then, pleading. The mage knew he was pleading by the look on his face but it didn’t matter. Nothing would stop what was coming. The more the mage focused on Cullen, the more he was able to piece together his surroundings, able to realise what was happening all around him.

‘… see if he can withstand it,’ Jassen was saying as Dorian took a step closer to them both. ‘He’s so _strong_, your mage, it should be nothing to withstand enthrallment, should it? I’m no _demon_, no mighty Tevinter Magister, only a man and he _loves you, _after all! He would never hurt you, would he?’

‘I already promised to stay with you, Jassen! Please, _please_ don’t do this!’

Dorian’s feet were determined to get to Cullen; it was necessary, it was _all_ that was necessary in the world. He had to get to him, had to touch him.

‘The magic will only kill him if he gets what he wants and you’ll stop him, won’t you? It’s no hardship for him to show a little restraint.’

‘When you’ve used _blood magic_ to invoke desire, how is that anything other than a death sentence? Is this my punishment for what I did to you?’

Jassen hit Cullen, a vicious backhander. Dorian _snarled_ because no one was allowed to touch Cullen except him, ever.

‘If you want to keep him alive, you’d better keep him away from you. The moment he’s inside you, his Tevinter blood will boil him alive. You’d better fight _hard, _lover.’

Jassen began to back away from Cullen and Dorian watched him leave, watched him open and then _lock_ the doors behind him. The mage felt relieved when it was only _them_ at last.

‘Dorian, can you hear me?’

‘Cullen?’ the mage managed to utter which was really an extraordinary feat considering he was _melting_ where he stood. He was so hot and he itched all over, his body needed _tightness_ and friction.

_Fuck_, he needed friction so much.

‘I’m here,’ Cullen said, his hands raised warily, expression… not right at all. He looked like he didn't want the mage to come any nearer and that just wasn't acceptable. ‘Dorian, I’m here and I’m so sorry but you have to stay away from me.’

Dorian laughed then because it was so _funny. _He couldn’t stay away, he would _die_ if he stayed away.

‘Please,’ Cullen said, his voice cracking. ‘I don’t care what you’d do to me, you know that, I just… it’s a test. It’s all a test and if you _fail—__’_

_‘_Cullen,’ the mage said, not remotely interested in anything except the fact that they were painfully far apart. ‘Come to me.’

‘No.’

That was fine. Dorian would go to him, he was _happy_ to go to him.

He moved quicker than he meant to and at first he rejoiced because Cullen seemed so torn that he didn’t stop his advance, not until he was right in front of him, arms outstretched.

‘Dorian, please listen to me,’ Cullen said through ground teeth, hands tightly gripping the mage’s arms to keep him at bay. ‘I know you can’t control yourself, I… I know what he’s done to you, the s-same thing they did to me. I know you’re not going to be able to stop, but I need you to hear me and know that what I have to do now is because I love you and I have to protect you.’

Dorian heard, _I love you_, and he lost his mind.

He smacked Cullen’s hands away and grabbed his black shirt, bunching the material under his fingers and crashing their mouths together. It was perfect, teasing _bliss. _Cullen’s taste was soothing, it was delicious but it… wasn’t enough. When the Commander wrenched his face away, Dorian sought it out again and when he refused, the mage fought him for it.

He grabbed and he pulled and he _forced_ where Cullen resisted. It made no dent in the heat of his need, in the depth of his desire. He needed Cullen more than he needed air, he was going to _die_ without him.

It didn’t make much sense, why Cullen was resisting at all. He’d told Dorian he loved him, what else even mattered? Dorian was going to fuck himself all the way into Cullen and stay there forever, _forever_. That was all that mattered, nothing else. The first time Cullen punched him, Dorian tasted his own blood and it was _anything but_ a deterrent. It sent his desire spiralling into fully fledged _hunger_. Now he wanted to devour Cullen, to split him open and crawl inside him forever. If Cullen wanted to play, they could play.

He hurt Cullen back, he hurt him _more_.

Dorian used magic, even though it felt like he was being buried beneath a landslide each time he did. He pursued Cullen around the room and whenever there was distance between them, the irritation turned more and more into seething resentment. Why was Cullen being like this? Didn’t he _want _the mage?

On and on until his head was swimming with hatred, with a need so pulsing that it was a sledgehammer to his heart. Cullen was stronger than Dorian, was faster and better equipped to beat him but he didn’t _want_ to hurt Dorian and therein lay the difference. Cullen couldn’t stop him unless he seriously hurt him and Dorian _knew_ it. He was weak and that weakness would allow the mage to advance, it was all he needed, to _press_ where Cullen was so vulnerable.

He used magic to weaken him, to _drain_ him.

On and _on_ until he had Cullen exhausted and cornered, _begging_ Dorian to stop and… _that_ just made it all the better. Yes, the mage liked it when he begged for that. He was a man possessed, driven to_ take_.

Cullen’s wrists fit so nicely in Dorian’s hands as he wrestled him to the ground. Dorian had never used his body like this, never used it as a weapon.

The man beneath him was so very beautiful, even with tears spilling down his face. And Dorian loved him for it, loved him so much his heart felt like it would give out when he dragged his tongue over those tears, drank in all that watery salt. He loved him so much he had to be inside him, no matter the cost, no matter what Cullen said or pleaded or… or cried.

The mage could not stop, he would die if he did.

When they kissed, Cullen let it happen. The tiny fraction of acquiescence gave Dorian a small ray of clarity and he didn’t hold Cullen’s wrists so hard anymore, their bodies pressed together in a way that gave friction but not _enough. _

‘Good boy,’ Dorian heard himself praise into Cullen’s mouth and it felt so _wrong_ but that just made it all the better, his nervous system positively smouldering by then. ‘I like it when you’re still for me.’

Cullen turned his face away, eyes closed and Dorian thrilled in being gifted that long expanse of pale throat to mouth over, to bite and suck while he carefully moved Cullen’s wrists together and bound him with magic that burned to cast. With his free hand, he moved it down towards Cullen’s belt, yanking it open.

‘The first thing I loved about you,’ Cullen said quietly. ‘Was that you always had a comeback.’

Dorian hesitated, frowning. He didn’t _understand; _it wasn’t relevant, it wasn’t important. Silly Cullen. He tried to push the waist down, made difficult by Cullen’s weight and their position on the unforgiving floor.

‘You were always so defensive but it wasn’t aggressive or hostile. You were playing with people, you were _teasing_. I loved it, even th-though I _wanted_ to hate it.’

‘Shut _up_,’ Dorian said, not wanting to hear stupid things like this when he finally had Cullen’s bare arse exposed to the gritty stones beneath and it didn't matter that he wasn’t hard, didn't _matter_ that he was unwilling and that he didn’t look at Dorian.

‘I loved that you made Lavellan laugh. You made her glow and I wondered _how_ you did that, because she never laughed like that with anyone. She never relaxed like that. I wondered and I watched you even more.’

Dorian tore Cullen’s shirt in two from the neckline and feasted on the skin and muscle and scars before him. He pressed his lips and tongue over Cullen’s heart and revelled in the frantic rhythm he found there.

‘You were curious about everything, you _asked_ about everything. It was so _annoying_ in meetings,’ Cullen went on. ‘Everyone would be desperate to leave and you would raise your hand and ask about something, some angle no one had considered and I would despise you for keeping us but… your insight was valuable, it was _necessary_.’

Dorian bit at the junction of his neck and shoulder. _‘Stop_ talking.’

‘I watched you get drunk sometimes. I would stand beside Cole upstairs and look down. He was mostly quiet and I would just watch you, unrestrained and with your inhibitions lowered, you were just so _ridiculous_, I couldn’t help it then either.’

‘Stop.’

‘I loved everything about you. I saw you fail, I saw you _try. _I watched you stumble and make light of it. I read your letters from your Father and I learned that somewhere along the line, he’d hurt you and it… it created something inside of me that hadn’t been there for a long time.’

‘Shut your mouth,’ Dorian snarled, working to free himself from the confines of his clothing.

‘I was _concerned_ for you. For a mage, for a Tevinter mage. Beneath all the hatred and the resentment, I worried for you. I wanted to protect you, even from myself.’

The last two words were a crack in the foundation of Dorian’s mindless desire. He faltered and a burst of sour confusion hit him. He had no idea what was happening, _why_ it was happening. Why was Cullen beneath him, why was he…?

It passed quickly and the certainty returned, solid and consuming once more. He just had to force his way into Cullen and everything would be fine, it would be _wonderful. _

‘I loved your magic, even from afar.’

Anger curled low in Dorian’s gut. ‘I don’t want to hear this.’

‘I watched you train and I was mesmerised by you.’ Cullen’s breath hitched. ‘I watched you shine and I heard you laugh. _I could do this all day,_ that’s what you said. And I loved you for it, there was no way to deny it.’

‘Stop or I’ll make you stop.’

‘You were _magical_. I couldn’t stop myself from falling in love with you, no matter what I tried. Brave and caring and full of _life_. Maker, I was yours right from the start and it had nothing to do with curses.’

‘_SHUT UP!__’_

‘I loved you _despite_ everything else, not because of it.’

Entire body trembling, certainty splintering, Dorian hit Cullen. He cracked his hand across his face, needing to make him _stop_.

‘And even when I wrote your name as a reason to die,’ Cullen went on, cheek pink and marred with Dorian’s hand-print. ‘It was never true. You were the first… the _only_ reason to actually _live_. To do more than just exist. You made me want to be a part of the world again, you reminded me of who I was, Dorian. You reached down inside me and you pulled up what was left, buried beneath years of hate and decay and grief.’

‘I don’t love you, I don’t _care_!’

‘So no matter what he says, no matter what happens, know that I love you exactly for who you are and nothing else.’

‘Do you _hear me_? I don’t love you!’

‘I love every part of you. I love _you_, Dorian.’

The burning certainty was waning, taking with it all of Dorian’s life force. Something _inside_ him was fighting back, was dragging him to the surface, towards air that wasn’t full of ash, towards a sky that wasn’t a ring of fire.

He clawed at Cullen then, he hit him and did everything he could to hurt him. His magic refused to be used against Cullen anymore but his body was still his and if he couldn’t get inside, then he would break him, _rip_ him apart.

‘I love you so much.’

Nails tearing skin.

‘I love your arrogance and your bratty ways.’

Fists smashing down.

‘I love all your failures.’

Useless, weak hands slapping and hitting.

‘Because to fail only means that you _tried_ and you try so fucking hard, Dorian. You try to help everyone, you stop and you _try_ where others just walk past.’

‘I _hate_ you!’

Cullen looked at him, gaze striking the very heart of Dorian. When had Cullen caught hold of _his_ wrists, when had he managed to sit up? What was _happening? _

‘You love me.’

‘I… I _don__’t_.’

‘You love me and I love you.’

‘Please stop!’

‘I will never stop loving you.’

_‘Please, _I don’t want to-to die!’

Strong arms caged him as he sat there in Cullen’s lap and gradually, his struggle waned. The heat began to fade, replaced with confusion and primal _horror_ and a sickness that went to the very deepest part of who Dorian was.

He had Cullen’s blood under his _fingernails_.

‘You’re not going to die,’ Cullen said with a strength Dorian had not yet witnessed. ‘I have you, Dorian. You’re _safe_ with me. You’re safe.’

Shakily, Dorian braced himself on Cullen’s shoulders and he tried to breathe. He’d made a mess of Cullen’s face. Slap marks and blood from his split lip and through the blood, clean cut tear tracks.

‘Cullen,’ he gasped, blinking hard. It was the only word he could say, it was all he knew then as the world came crashing down around him.

‘Shhh,’ Cullen whispered, wrapping his arms all around the mage. ‘It’s all right, my love. It’s all right.’

It _wasn__’t_. That knowledge sat inside him like a lump of something both physical and foreign. There was only Cullen, only the comfort he offered. Dorian took it and let himself believe the lie, if only for a little while.

‘It’s not your fault, none of this is your fault,’ Cullen promised, rocking him slightly on his lap, stroking his back, caressing his hair. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t let you. I would have, you know I would have.’

Dorian winced, head pounding. ‘Please don’t say that.’

‘It would have killed you,’ Cullen said, hands moving over Dorian’s back. ‘Do you remember what he said?’

‘I… vaguely? Where is he now?’

Cautiously, Dorian looked out from the relative safety of Cullen’s embrace. The Harrowing Chamber was vast and soundless. Dorian was shivering though that may have had less to do with the temperature and more to do with what had _almost_ happened.

‘I think he’s gone to check on Skyhold.’

Dorian looked back at him sharply. ‘What?’

Worried amber brown eyes moved between storm grey. ‘He’s been possessing Cole, ever since Cole tried to find him. After I… sent him to check on Lavellan and the others, when he became apparently unable to enter Skyhold. Cole tried to find Jassen and he caught him in a kind of trap, he used a binding ritual.’

‘He told you this?’

‘Among other things,’ Cullen said darkly.

Dorian became suddenly and highly aware that Cullen’s trousers were still around his thighs and that he’d made no attempt to right himself. Cullen shifted and awkwardly managed to pull them up almost all the way.

In a trembling voice, Dorian asked, ‘What happened while I was in the cage?’

With a sigh, Cullen returned his arms to Dorian again, brow furrowed. ‘Mostly, it was Jassen showcasing his leverage. He has others, in the basement. Other mages, other people. He’s become extremely adept at playing with memory, wiping them entirely in some cases. It’s what he intends to do with Fenris, I think. Probably me, as well.’

Dorian’s hold on Cullen tightened, his heart lurching horribly.

Cullen noticed it and he gave Dorian a weary kind of eye roll.

‘I said _intends_ to do, not what I was going to _let_ him do.’

‘You said you’d stay with him.’

_‘Obviously,_ I said that to him,’ Cullen said, opting to speak much more quietly. ‘He has _you_, Dorian. He has your Father here. I can’t let him hurt you. If I can convince him that I’ll stay if he would just let you go—’

Dorian wrapped his hands carefully around the back of Cullen’s neck, the need for proximity nigh overwhelming. ‘He won’t do that, you know he won’t. He _hates_ me, Cullen. He can’t even say my name.’

Blinking hard and swallowing, Cullen nodded. ‘I know he does, but I’m what he wants. If I can convince him that I’ll give it to him, that might be worth letting you go.’

Dorian tried to smile but Maker it was difficult. ‘Come on, you’re being purposefully _Ferelden_ here. He _knows_ too much. He knows you love me, he knows you’d say anything to protect me and that, once I was safe, you’ll turn around and attack him, no longer weighed down by leverage. No. It would be easier to kill me and then wipe your memories. That’s what he’s going to do.’

Cullen took Dorian’s hands and held them tightly, bringing the knuckles to his lips. ‘I’ll kill him then,’ he swore. ‘I’ll find a way as soon as he comes back.’

Dorian shook his head. ‘He’ll kill Fenris. He’ll kill everyone in this place.’

Eyes squeezed tight shut, Cullen forced himself to say, ‘I d-don’t care.’

‘Yes, you do,’ Dorian said, laughing softly, a fragile thing, really. ‘You care so much. You’re a _good_ man and you wouldn’t let a dozen people die to save one, no matter who it was. It won’t come to that. We just have to be smarter here, all right? A little more…’

‘Tevinter?’

The way he said it, quiet and uncertain but _trying_ to make light, trying very much to say something to make the mage smile, it broke Dorian’s heart.

He pulled Cullen close into a fraught embrace, hearts pressed together, pounding wildly. He buried his face in Cullen’s neck and tried not to think of the world around them just then, of the reality slowly beckoning.

‘Yes,’ he managed blinking back fresh tears. ‘Yes, exactly.’ When he drew away, Cullen kissed him like it was the most natural thing in the world. It was born of desperation, born of love and worry and fear with no words capable of expressing it. Closed mouth and _fierce_ and Dorian lost himself for a moment, promised himself it would _not_ be the last time.

‘And as it happens,’ the mage said when they parted, holding one another as close as possible. He carefully reached inside his shirt, making walls of their backs and hiding what he found there against his skin on a long, thin chain. ‘I _do_ actually have a plan, it’s just that, like the majority of my plans, it might be the worst plan ever conceived.’

*

Jassen seemed unexpectedly pleased to find Dorian still alive.

‘Impressive,’ he commented, glancing around, gaze lingering on Cullen’s torn and discarded shirt. ‘It came close, did it? How much did Cullen have to hurt you to keep you away until it faded?’

‘Would you like that?’ Dorian sneered, leaning against the furthest wall. ‘All the gory little _details_?’

‘Maybe I’ll have Cullen tell me later,’ Jassen said, dark eyes fixed on Dorian. ‘Your friends in Skyhold are all looking for you. The Spymaster thinks you might be in Orzammar. We have more time than I expected before they’re able to trace you here and even then, I’ve put more than a few _distractions_ in place.’

Dorian kept his expression’s very carefully neutral. Keenan knew perfectly well where the mage had been headed, Saffy too. He couldn’t _ask_ obviously, but he burned to know whether or not they’d made it safely back or if… if Leliana _knew_ that Skyhold was not safe from infiltration and was somehow misleading Jassen.

The latter seemed, admittedly, rather far-fetched.

‘How is it you’re able to control Cole as you are?’

Jassen turned his attention to Cullen, even while answering Dorian’s question. ‘With enough power, I can slip in and out of him at will, ever since he came poking around looking for me here. I trapped him, bound him and then wiped his memories and sent him back after a few weeks. It took longer than I expected. He was unusually resistant, but I’m familiar with spirits of Compassion, like I said. I knew my way around.’

‘And before that,’ Cullen said grimly. ‘It was the letter.’

‘Before that,’ Jassen said with a half-smile. ‘It was _you. _Before you were overcome with lust-induced madness and you burned it, the letter was the foundation of my connection to you. When you destroyed it, our link was almost entirely extinguished. When you destroyed it _this time_, you removed me from Dorian, but I’m still inside you.’ He tipped his face upwards and closed his eyes. ‘I’m always inside you, even if I can’t _feel_ you like I used to. That will change soon, you’ll see.’

Dorian wanted to ask how but knew well enough _not_ to that time.

‘Anyway!’ the former Templar said, jarringly cheerful again. ‘We’ve got a chunk of time to kill. C’mon, I’ll show you where they fed me to a demon.’

*

The rooftop was bitterly cold, so much worse than the battlements that Dorian had come to be intimately familiar with. At the very peak of the tower was a door that lead outside to a stretched balcony with a crumbling railing. The wind blew vicious and arbitrary. Dorian didn’t want to go near the edge but he knew it was likely inevitable, that Jassen would make him look over the side.

All around them, Ferelden was bright and bitter. Dorian could see for _miles_. He saw the lake he’d crossed on a raft of ice. He saw the dark, dense forest surrounding it, mountains in the distance. The sun was obscured by thin clouds, slices of dazzling, white sunshine making it through here and there. Bracing and beautiful, it filled Dorian with the smallest amount of hope. Up there, he couldn’t _quite_ make out the oppressive nature of the anti-magics. They were still there, he was sure, but in the fresh, freezing air, he could pretend otherwise.

‘Here’s where they brought me,’ Jassen said, his voice elevated to carry over the whipping winds of Lake Calenhad. ‘When it all started to go wrong for _them_, three mages dragged me up here to get away from the demons and they tried to offer me as a sacrifice.’

The lake glistened all around them, the surface of the water rippled intensely by the wind. Cullen kept looking over at Dorian, checking that he hadn’t blown away, most likely.

‘What happened then?’ the Commander asked, taking a step closer to Jassen.

The two former Templars stood side by side, only a small gap between them as they looked out at the lower half of the lake.

‘They conjured a hunger demon and offered me to it in exchange for safe passage out of the tower.’

Dorian moved away from the door and the relative safety of the wall, heading closer to the edge, to the place where the wind moved freely and dictated things like life or fucking death.

‘They stripped me naked and it started to eat me,’ Jassen said in a shockingly normal voice. ‘It had my leg halfway down it’s throat when it happened.’

Dorian made himself look down. Even from the safe distance he stood from the railing, it sent a dizzying jolt of fear through him. It looked like the lake was _miles_ below.

‘When what happened?’

‘I drew on their magic for the first time. I was screaming and the pain of that thing chewing my leg was unbearable. Their jaws detach, you know? Like snakes. It was _eating me_ and I was desperate, I screamed for help from the Maker, from Andraste, from _anyone_. But nothing happened, nothing _came _and somehow, I pulled on their magic and managed to create flames, enough to set one of the mages on fire. It disrupted the ritual and I…’ Jassen paused, stepping closer to the edge. ‘I got free and I fell over the side.’

Something _tightened _in Dorian then, a kind of desperate impetus to just run at him and shove.

‘It’s a long way down,’ Jassen said, a touch louder. ‘A long fall.’

Dorian heard the threat. Jassen would have time to kill everyone before he landed.

‘How did you survive the fall?’ Cullen asked him.

‘I don’t know,’ Jassen answered, looking right over the edge. ‘I don’t know how long I was down there for. I don’t… remember it really. I remember the water, how dark it was, especially with all my blood around me. When I woke up, I was naked on the shore. A band of hired mercenaries found me and when they grabbed me, I used magic; just the smallest amount of what was left inside from the roof but that was enough.’ He wrapped his arms around himself. ‘They thought I was a mage.’

Despite the wind, despite the fucking _madness_, Cullen took a step closer to Jassen.

‘They imprisoned you?’

Jassen laughed. ‘In a way. They didn’t report finding me, they just _took_ me. Bound me and put a collar around my neck. They were ex-Templars, most of them. A band who’d been ejected from Kirkwall for corruption charges. They were gathering rogue mages to sell. They’d heard about the commotion and came to salvage what they could.’

The skin of Dorian’s face was numb from the vicious winds whipping across it, his hair blowing into his eyes. He tried to imagine how that was for Jassen then, to be mistaken and enslaved as a mage when he hated them so. Part of Dorian was ruthlessly pleased to know of his suffering, the other part was mildly horrified, despite everything.

‘After a year or so,’ Jassen said, breaking the silence that had formed. ‘They sold me to slavers and they took me to Tevinter. That’s where Magister Allendas purchased me. He was the first person to _listen_ to me. I’d been ranting about how I wasn’t a mage for months, to anyone and everyone but they didn’t listen. It was common, apparently. Mages pretending they’d been mistaken, hiding their magic. He listened, though. He removed the collar and examined me. He said he believed me and then he put those chains on me. Said I was far more _useful _than he’d realised before. That I was a _bargain_.’

‘Jassen, I’m so sorry.’

Dorian hated that it sounded _real_ when Cullen said it. He hated it even more when Jassen reached out with one hand and Cullen actually _took it_ in his own, standing beside him once more.

The mage looked away, chastising himself for the bitterness he felt brewing within. Cullen was _playing along, _nothing more. He gazed unseeingly over the breadth of the surrounding lands and tried to console himself, failing entirely.

‘I felt you, always,’ Jassen said, just loud enough to be heard over the whistling winds. ‘You were _with_ me and so was this place. You were all that kept me alive.’

So quietly that he wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it, Dorian thought he heard Cullen say, ‘As were you.’

They stood together for a few more minutes, holding hands and looking out over the lake as the sun dipped in and out behind rapidly moving clouds and then, finally, Jassen broke away.

‘Come on,’ he said, not looking anywhere near Dorian. ‘It’s freezing, let’s get inside and warm up.’

*

It was a calculated move on Jassen’s part and Dorian, his many years enriched with the experience of how vipers operate, was not _surprised_ when Jassen split him and Cullen up again, but he was mildly alarmed.

He hid it well, for Cullen’s sake.

Cullen didn’t take it well and that was hardly surprising either.

‘No,’ he said immediately, when Jassen linked his arm through Dorian’s as if they were anything other than bitterest enemies and swayed the mage away from the path they’d been following. ‘No.’

‘No, what?’ Jassen said, feigning confusion. ‘It was freezing up there and your little mage is positively shivering. Look at how _dirty_ he is too, all covered in sweat and your blood.’ Jassen tutted, looking over Dorian without ever actually _looking_ at him. ‘I’ll get him clean and we’ll be back in time for lunch, how’s that, lover?’

Cullen was absolutely rigid, caught in a position of painful ambivalence. His eyes were wide and _fuck_, but Dorian could see how terrified he was, all the while trying not to show it.

‘It’s fine,’ the mage said, wishing there was a better word. ‘He wouldn’t kill me without you there to see it.’

Jassen laughed; it was manic in nature as he shoved Cullen playfully. ‘See? He’s a smart thing, isn’t he? We’ll be back in a while. Wait with Fenris if you like, you can sit outside his cage. Go on, no following. I’ll have him _sparkling_, don’t worry!’

Jassen led Dorian down a level, silent the entire time. He didn’t let go of Dorian, kept their arms linked and Dorian managed to keep up without stumbling. He had the impression that Jassen would know his way around the place blindfolded.

‘Here we are,’ the former Templar announced, turning unexpectedly left.

It was a kind of communal bathing area, or it had been once. Part of the ceiling had caved, furniture from a bedroom above having spilled and shattered beneath. Rubble and wood was everywhere and the bath… the massive, shallow pool area was dark brown with a dried substance Dorian was learning to recognise on sight.

The wind blew inside from a broken window and Dorian noticed a small sill beneath it, big enough for a box of to sit upon. Jassen caught him staring.

‘Yes, it was,’ he said simply, despite the lack of a voiced question.

‘I didn’t—’

‘This room caught the morning sun,’ Jassen said, tone devoid of its usual animation. He began to use magic to clear the room, shoving the rubble aside, clearing out the stone bath, one hand aimed _down_, doubtlessly drawing magic from someone beneath them. ‘They begged for months. Just a few flowers, something to brighten things up for the little ones. Please, please, _please.__’_ He threw a large wooden beam across the room, narrowly avoiding Dorian. ‘On and on until Cullen broke down. Said it was all right so long as they kept them from growing out of control. He got the proper permission, of course. Had to ask three times and eventually make a full-fledged request. They agreed if only to shut him up, I think.’

It was strange, hearing Jassen sound so… _normal_. Nothing flashy, nothing bubbling or brewing. He sounded tired and ordinary.

‘Clean the blood if you want,’ Jassen said then when the bath was reasonably empty of debris. ‘Never learned how to do that.’

Dorian looked at the deeply ingrained shade of brown. ‘I don’t think that will come out.’

‘Yeah,’ Jassen agreed, hauling the last of the rubble aside manually. ‘Blood rarely does.’

‘Are you really going to make me have a fucking bath in front of you?’

Jassen brushed his hands off and frowned at Dorian. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m having one too. Clean it and fill it. C’mon, mage. I know you like a bath.’

The last was teasing, but only very slightly.

Dorian went about using cleansing runes trying to ignore the pain it caused to cast them. He felt dampness trickle down his upper lip when the bath was as clean as it ever would be. When he wiped it, the back of his hand came away red. He quickly went about filling and heating it.

‘Make it hot,’ Jassen said, pulling his shirt off.

Dorian turned away, panic brewing. He couldn’t let Jassen see the _coin. _Quickly and deftly, he pulled his own shirt off and as he did, hooked his fingers under the chain and yanked. The chain broke, but it came away seamlessly with his shirt and when he placed it down, he made sure the glinting coin was well hidden.

He turned to find Jassen watching and his heart gave a painful tug.

‘So few scars,’ Jassen commented, eyes moving over Dorian’s arms and chest. ‘The Champion gave you that one, didn’t he? Very few elsewhere, though.’

He dropped his trousers and kicked them off carelessly. Dorian made the water as hot as he dared, just shy of burning and then he stripped off entirely bare too because go fuck yourself, Jassen.

It wasn’t as deep as Dorian’s bath back in Skyhold, but when Jassen sat down, the water came up to his chest. Dorian steeled himself and followed.

‘That’s nice,’ Jassen said, sitting back. ‘Wish we had some soap, but ah well.’

Dorian’s skin throbbed in warning because it really was scalding, but he didn’t care. He sat down and hunched forward, unable to make himself relax.

Cullen’s blood, dry and tacky beneath his fingernails, turned liquid and loose once more and drifted off in pale pink blossoms.

‘This is a Tevinter trick, you know,’ Dorian pointed out lightly, washing himself then, focusing on the water and the steam. ‘But if you’re trying to rattle _me_ by getting naked, I’m afraid you may have miscalculated.’

Jassen laughed and Dorian could feel the weight of his gaze.

‘I thought I’d let you get clean before you die.’

There it was. The sucker punch, the low blow.

Dorian didn’t stop cleaning himself, refused to let himself falter.

‘How generous of you.’

‘You know that’s why I brought you here. I need you to be near to Cullen when you die, so all that magic will flee your corpse and reside in him.’

‘And then what?’ Dorian asked pleasantly, splashing water up his shoulders. ‘You’ll wipe Cullen’s memory of me?’

‘Well,’ Jassen said, leaning forward on his knees. ‘That’s up to you.’

Dorian stopped, but he didn’t look at Jassen.

‘Oh?’ he prompted, a little impatiently.

‘Yeah. I can wipe him clean, you know. Complete overhaul. Last eleven years just… gone. That’s what I _want_ to do, absolutely. He would be _my_ Cullen then, you see.’

Dorian’s mouth twisted in a barely contained sneer but he forced himself to remain silent. If Jassen wanted to speak, let him speak.

‘_But_, I don’t think that’s best for Cullen. He’s been through a lot, an incredible journey really. To wipe away a third of his life is callous, even for me. I’ve never wiped anyone that deep either. It could damage him.’

‘Get to the fucking _point_, then!’ Dorian snapped, unable to prevent it that time. The mere _thought_ of Cullen’s memories being taken from him, the fate he had so dreaded - one of the many reasons he quit lyrium, it was unbearable.

‘Temper, Dorian,’ Jassen said softly. The mage looked up then, the use of his name made anything else impossible. Jassen never seemed to _blink_, it was deeply unnerving and decidedly reptilian. ‘I could just wipe _you_. There’s a part of me that longs to do just that. Wipe you from his memory, _only _you but that’s not practical either. Your magic will be inside him. It wouldn’t work. What I’m offering is to let him keep his memories of you, all of them and _instead_, I’ll wipe every trace of his suspicion about _me_. Make it so that he doesn’t know I had anything to do with this, with your death.’

It was a sickening thing, the way Jassen referenced an event that had yet to pass… in the past tense.

‘I’ve plenty of dead Magisters lying around and everything leads to Allendas. It’s why I pushed in the Wilds, asked all those questions in front of your friends. So when they come here and they find you dead and many others with them, Cullen won’t know who was responsible overall but the pieces will be strewn about.’

‘And what about you?’

‘I won’t be here. I’ll find him later when he’s grieving. When he needs me the most. I’ll come to him, manufacture a story. Maybe lead him on a quest to _save_ me. That would be good, I think. Happiness, to Cullen, must be earned.’

‘Why would I _want_ that?’

Jassen seemed surprised. ‘So someone _remembers_ you. Your Father will be dead, obviously, but you can live on in the memory of someone who _loved_ you.’

‘I think I’d rather just _live_.’

‘Yeah, well that’s not going to happen. Even if I _didn__’t_ want to see you die,’ Jassen said, the corner of his mouth curling. ‘And believe me, I really fucking do, I made your curse a promise. I swore I would deliver you to your Father with Cullen nearby. It was getting impatient the last few years or so. Look at the lengths it went to, attracting Cullen to you with blood and magic.’

_No matter what he says, no matter what happens, know that I love you exactly for who you are and nothing else._

Dorian held onto it hard, kept himself steady with Cullen’s words, with his promise.

‘How do you know about my curse?’

Jassen shrugged. ‘I was inside you. Your blood brought a tiny piece of me back to life, after all.’

‘The letter is long gone, I destroyed it.’

‘Yes, you did,’ Jassen agreed, looking around at the bath. ‘But blood is hard to get rid of, Dorian. You should know that by now. We’re connected, even though I hate it, I can’t deny that I feel certain elements of you even now, all mixed up with Cullen as you are.’

To detract from the gnawing fear Dorian felt that Jassen had actually sensed or even _heard_ any of his plan, he sat back and gave the man before him all his attention. ‘Saying my name now, are we?’

‘I don’t like your name,’ Jassen said, staring right back. ‘Cullen says it so often and it grates on me but despite everything, you’ve earned a small amount of my respect and for that, for this occasion, yeah, I’ll use your name.’

‘You wanted me to rape Cullen, didn’t you?’

Jassen didn’t even flinch. ‘Yes.’

Dorian nodded for a moment, his jaw working. ‘There was never any chance of me dying if it happened, was there?’

‘No. I couldn’t cast a spell on you that would result in your death, not so directly anyway. The chains are different, they—’

‘Do you love him?’

Jassen froze. ‘What?’

‘You fucking heard me.’

‘Do I _love_ Cullen? Is that what you’re asking me?’

‘Yes, that’s what I’m asking you.’

Jassen huffed a light, somewhat shocked exhale, his eyes creasing. ‘I don’t _love_ Cullen, I_ am_ Cullen. He is the core of this world to me. He is the only reason I’m breathing. It’s not love, it’s _everything_.’

_‘_How could you do that to him, then?’

‘It’s only rape,’ Jassen said with a frown. ‘I survived it and it didn’t alter my feelings for him. We both know he would have _let_ you if it was the opposite. If you had to fuck him _or_ die, he’d have laid on the ground and spread his legs and opened his arms. It could only _be_ rape if he thought you might die. I wanted him to understand that someone can endure something like that and still love the person afterwards.’

Dorian stared at Jassen for a long time before he said, ‘You’re a fucking monster.’

‘Why are you complaining? He stopped you, didn’t he? How _did_ he stop you, by the way?’

‘Didn’t you see?’

‘I didn’t _want_ to see it.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’

Jassen’s throat bobbed for a moment. ‘I can’t stand seeing him touch you. Not unless it’s… I hate seeing it. How did he stop you? Did he use magic?’

_You love me and I love you_.

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Did it break your heart a little bit, hurting him like that?’

‘Did you want it to?’

‘Of course,’ Jassen said easily, moving his hand through the water. ‘You’re everything I hate in the world. Breaking your heart became obsession for me many months ago, I can’t even pinpoint when. Maybe when I first realised who you _were_. Shorter hair, more filled out and full of _good intentions_ but it was still you. The _volunteer. _Allendas talked about you often, though less so when he shacked up with the blond one.’ He lifted his hand out of the water and watched the steam curl off of his skin. The gesture was so reminiscent of Cullen that it made Dorian’s stomach clench. ‘I had Allendas kill her before we left a few months ago. That was fun, though not very satisfying. She could be a real spiteful bitch and I wanted it to last a longer, but ah well. Life’s full of disappointments, isn’t it?’

Trembling with the effort of control, Dorian said, ‘Why did you have him kill my… my Mother?’

Dark brown met grey in an instant. ‘Yeah, I wondered when you’d ask. Not very family orientated are you?’

‘Did she suspect something about you?’

‘Would that be better for you if she did? If she died pursuing me, investigating the disappearances in the Imperium, does that somehow make her death more worthy? Maybe I just wanted to see you suffer.’

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘Answer the question.’

Jassen sighed. ‘She _was_ getting nosey, but her death was just another part of the trail leading back to Allendas. He gave her poison, the good kind, not fucking witchgrass or bogroot. They’ve got some real impressive poisons in Tevinter, haven’t they? It was one of those good ones. Sick for a few days and then lights out. Hard to trace but not impossible.’

‘I’m going to kill you,’ Dorian said in a shockingly normal tone of voice. ‘No matter what happens, you are going to die and I’m going to be the one to do it.’

Pleasantly, Jassen smiled. ‘Whatever you need to tell yourself. Anyway, I don’t know why you’re angry at me. Offing your dear old Mother led to you and Cullen falling in love. It was shortly after I killed her that Cullen burned our letter and I lost almost all contact with him. I could still… _feel_ him, though, very faintly.’

‘Were you jealous?’

It was meant to be a ribbing thing, something nasty to get under Jassen’s skin but he just inclined his head and answered, ‘Yes. Cullen feels so much for you. It’s difficult for me. The outcome is what I wanted, for him to know magic but the cost is high.’

‘He won’t let you kill me.’

_‘I’m_ not going to kill you, though I wish I could.’

‘He’ll try to protect me.’

‘Of course he will. That’s who he is. He won’t be able to, though. I need him close by for the magic to latch onto, otherwise I’d kill you now. Drown you in this water and leave you here, to bloat and rot and make a merry feast for Ferelden wildlife when they come sniffing. But you deserve more than that and anyway, your curse would be _deeply_ pissed off if that was the case. It’s waited a long time for everything to come together this way. Which brings us back to my offer. I’ll let Cullen remember you if you tell me one thing.’

‘Which is?’

‘Tell me why your magic _wants_ to be inside him.’

It wasn’t what Dorian had expected but the second he asked it, the mage couldn’t help but feel just that _little_ bit powerful, having something that Jassen would never have. He sat back and surveyed him as evenly as possible.

‘You’ll never be able to recreate it.’

‘Tell me why it wants to be inside him.’

Dorian said, in an unhurried manner, ‘You’re not a mage so you don’t really understand magic, do you? You’re good at wielding it, don’t get me wrong. Cullen struggles with making water, it’s tricky for him. You’ve been using magic for years, but it’s not _your_ magic and it never will be. I can tell you why, but you’re not going to like it.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘My magic wants to be inside Cullen because it loves him.’

Jassen’s reaction was instant; his nose wrinkled, his mouth turned down vaguely and his eyes narrowed. ‘Magic can’t _love_.’

Dorian shrugged. ‘Neither could I, until I met him. There are multiple aspects to it, some that even I don’t fully understand. It being blood magic made it stronger, gave it physical will and a kind of sentient drive. I think that where I used blood magic for the sole purpose of recreating the letter, it became somehow linked to Cullen’s curse, otherwise known as _you_. It wanted to break that curse, it was determined to do so. To bring him to the surface. _Breach and breathe,_ it would say.’

‘Magic can't talk.’

The mage gave Jassen a small, patronising smile. ‘It can’t talk _to you_. You’re only borrowing it. You’re not a true conduit, you’ve no connection to the Fade. That you’ve learned to draw it out from other mages is very impressive, but you can’t commune with what isn’t _yours_. Cullen can hear our magic, but even he can’t speak with it. I can because I’m a mage. I _am_ magic and you, for all your power, never will be.’

‘But your magic will stay inside Cullen even after you’re dead. I know it will, I’ve felt it. I’ve _touched it. _How is that? _Why_?’

_‘_If that were true, which I don’t think it is, it would likely be because Cullen is the closest thing to _me_.’

Jassen stared at Dorian. ‘That’s not quite accurate, is it?’

‘It’s the best I can explain.’

‘Try harder.’

‘I can’t explain what I don’t know. I personally think you’re wrong. I think that when and _if_ I die, my magic will go with me.’

It was a long, tense silence that followed. Jassen and Dorian stared at one another across the bath, surrounded by destruction and the ever-present dull hum of static. Then Jassen rose from the water and stepped out.

‘I guess we’ll find out tonight.’

*

Dorian knew things were going to be worse after that. There was a distinct shift in Jassen’s mood, in the basis of his attention towards Cullen and Dorian hated that he could see it coming when, as they sat around the same table where Thrask and Allendas had died, Jassen asked if Dorian wanted some water.

It had been many hours, _countless_ hours since Dorian had had water to drink and his body was highly aware of that fact. In retrospect, he should have swallowed his disgust for the bloodied bath and drank some of the scalding water in which he and Jassen had washed themselves, but it hadn’t even occurred to him at the time.

He was the only one at the table who hadn’t been given a goblet, who had no plate. Fenris, Halward, Hawke and Cullen were given water and a chunk of charred meat, though they ate warily and drank in tiny sips as if that would make any difference to poison.

Jassen stared at Dorian when he refilled the jug.

‘Are you thirsty?’

Cullen was already watching, apparently anticipating it himself as well.

And really, what was the point in lying? In showing defiance?

‘Yes,’ the mage answered honestly, dully.

‘Would you like some water?’

Dorian closed his eyes for a moment, if only to avoid seeing the look in Cullen’s eyes when he said, ‘I would, yes.’

‘Say please, then.’

‘Yes, _please_.’

‘Hmm,’ Jassen said. ‘I don’t know if I believe that. Cullen, what do you think?’

Without Allendas, Cullen now sat directly beside Jassen, Halward was still opposite Dorian. Hawke was silent and watchful beside the mage and Fenris sat at the end once more.

Before Cullen could speak, Fenris cut over him.

‘Imagine,’ he said, dry and derisive, his deep voice drawing all of Dorian’s attention. ‘Stooping to such pettiness over a _mage_.’

Jassen chuckled, but there was little humour in it. ‘Careful.’

‘He can have my water,’ Cullen suggested softly, soothingly; a complete contrast to Fenris.

‘That’s _your_ water,’ Jassen said, his gaze still set on the elf. ‘If Dorian wants his own water, he’ll have to earn it.’

‘Maker, you’re pathetic,’ Fenris sneered. ‘Leveraging _water_ against him to get what you want.’

‘Watch yourself, _little wolf_.’

‘Yes, of course you use the name. You’re no different from them, from the Magisters who caged us. You use magic to make water and then you hold it at arm’s length for obedience. How many times did Allendas do that to you? Danarius to me? You’re just like _them_.’

Something in Jassen’s expression turned lax. ‘No I’m not.’

Hawke looked over at the elf and hissed, ‘Shut the fuck _up_!’

Fenris brought his chained hands up onto the table with a clank. ‘You’re _everything_ like them. You use their tools, their tricks. You’re cowardly and you’re _curious_ about the outcomes of the games you set in motion. You’re a fucking Magister in everything except status!’

‘There’s only one Magister here,’ Jassen said, his tone wavering. Cullen stared determinedly down at the table, something horribly resigned about him.

‘You’ve become everything you despised!’ Fenris spat. ‘And then worse still! To think there was a time I would have fought beside you… you sicken me, you sicken _everyone_. You’re alone and you’re _friendless_ and that’s how you’ll die!’

Dorian turned to look at Jassen, he couldn’t help it.

The man’s face was pale, his eyes wide and shining with a mixture of pain and moisture. ‘How can you say that to me?’

‘Because it’s true!’

‘Fenris,’ Jassen said in a small voice. ‘You were my only friend in that place, I did everything I could to get you free but it wasn’t enough and I… please don’t say such things to me.’

‘We were never friends! You were pathetic then, you’re pathetic now. You’re not a fighter, Jassen. You never have been.’

Dorian could feel himself cringing in anticipation. Hawke had gone entirely rigid beside him, fists curled tight and knuckles bloodless.

Jassen blinked tears down his face… and then he burst out laughing. It was a loud bark and it caused everyone to flinch, everyone except Cullen who seemed to have been expecting it.

‘I’m sorry,’ he gasped, grinning wide as he wiped his eyes. ‘Oh, you do make me _laugh_ Fenris! Of course I use their tools, there is a _reason_ they held us for so long! And if you’re not willing to forgive a little playful indulgence on my part, having waited ten years for it, then that’s your fault for being such an arse. Maker, I look forward to wiping you clean.’

‘I’ll _die_ before I let you.’

‘You won’t even know I’ve done it,’ Jassen said with cruel satisfaction as he sat back in his chair. ‘Just like Danarius used to let you escape on purpose, drag you back and then make you forget all about it. His memory spells were truly an art. How he loved watching you _run_.’

Fenris moved so fast that Dorian barely even saw it happen, but he felt the table when it was shoved sideways and he definitely felt what happened next.

Jassen threw his hand out towards Hawke and the Champion let out a deep, agonised roar. A shock of green lightning whipped towards Fenris then, Hawke’s brand of magic, wielded by Jassen. It sliced the air, cracked like a whip, then retracted and vanished.

Fenris reeled back, still on his feet but now clutching his face with chained hands as blood spilled through the gaps in his fingers.

‘He’s fine,’ Cullen said quietly, speaking to Halward. It did something strange to Dorian’s insides to see that Cullen had his hand on Halward’s shoulder. ‘Dorian’s not hurt, he’s fine.’

Jassen’s voice was like ice. ‘I told you to be careful.’

‘Fuck you!’ Fenris snarled even as his face poured blood. ‘I’ve scars enough not to care for new ones. Let the mage have some fucking water or are you that desperate to feel in control?’

‘He can have water when he’s earned it.’

‘Like how _you_ earned it?’

‘No, I would never ask that.’

Impatient and on edge, Dorian snapped, ‘Just tell me what to do, then.’

Fenris looked at Dorian. His green eyes were positively blazing. ‘Don’t give him what he wants.’

‘Fenris, _stop_,’ Cullen implored. ‘Just stop.’

‘How about _everyone_ stop?’ Jassen suggested, suddenly pleasant. ‘Champion, would you like me to heal your beloved elf?’

Hawke buried a growl deep in his throat but managed to nod.

‘Say _please.__’_

‘_Please_, heal Fenris for me.’

‘Much better, isn’t it? No need to be rude.’

Jassen drew on Hawke’s magic again and a softer, more natural green light glowed over Fenris’s face. Cautiously, the elf removed his bloodied hands and the gash was reduced to an angry red line. Hawke was shaking all over with the pain of having his magic drawn from him, but he hadn’t made a sound throughout.

‘I’ll let it scar,’ Jassen added thoughtfully, lowering his hand and Hawke almost collapsed. ‘Since facial scars are all the rage these days.’

Fenris stared at Hawke. ‘Is he all right?’

‘Drained,’ Jassen said. ‘But otherwise fine. Sit _down_.’

Unwillingly, Fenris did so.

‘Now, where were we? Oh yeah. Blood mage, you’d like some water, yes?’

Dorian ground his back teeth. ‘Yes, please.’

‘Very nice. You can have it, but first you have to ask Cullen how he got his scar. The one over his mouth.’

The mage blinked, confused. ‘What?’

‘Yes,’ Jassen said serenely. ‘Ask Cullen how he got his scar and if he answers and tells the truth, I’ll give you some water.’

Cullen and Dorian looked at each other then and Dorian’s gaze was drawn helplessly to the scar. He’d never really asked about it and Cullen had certainly never volunteered the story but… it couldn’t be a bad thing, could it?

Except that Jassen wanted to know it, which meant it was most definitely something _bad_.

‘How did you get your scar?’

Cullen took a deep breath that trembled slightly at the edges.

‘It was a few years after I was transferred from here to Kirkwall. There was an incident in the Darktown alienage. I caught a dagger to the face in the midst of the fray.’

‘And?’

‘That’s it, ‘Cullen said slowly, warily. ‘That’s what happened.’

Jassen peered at Cullen closely. ‘Are you _lying_?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Because I bet your blood mage really _is_ thirsty.’

‘I’m not lying!’

‘Who held the dagger?’

‘I didn’t see their face.’

‘Do you remember the incident in the alienage?’

Cullen’s frown became deeply ingrained. ‘I remember slavers and blood mages.’

‘What else?’

‘There was… it was just a fight, I don’t know what you—’

‘The slavers were looking for Fenris,’ Jassen said, rapt attention all over Cullen. ‘Don’t you remember that?’

‘I…’ Cullen turned to look at Fenris then who was watching the blond with an expression of suspicion and concern. ‘They were?’

‘I wasn’t there,’ Fenris said.

‘No, you were with _him,_’ Jassen said indicating to Hawke. ‘There were Magisters there in the alienage. Friends of Danarius, do you remember them?’

Cullen’s back straightened somewhat. ‘I wouldn’t have known a Magister from a slaver.’

‘No, you likely wouldn’t have. Allendas was there, helping his friend recover his property. It was the night the Champion sold Fenris out to Danarius but before that, Allendas was being thorough, making the rounds.’ Jassen ran his tongue along the back of his teeth, staring at Cullen. ‘I was there too. He brought me and two others along with him.’

It was sharp, Cullen’s denial. ‘No, you weren’t. I would fucking remember _that_.’

Jassen smiled. Far from being displeased that Cullen evidently had no memory of him, he seemed thrilled. ‘Oh, but I was. Allendas would send us in with weapons, dressed as Templars. We knew the routines, we knew the commands. Reasonably clever, though it only really worked in the South. He sent us in and then he shoved all kinds of magic into us from a safe distance. The real Templars came running and blamed rogue mages, started laying into anyone who looked suspicious.’

‘I would remember you, Jassen.’

‘Who gave you the scar?’

‘It was… I never saw—’

‘_I _gave you the scar,’ Jassen uttered breathlessly. ‘I didn’t realise it was you until I’d already cut across your face. It was chaos and we were only charged with finding Fenris, no one else mattered. I cut across your mouth before I even recognised you.’

‘No.’

‘It was a curved dagger, wasn’t it?’

The Commander paled.

‘Yeah. Not the kind I was used to handling, not a sword but that was all he’d give us. I split your mouth open and you looked at me then and you _recognised_ me.’

Cullen wasn’t breathing. ‘No.’

‘You said my name and you looked at me like I was… like I was a blood mage. It turned my stomach. I couldn’t bear it and I had to get rid of it, that look on your face, the betrayal in your eyes.’

‘You… wiped my memory.’

_‘That_ was my first time. I used Allendas’ magic by pulling on it and wiping the memory with the incantation I’d seen Danarius use a dozen times on Fenris. You passed out right after and we were gone before the cavalry came storming in. It was stupid really, I hated myself for it later. Maybe you could have saved me, but… I saw the disgust in your eyes when you realised it was me who’d used magic. I couldn’t let you think of me that way.’

Purposely, Jassen pushed the jug of water towards Dorian, never taking his eyes off of Cullen.

‘I just wanted to be sure the memory wipe had held up, even when prodded at. It was so long ago and it was the first time I ever used magic that way. It pleases me greatly to know that such things _are_ long term.’

Dorian didn’t take the water, didn’t want it anymore. His mouth was painfully dry and his head was spinning but that was fuck all to do with thirst.

‘You’re going to take my memories,’ Cullen said in a threadbare, desolate whisper.

‘Not all of them,’ Jassen told him. ‘Just the ones of me, like before. And when we meet again, third time will be the charm, I promise.’

No one moved for a long time and then Hawke poured the water into his own goblet and passed it to Dorian.

‘Don’t let it be for nothing,’ he said sternly. ‘Drink up.’

*

Sunset came quickly, as it was prone to in winter months. The rest of Dorian’s day had been spent in the cage with his father, the two speaking quietly while Halward faced away, eyes always closed. They spoke of small things, of times unlike these. Little memories of oddities and things that had happened in their lives that had made them laugh. It was always Halward who broke the silence when it formed. He would say something and he would get Dorian talking and then he would ruin it all by asking his son to kill him.

And Dorian refused each time, growing more and more agitated as the hours passed. He longed for Cullen, what he wouldn’t have given to be caged with _Cullen_ instead of his father.

‘I meant what I said,’ Halward uttered while Dorian had been mentally running through _The Plan _for the hundredth time. ‘When I congratulated you.’

Dorian looked over. ‘You literally said one word.’

‘And I meant it.’

‘You _congratulate_ me, do you?’

‘You and Cullen, yes.’

‘I’m not going to kill you.’

‘I know that. I’m not trying to manipulate you into anything. I just… you seem to care about him and he cares about you. I suppose that’s really all that matters when life is stripped bare like this.’

For a moment, Dorian floundered. It was the kind of acceptance he had long ago given up ever hoping for and yet, there it was, albeit in the face of grim death.

‘Well,’ he said awkwardly. ‘That’s kind of you to say.’

‘I’m not being kind. I’m being honest. If you’ve found love and have earned the love of another then you are to be congratulated. It is rare.’

Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘In Tevinter, perhaps.’

‘My son, if you will not kill me, then there is another way.’

‘Oh for—I’m not gouging your eyes out either!’

Judging by the silence that followed, that had clearly been Halward’s next request and Dorian sulked because of it.

*

When the sunlight began to fade, darkness and gloom creeping through Kinloch Hold, Jassen came to fetch them, he was most unlike himself. He seemed almost subdued. He said nothing as he guided them up to the fifth floor.

The Harrowing Chamber was filled with cages once more, as it had been the night previous. They lined the edge of the circular room, all filled with Magisters, with men and women Dorian distantly recognised. They’d been to enough parties at the Pavus estate for him to know most of their names, though one or two were new.

Fenris and Hawke were caged together, watching between the gaps of the bars.

And in the centre on his knees, bound by chains of opaline control, was Cullen.

Dorian started forward but caught himself just in time. Halward was still on his arm and Jassen by his side.

‘You kneel there,’ Jassen said, tone devoid of excitement or anticipation, oddly flat. ‘In front of Cullen. Halward here, at the side.’

Halward tried to resist, but he was bound with the same chains as Cullen and Jassen had no difficulty in pulling him to the side and then setting the chains into the stone floor where they welded and blended, dug deep and intelligently into the unyielding materials.

Dorian swallowed and knelt in front of Cullen. There was a distant look in the Commander’s eyes; the effect of the chains. The mage’s heart was pounding. They only had one chance to get this right. Cullen had clearly done his part; struggling and acting up enough for Jassen to warrant the use of the chains.

That was what they needed. The chains within Dorian’s reach while Cullen was near enough to touch.

He had the coin pressed painfully deep in the palm of his hand, denting the skin, Leliana’s explanation of the dwarven enchantments of the Nook running through his mind. The word she’d taught him, _Salroka_. If they could disable the chains, if Dorian could _master_ the chains… then all Jassen’s leverage was gone.

Amid the overwhelming static buzz of the interference, Dorian could taste incoming rain, the heavy kind. He told himself he would be alive to see it, to drag Cullen outside and kiss him in it, free and safe and together. He told himself that over and over.

‘Dorian,’ Jassen said, his voice echoing around the chamber. ‘Push your magic into Cullen.’

Terrified, Dorian did just that. He took hold of Cullen’s wrists, making it seem as though contact was required and he wrapped his palm around the chain, pressing the coin to the metal. Nothing happened, nothing immediate or obvious and he let their magic flow between them.

It was… sorrowful and worried. Weakened by the pressure in the air, openly grieving for having failed them. Dorian couldn’t bear to feel it in such a way, tried to reassure it that everything would be all right somehow.

The magic was moving between them when something rang through the air, something deep and alarming like a gong.

Jassen looked around, eyes wide and mouth in a thin line.

‘Your friends have found us.’

Dorian’s heart leapt and Cullen nodded quickly. This was the best chance they would get.

Hand pressing the coin to the chain as hard as he could, Dorian yelled, ‘SALROKA!’

For a long, _horrific_ moment absolutely nothing happened. Dorian breathed fast, waiting and praying, knees digging painfully into the stone and staring at Cullen, who mirrored every awful, drawn out moment of the mage’s fear.

And then the chains _melted _away.

When it happened, it happened fast.

Cullen shoved off his knees and got to his feet, no longer restrained and Dorian did the same, watching as the other cages all around the room melted away like ice in a firestorm. Jassen looked around wildly, yelling things that Dorian couldn’t hear over the pounding of his own heart.

One chance, _one_ chance.

It had to be everything, it had to be the purest, most powerful kind of magic they could make. No strangled connection to the Fade.

It had to be blood magic.

Cullen took Dorian’s face and the two crashed together, violent by design. The quickest way to make the mage bleed was _Cullen_, was Cullen’s teeth sinking into his bottom lip. It was no kiss, not really.

Dorian clung hard to Cullen all the same and he _gave_ everything of himself. He activated the blood, turned it to fuel and gave it all to Cullen, the purest form of their connection, the slipstream of power.

Then Cullen pulled back and threw his hand at Jassen. The air crackled and seized, the sheer force of what Cullen was conjuring damn near rent the very atmosphere asunder. It wasn’t quite fire, it wasn’t quite lightning. Something born of both, a jagged heat, a bright and burning consumption of energy.

He threw it all at Jassen, who _screamed. _

The sound was barely audible above the roaring of the magic and Dorian bit down on his _own_ screams as best he could, the agony in his chest simply unimaginable.

Jassen’s screams ended and Cullen stopped. The pain eased and then vanished. Dorian tasted scorched flesh and blackened ozone and his head was _swimming_.

Cullen caught him then as the mage swayed and almost pitched to the ground. He caught him like he’d caught him a dozen times before.

‘… hear me? Are you all right?’

Dorian was dizzy and he was lightheaded but yes, he was all right.

‘’M fine,’ he slurred, managing to smile. ‘Is he…?’

He opened his eyes and looked around, willing the room to stop spinning. Cullen had lowered him to the stone platform, holding him while he sat up. A smouldering pile of ash was all that remained where Jassen had stood.

‘He’s dead. The chains are gone, you were right, you were so fucking _right_!’ Cullen smiled shakily, eyes moving over Dorian. ‘Are you hurt, what can I do?’

‘Dorian?’ Halward called out. ‘Dorian, you’re all right?’

‘Still fine,’ Dorian managed, wincing and staring at Cullen. ‘Still alive, thank you.’

Fenris came running over. ‘Hawke!’ he snapped. ‘Heal him, now!’

Cullen was rubbing his hand up and down Dorian’s back when Hawke approached. Dorian could taste the rain as it started to fall, even over the continued strength of the interference.

‘Is everyone else…?’

‘They’re fine,’ Cullen told him. ‘Everyone is fine except for you and well, Jassen.’

‘He’s just drained,’ Hawke said, hovering his hands over Dorian, flinching at the obvious pain it caused to do so. ‘Once we get out of here, it’ll be better.’

‘There are still people in the basement,’ Cullen was saying. ‘Fenris, you and Hawke go see to them, make sure they’re free.’

Fenris nodded efficiently, but before he left he placed his hand on Dorian’s shoulder, green eyes meeting the mage’s. ‘Thank you,’ he said with quiet intensity. ‘_Thank you_.’

Before Dorian could decide what to say, the elf was gone with Hawke in tow. The others who were free from their cages ventured out cautiously, looking around and muttering.

‘I need to help my Father,’ Dorian said, trying to stand and immediately failing. ‘Are _you_ all right?’

Cullen let out a trembling, indignant little laugh. ‘Me? You’re asking _me_?’ He pressed his lips fiercely to Dorian’s forehead and then to his cheeks, planting small, somewhat stern kisses all over the mage. ‘You saved us all. You’re… I love you so much.’

They kissed then, a proper kiss. The setting melted away, the smell of burned flesh faded and Dorian forgot how Jassen had screamed as he’d died.

‘I love you,’ Dorian muttered, clinging to Cullen, wishing he could fall into him and never resurface. ‘I love you more than—’

The word died in his throat.

Pain unlike anything, pain that was not even _pain _struck him like lightning. It cut him in half, shocked through his heart.

Primal, monstrous and so very _awake_, the _thing _that lived in his blood smiled from the darkness inside.

Dorian’s magic _screamed_ and Cullen’s mouth turned lax, holding Dorian as his eyes widened with fear and confusion.

It happened too fast to see it coming, to even know what really _had_ happened except that Dorian knew. He _knew_ in the way that every being knows when death has them in its jaws.

He turned towards his father and saw wide grey eyes, so like his own, wide and horrified upon him. Halward was wrapped from head to toe in the chains, the same chains that Dorian had banished only moments ago.

And someone laughed, slow and pleased.

A few feet from Halward, a Magister that Dorian didn’t recognise stepped forward and the air around her shimmered the way it had around Varric once during the lockdown. The unknown woman’s visage melted away to reveal Jassen, wearing filthy mage robes, his dark eyes dancing with satisfaction and sheer, unadulterated _joy. _

‘No,’ Cullen said, heavy with astonishment and dread. Dorian’s heart seized, cruelly wrenching with the kind of agony that held finality. ‘_No.__’_

Dorian could feel himself falling backward, Cullen becoming distant. Breath was finite, movement was fading.

There came a creeping stillness, grey dusk edging in around the corners of his vision. The world had narrowed to Cullen and _only_ Cullen as the mage began to leave. It was inevitable, unstoppable.

He heard Cullen say his name, increasingly desperate and yet increasingly distant. Dorian managed to utter Cullen’s, had only enough breath for that one, final word.

Back and back he fell, the pain slipping away with the rest of the world. Cullen pleaded for Dorian to stay with him but Dorian could not and the darkness, patient and masterful, claimed the mage at last.

*


	28. The Boy From Honnleath

_Cullen was eight years old the first time he realised he was braver than his friends. _

_There was a game amongst the children of Honnleath. Thunderstorms were frequent, especially during summertime and in the reasonably temperate rains, the children, Cullen among them, would venture out in the fields, where the edges met a cluster of trees and they would stare up at the heavy grey sky, rain pouring down and see who could watch lightning strike without flinching. _

_It was a stupid game, or so Cullen_ _’s mother had told him, but everyone did it and Cullen did not want to be left out. Soaked to his skin, he stepped out from the relative safety of the massive, old oak tree and stared up. _

_It was overcast and oppressive, the taste of metal and something as of yet unknown to Cullen sat heavily on his tongue. The rain came in thick sheets, drizzling down his hair, his back. No part of him remained dry. He stared up and he waited. _

_Something was coming, something massive. He could feel it at the base of his spine. It built and it _gathered_ and it would strike the very earth with impunity and the unbiased nature of wild things. _

_Cullen stared up, hands at his sides and waited. Six other boys stood nearby, though not close enough to attract the lightning to a group, they weren_ _’t quite that stupid. _

_He stared at the sky and the sky stared back. Cullen felt like he was being tested, being _seen_ by something enormous and old and undeniably magical. _

_And then it struck. _

_A burst and a flash and all the energy of the world channelled into something sharp and vicious, aimed down at the earth. It struck silently, but Cullen heard it in his heart, over the pounding, over the thrill of risk. _

_It struck nearby, no one could see where, but it was close. Thunder followed seconds later; a massive rumbling crash, God-like and awe-inspiring. _

_Cullen had not blinked, his gaze riveted ever upwards and the others, those who had the sense to remain beneath the tree, cheered for him while the other six griped and claimed they saw him blink, even though they had all flinched and covered their heads, dropped to the ground and shrivelled in the face of nature unleashed. _

_Cullen was brave and he knew it that day. It was a subtle thing and he didn_ _’t brag, despite having the opportunity to do so. He acknowledged it quietly and accepted their begrudging admiration, the back-slaps and the grouching. _

_And something had stayed inside him, even after the storm had passed. He was changed that day, though he could not quite place it. Determination, strength perhaps. He was capable of more than them, more than his friends. Bravery owed allegiance to heroism, he decided as his mother scolded him ferociously when he padded inside, dripping from head to toe. She dried him off with a rough towel, grumbling the whole time as he saw the lightning in his mind_ _’s eye over and over. _

_Cullen was eight years old when he knew he wanted to be a Templar. _

*

_Cullen was nine the first time he spoke to his parents about his aspirations. They listened attentively as he laid out all his reasons, one by one. He_ _’d made a small list earlier that day and had memorised it, wanting to seem especially knowledgeable. His many visits to the local Chantry were certainly no secret to his parents or his siblings, but he wanted to make his intent formal, the way a soldier might by way of a declaration. _

_‘What about mages?’ his father asked when Cullen reached the end of his extensive list. ‘Aren’t you scared of them?’_

_Cullen frowned. _ _‘No,’ he said, as if such a thing should have been obvious. ‘I want to protect them. I want to help them learn and keep them safe from possession.’_

_His father seemed pleased, though a single look from his mother told Cullen he had a long way to go before convincing them jointly towards any kind of resolution. _

*

_Cullen was ten years old the first time he kissed a girl. It was_ _… embarrassing and short lived and it happened in front of eight other children, all of whom were cheering, chanting and giggling. The girl had plaited blonde hair and a smattering of freckles. She was lovely and she held his hand when they walked to school together sometimes. _

_His friends, under the flimsy guise of a game of truth or dare, had orchestrated the kiss and Cullen felt robbed of the privacy that such an occasion warranted. He wished he_ _’d been brave enough to kiss her before when they were alone. His cheeks burned red and he was nervous but she didn’t seem to mind. He anchored himself to her smile and ignored the laughter of the others. _

_The following week, when she presented as a late blooming mage, she was sent to a Circle in Ferelden. Cullen_ _’s determination to become a Templar transformed into a living thing inside him. _

_*_

_Cullen was thirteen when his parents kissed him goodbye and permitted him to follow his dream all the way to the training outpost in Denerim. Knight-Captain Arlington rode there with Cullen, having vouched for him to the Chantry and his parents in person, which was what had swung it in the end. _

_Cullen was a good rider and Arlington_ _’s casual praise of such made Cullen glow, despite the agony in his thighs from never having ridden so fast for so long. The two, along with an entourage of a dozen others, rode together towards a future that had Cullen’s heart pounding in his chest, excitement thrumming through his veins the way magic must have done within a mage. _

_When he got off his horse, Arlington must have noticed his thighs were bleeding because he knelt before Cullen then and smiled. _ _‘You didn’t complain,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s a rare trait, young Rutherford. Keep hold of that all your life. It will never steer you wrong.’_

_Then he clapped Cullen_ _’s shoulder and led him into the encampment. _

_*_

_ Cullen chose that same day to introduce himself by his full name for the first (and last) time in his entire life, earning him a round of hearty laughter from his fellow recruits. _

_The individual dormitories were small, nothing but large bedrooms really with eight beds in total and there were at least twenty such rooms. _

_Cullen_ _’s dorm had five boys and two girls, not including himself. He hadn’t seen any of the other dorms yet, had not been given a tour. Only a pack of clothing, a set of boots and a training sword with his first name carved neatly into the handle. _

_‘Shut up, you lot!’ one of the boys snapped with a warning scowl and though they didn’t fall silent, the teasing did simmer down to a low ebb. Cullen’s cheeks went back to something resembling a normal colour as he realised they’d only been playfully teasing. _

_The boy who_ _’d come to his rescue reached over from his bed beside Cullen’s, crimson red book closed on the bedspread in front of him, and held out his hand_

_‘I’m Jassen,’ he said, smiling easily as Cullen set down his heavy bag filled with new things and took the proffered hand. ‘Jassen Ivan Emory.’_

_Cullen smiled appreciatively and the two shook hands. _

_‘Stanton is better than Ivan,’ Jassen declared when Cullen sat down on his bed. ‘But not by much. What were they thinking?’_

_‘My parents or yours?’_

_Jassen smirked and Cullen was more than a little bit _dazed.

_‘Both,’ he said. ‘You bring a book?’_

_‘Uh, no,’ Cullen said frowning. ‘Was I… meant to?’_

_‘No, but it can be difficult to sleep some nights and reading helps. They train us late and all the adrenaline and the rush, it takes time to fade, even after they declare lights out.’ Jassen grinned and held up his book, mouthing, ‘I nicked this one from the library.’_

_‘You _stole_ from the library?__’ Cullen echoed, mildly scandalised. _

_‘Yeah, but you won’t tell, right?’_

_‘I… no, of course not.’ Jassen’s answering smile was undeniably beautiful. ‘If you write your name in it, they won’t know it’s not yours,’ Cullen suggested, pointing to the blank interior of the inner page, all crimson and clear. _

_Jassen_ _’s brow lifted. ‘Good idea. I’ve read this one a thousand times, I think. It’s my favourite.’_

_Cullen had never read a book more than once, not on purpose. He_ _’d studied hard, of course. He’d read texts and history books but there had never been a favourite, not in that way. _

_‘I don’t have a favourite,’ Cullen said quietly, awkwardly. _

_‘Huh, that’s all right,’ Jassen said giving Cullen yet another kind smile. ‘I’m sure you’ll find it, given time.’ He hid the book under his mattress and then slid off the bed entirely. ‘Have you eaten?’_

_‘Um, not yet.’_

_‘Come on, then. I’ll show you around, Cullen Stanton Rutherford.’_

_Cullen made a big show of sighing and getting up like he was being dragged, like he had anywhere else to be other than sticking close to the first boy to show him kindness. _ _‘If you insist, Jassen Ivan Emory.’_

_*_

_The second night that Cullen fell asleep, exhausted after a whirlwind two days, he slid his hand beneath the pillow, searching for the cool relief of untouched cotton and his fingers met with something hard. He sat up, pulling the book out carefully. From the window nearby, there was enough light coming from the moons to make out which book it was, the title, _The Watchful Ambler_, revealing that it was Jassen__’s book, his favourite. _

_Cullen looked over at the next bed to find the other boy watching him, laying on his side, smiling softly. _

_‘Open it,’ he mouthed and Cullen did so, heart pounding. _

_Inside, in tall looped handwriting, it read, _Property of Cullen Stanton Rutherford_. _

_*_

_Cullen and Jassen became best friends within a month and Cullen_ _’s ability to catch up with the others of his peer group was due, in no short order, to Jassen’s determination to help him. The pair trained together relentlessly after hours, making use of the training arena when the Knight-Captains permitted it. Jassen studied with Cullen too. They ate together, they talked silently in their twin beds, mouthing words and giggling when they couldn’t understand one another until finally someone in the dorm would irritably sigh and tell them to either spit it out or shut the fuck up. _

_Cullen read Jassen_ _’s book and it filled him with a strange sensation. His connection to the story was unexpected. It became a part of him so quickly and so readily that he wasn't sure how to feel when it ended. _

_‘Read it again,’ Jassen suggested when Cullen confided in him. ‘That’s what I do.’_

_‘But it won’t be the same.’_

_Jassen looked up from his studies, dark brown eyes smiling. _ _‘Nothing ever is after the first time, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Read it again, you’ll see what I mean.’_

_Cullen read it again because he trusted Jassen and he did indeed see. _

*

_Cullen was fourteen when he surpassed the majority of his year group, all but Jassen. When he wrote to his parents and his siblings, he could barely contain the sense of pride that he felt, though he worked to. Pride was not becoming of a Templar and of the Chantry. Still, he wanted to at least make _them_ proud and so he did not hold back on any of his accomplishments. _

_It was around this time, seven months into his training, that he realised something about himself that was apparently unusual for a Templar. He didn_ _’t hate mages and everyone else in the encampment, without exception, definitely did. _

_It hadn_ _’t become clear right away because Cullen had been certain at first that they were joking. Boys tended to make lewd, offensive jokes and nothing was ever really meant by it. When one of them would crack wise about raping a Circle mage to death, everyone else would laugh and Cullen, not wanting to be the odd one out, laughed too. It was banter, nothing more, no matter how distasteful it was. _

_When their history teacher, an ancient man with a stern propensity for physical punishment, spoke of the dark and dank history of mages who had lost control, the entire class shook their heads and curled their lips with disgust and so did Cullen. _

_Jassen, who was a permanent fixture beside him in most classes, drew a picture of a mage holding a staff, being eaten alive by Mabaris and passed it to Cullen. _

_Cullen added tears and a puddle of blood and Jassen had to cover his mouth with his hands to hide his laughter. _

_He felt warm inside, so long as he didn't look at the drawing. _

_*_

_At fifteen, Cullen began writing less and less to his family, no longer certain of how to describe his life to them in a way they would recognise or understand. He wasn_ _’t their little boy anymore. He was being shaped into a weapon, a damned good one if his instructor’s quiet, intent praise was anything to go by. He was becoming a tool of the Chantry, learning that it was more important to be loyal to them and their doctrine than to be moral. _

_He didn_ _’t only laugh at the jokes about mages, he made them. When Jassen would speak of the necessity of administering the Right of Annulment as a final, permanent solution, Cullen didn’t hesitate to agree with him. _

_Instructors often overheard such things and they simply shushed the students, told them to focus. There was never any level of intervention into the spread of such thoughts and beliefs. It was widely acknowledged how dangerous mages were. Much of the history they were taught was of the slaughter inflicted upon good men and women, hardworking Chantry folk and Fereldens from humble origins. Men and women just like their parents. _

_When they learnt about magic, Cullen took great care not to trace his fingers over the artistic swirls depicting the mage_ _’s creations when Jassen was beside him, writing little notes to Cullen now and then until an instructor would sigh impatiently and split the two of them up. _

_Cullen would protest and feel Jassen__’s loss keenly, but alone, with his arm curled around his textbook, he let himself trace the beautiful renderings and _imagine_. _

_Sometimes he dreamed of magic, of wielding it with his own hands. In dreams, no one had to know what he imagined, not even Jassen. _

_*_

_Cullen was sixteen when he realised he was in love with Jassen. It was a strange realisation, a kind of slow suspicion about the things he felt and it didn't come about instantly. There was no sudden lightning strike, no moment of shock. It came gradually because he__’d felt it for so long that there was nothing truly _new_ about wanting to see Jassen__’s face, first thing in the morning. He had _always_ been breathless to hear what Jassen had to say about literally anything. Had always found him beautiful. _

_Fighting with Jassen was the best part of Cullen_ _’s day bar none. The two of them were often used as a benchmark demonstration for others to observe and learn from. It was only that attention that kept Cullen from kissing the other boy sometimes because it felt so Maker damned natural. Tangled up in heat and muscle and thundering heartbeats, in Jassen’s body and movements that he knew so well. The pair of them were so evenly matched that sometimes they would agree beforehand, by way of a secret signal, who would win and who would lose because otherwise, in earnest, it might go on forever. _

_When Arlington visited the encampment, he always checked in on Cullen first, his little protege. He would smile at Cullen and Jassen, inseparable as they were and say, _ _‘Dance for us, you two.’ _

_It felt like dancing, it felt like _love_ when they fought. It was a dense, bittersweet feeling that took up residence in Cullen__’s lower abdomen and when they fought, when their swords clashed and they used their bodies to make living art, glory of the Chantry personified, Cullen’s head swam with love and faith and it was all tangled up in Jassen. _

_What tipped his realisation was the slow understanding that what he longed for, what his _body_ longed for was so much more than what encompassed other friendships. His basis for comparison was admittedly skewed. There were few friendships within the encampment as intense or unwavering as theirs and any intimate interaction between recruits was forbidden. _

_Still, he could see the way normal people looked at their best friends and he knew, on sight alone, that it wasn_ _’t what he felt for Jassen. _

_And Cullen wasn__’t stupid. He knew that the things he wanted to do with Jassen were not pure and were not the basis of friendship. He loved him, heart and soul and the pulsing need that pounded through him when they fought… that made him _in love_. That made the difference. He was sixteen when he slowly pieced it together. _

_He kept it to himself and he continued to make Jassen smile, to train with him and spend the majority of his life with him, whispering to each other in the dark, sometimes daring to kneel beside the other_ _’s bed so they could better hear and speak. Fighting and mapping muscles, learning from each other and strengthening one another over the course of time. _

_Somewhere along the line, Cullen_ _’s devotion to the Chantry and his love for Jassen became irreversibly co-mingled. When he spoke the Chant of Light, it was Jassen’s face he thought of, dark brown eyes he envisaged. When he prayed, it was with his mind half on Jassen, wondering what the other boy was praying and if he was thinking of Cullen too. The Maker had Jassen’s light brown hair and Andraste had Jassen’s smile. _

_At night, he waited until he heard the familiar, slow rhythm of Jassen_ _’s breathing indicating sleep and he slid his hand under the covers, biting his bottom lip. Cullen would let himself feel the hardness there, determined and unswayed by his longing to be pure of thought. _

_All the boys did it, the girls too. He knew about it and no one was shy, but it wasn__’t _meant_ to happen, Cullen thought. He__’d never brought himself to completion in that way, never done anything besides simply _touch_ it and then immediately succumb to guilt and try to sleep it off. Several times he__’d awoken to a wet patch and if anyone noticed, they never said anything. _

_*_

_Cullen was freshly eighteen when he experienced an orgasm by his own hand and not the fever-induced grinding of his sleeping self. With the chorus of communal snoring as partial cover, he reached low and thought, as always of the boy beside him, thought of kissing Jassen, of touching him and making him pant with need and love and desire. Of bare skin and fingers in hair, of tongues and lips. _

_It took him a moment to realise that Jassen_ _’s usual breathing pattern was nowhere to be found and when he looked over, he saw Jassen staring at him, that familiar, soft smile in place, reserved only for Cullen. _

_Cullen_ _’s face exploded with heat and colour. Thankfully, it was dark in the dorm, though not dark enough to obscure when Jassen, very purposefully, moved his own hands down as he rolled onto his back. _

_It was a moment of madness and Cullen gave into it, wrapping his hand about himself and staring at Jassen as he fucked into blissful tightness, into all that friction as Jassen did the same. _

_He didn_ _’t feel embarrassed when he came, he felt… delivered. He was found, saved, touched by the Maker and it was all Jassen, always Jassen. Pleasure ripping through him for the first time and rendering him temporarily brain dead, floating on an ocean of delight and weightlessness. He had no basis for comparison in terms of stamina therefore he didn’t feel ashamed to have come so quickly but Jassen came a good two minutes after him and when he did, he mouthed Cullen’s name. _

_Wet and sticky and trembling in the wake of sinful discovery, Cullen rolled on his side and stared at Jassen until they both fell asleep. _

*

_Things changed after that, though not to a casual observer. Cullen and Jassen remained as close as ever. They worked together, they trained together, they were the centre of all the most popular recruits and they had the respect of everyone their age and younger, most people older too. _

_That morning after that first night, Jassen sat with Cullen in the library for their silent study hour and wrote him a note. _

Did it feel good?

_Cullen_ _’s eyes widened slightly, but he felt very little shame in answering honestly. _

Yes.

That was the first time you did it all the way.

How did you know?

I was waiting for you to do it.

_Cullen turned beetroot red then and Jassen very carefully brushed his boot against Cullen_ _’s, holding his gaze, never blinking. He rarely blinked, Jassen. _

You were_?_

I wanted you to look at me the first time it happened.

_When the instructor swept past, leaning over to examine their notes, Cullen almost had a heart attack, but he hid the page quick enough and feigned a coughing fit as a distraction. Jassen smirked the whole time, but his ankle still rested against Cullen_ _’s. _

_Things changed, but they couldn__’t change that much. There was nowhere to _go_. No secret place, likely by design, and they were never alone. Cullen wanted to kiss him more than anything but it was too great a risk. They might be expelled and that__… nothing was worth that. _

_They had the night and they had the ability to be nearby and it would have to be enough. Whenever Cullen touched himself after that, he always stared at Jassen and his best friend was always staring right back. _

_*_

_The day before they took their final vows, Jassen was sullen and so unlike himself it gave Cullen a sick, twisty feeling in his stomach. _

_‘I don’t want it,’ Jassen uttered quietly, their conversation relatively safe with the background noise of the hall during breakfast. _

_‘To take your vows?’_

_‘The lyrium,’ Jassen clarified in a sharp hiss. ‘It’s magic, I don’t trust it.’_

_Cullen paused, glancing around to ensure they were not being spied upon. _ _‘It’s not magic, it’s the opposite of magic.’_

_‘We don’t know that, that’s just what they tell us. If it’s the opposite of magic, how come mages can use it to boost their magic? It gives us abilities that aren’t… _human_. I don__’t want it. I could be just as good a Templar without it.’_

_‘Jassen,’ Cullen said as clearly as he could while keeping his voice low. ‘You knew this was going to happen. You knew what becoming a Templar would entail.’_

_Carefully, the other boy swallowed. __‘Of course I knew, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. That shit is the reason they teach us how to revive someone whose heart stops when they take too much. Sometimes it fucking _explodes_ with no warning!__’_

_‘Jassen—’_

_‘You see the older ones, what becomes of them. Nothing but addicts, shitting themselves and pottering around the archives.’_

_‘They served a glorious purpose.’_

_His best friend glared. _ _‘They’re rotting from the inside out, just like my Father!’_

_‘Your Father is a hero, a renowned Templar.’_

_‘He barely recognises me,’ Jassen hissed and Cullen was smart enough to let that go. Jassen’s family was… a sore spot to say the least. Of every recruit in Denerim, of every child promised to the Order, Jassen had been the youngest to be parted from his parents, promised in infancy and sent to physically reside in the encampment from age six. Jassen’s father was indeed a well-known and highly respected Templar, but he hardly ever saw Jassen, even when he was nearby. _

_There had been one awful occasion when he_ _’d walked right past Jassen. Cullen tried not to think about it. He mostly resided in Kirkwall now, Cullen knew and that was truly for the best. _

_‘That’s the old stuff,’ he said determinedly. ‘The older philters, before the lyrium was more refined. It’s not like that now.’_

_‘Bullshit.’_

_Cullen kicked him, mouth in a thin line. No one was listening or even looking but still, better safe than sorry. _

_‘It’ll be fine,’ he pressed, trying to be reassuring and blaming himself when it didn’t work. ‘It’ll all be fine, you’ll see. And…’ he added under his breath, leaning closer. ‘If we hate it, then we can leave.’_

_‘Leave?’_

_‘We can go somewhere else.’_

_‘Where would we go?’_

_‘You know in Tevinter, their Templars don’t take lyrium.’_

_Jassen_ _’s eyes widened slightly and he sat upright. ‘Really?’_

_‘I read it,’ Cullen declared, therefore making it academic, irrefutable fact. ‘They’re just like we are now.’ _

_‘But Tevinter is the land where mages _rule_,__’ Jassen said slowly, sceptically. _

_‘That _can_'t be true if there are Templars there,__’ Cullen said, mired in certainty born of his faith in the Order. ‘It’s just a fairy-tale the mages tell each other of a better place. We could go there, rise up through the ranks and put a stop to the root of all the blood magic.’ Cullen paused, biting his lip. ‘If you hate it, that is. You might _not_ hate it.__’_

_‘Yeah,’ Jassen sighed, playing with his porridge. ‘Maybe.’_

_*_

_Jassen hated it but Cullen__… Cullen fell_ in love _with lyrium. That first philter felt better than anything he__’d experienced in his eighteen years. Better than an orgasm, better than the feeling of beating Jassen in a fair fight. It was bottled power. __Jassen was right. _

_It was magic inside of him. It reacted differently because he was a human. It accentuated his _human_ ability, his human condition to deny the Fade and maintain reality but it was still magic and Cullen worshipped that blue even more than the brown of Jassen__’s eyes. _

_The lyrium made him instantly powerful; filled him up, expanded within him and made him _whole_. He could feel it, that strange pulsating energy within and if he pretended hard enough, he could make himself believe he was a mage. _

_But Jassen absolutely despised it. _

_That night was the first time he_ _’d ever seen his best friend cry. It was silent and no one else noticed in the dorm, but Cullen saw his shoulders shaking, heard the tiny, shuddering intakes of breath and worst of all, Jassen wasn’t looking at him like he normally was. _

_Cullen carefully got out of bed and knelt on the floor beside Jassen as he laid his hand on his shoulder. Jassen didn_ _’t turn, but he lifted his own hand to grasp at Cullen’s. The two stayed like that until Jassen’s grip relaxed and sleep had taken him. Cullen returned to his own bed with a reluctance that bordered on resentment for the rules of the Chantry and the Order, but come morning, when he drank his first philter of the new day, that resentment had all but evaporated. _

*

_ When they were jointly assigned to Kinloch Hold, Jassen_ _’s mentality took a turn for the worst. _

_*_

_Cullen was nineteen and he was a Templar. _

_It wasn_ _’t what he’d expected, in truth. The Circle Tower was a vast and impressive place and the mages within required almost all of his attention. There had been a part of him, upon arriving in the Tower, that was instantly disappointed to realise this was his life now. _

_He was a guard, a glorified overseer and very little else. There was no requirement for his skills, no _reason_ to have someone as well trained and talented with a sword as Cullen in a place where the day to day crises seemed to reach heights of a temper tantrum between two fractious mages. He spent his days watching and _watching_ and then watching some more. The mages were mostly respectful and they kept their distance. _

_Cullen had sulked in those early weeks, or he would have if he hadn_ _’t had Jassen to contend with. _

_If Cullen was disappointed, it was nothing to the extent of Jassen_ _’s disillusionment. The boy who’d been raised from birth to become a Templar was faced with the reality of what being a Templar actually meant. _

_It was overseeing the emptying of chamber pots. It was making sure the young ones weren_ _’t pilfering honeyed cakes and then holding them ransom for favours. It was politely breaking up the relentless intimate encounters between mages in the endless little nooks and corners that Kinloch offered. _

_It was boring and for the men who were trained killers, it was a shock to the system, to say the least. _

_Cullen adapted. Jassen did not. _

_Cullen still wanted to help mages, to protect them, no matter what he_ _’d laughed and joked about back in the encampment. Once he got over the shock of how dull his life was truly going to be, he decided to make the best of it and let go of what he’d become, for the most part, surrounded by childish humour and the need to fit in. He was fair to the mages and he was kind whenever possible. It was difficult to remain detached, to abandon his morals like he’d been taught. _

_Academically, it had been very easy to agree that the Chantry was true North and all else was a path unknown but when presented with real people, actual mages with living, breathing hopes and daily troubles, it was entirely another thing. _

_He stood guard over a young woman giving birth in his first month there and he watched the Knight-Captain take the baby away without even letting the girl hold it first. _

_There was nowhere to void his stomach when nausea came rolling through him so he held it at bay, kept the sharp, vile sickness inside him and wiped his eyes briskly, hoping no one saw. _

_*_

_Jassen began to adapt too, eventually, but his path led away from Cullen_ _’s for the first time since they’d met. _

_Lyrium had altered Jassen and Cullen worried that it was irreversible. Being raised to detest and despise magic, to curse and loathe mages and then to be given lyrium which was, no matter the debate, ultimately a form of magic__… Jassen’s hatred fractured and became unstable. _He_ became unstable, especially in the beginning. _

_He had panic attacks sometimes. Jassen would often go days without his philter, determined to see how far he could push himself and then when the cravings would set in, withdrawals making him physically ill, he would give in but not before his body would succumb to an overload of panic. Cullen would sit him down and push his head between his knees and rub his back. He would keep watch to make sure no other Templars saw and if any mages did, he would shake his head, eyes wide in warning to stay away. _

_Then Jassen would wipe his eyes, take his lyrium and the day would go on. _

_*_

_Their first kiss was a quick, stolen moment and chaste in the extreme. In a small, somewhat shadowy corner of the common room, they_ _’d found themselves alone. Jassen was teasing Cullen about his taste in books as they perused the bookshelves in the corner. Cullen said he still preferred stories about heroes battling dragons and Jassen pinned him against the wooden, unsteady shelves. _

_‘And what about _Ambler_, hmm? C__’mon, we all know you’re soft for a romance!’_

_Cullen gasped indignantly, grinning as he spun them around, reversing their position easily because he was taller than Jassen, just a little stronger too. _

_‘If I recall, you’re the one who _gave_ me that book in the first place. You__’re the one who made me fall in love with—’_

_Cullen had been about to say in love with _the book_, but whether or not Jassen knew that suddenly ceased to matter entirely because Jassen leaned up and gave Cullen a quick, hasty kiss. It was barely a second and he stepped back swiftly afterwards. _

_Blushing fiercely and rubbing his neck to keep his hands busy, Cullen stammered out a laugh and a few vowels as Jassen bit down on a smile. _

_It was sweet and awkward and it made the gloom of the Tower ease just a little bit when they parted, Jassen_ _’s name in every beat of Cullen’s heart. _

_*_

_Cullen had been in Kinloch Hold for a year and he was well versed in what was required of him. His duties circulated around a routine, obligations that he was wholly familiar with now and he excelled in them. _

_The mages were a complex people. They weren__’t what Cullen had expected and he rarely got to see any magic. The more Cullen came to know them, came to study them, he realised that their renowned traits - for example manipulation and deceptiveness - were _learned_, not innate. The mages had adapted to life within walls and they adjusted to survive. They were constantly wary of the Templars and for very good reason. _

_Jassen became the kind of Templar that the mages feared. He became a part of the reason that mages resorted to lies and deception. There was a subsection of Templars who operated seemingly above the rules set by the Chantry, whose actions were overseen by no one, at least unofficially. On paper, the Seekers oversaw the Templars. They would visit now and then, verify a few things but, Greagoir had assured them, it was for the sake of appearances and little else. _

_Jassen was cruel to the mages and he enjoyed it. He hurt them and he tricked them and he revelled in their suffering. _

_Cullen hated to see it so he looked away most times and went elsewhere, tried to do something nice to balance it out. There wasn__’t much he _could_ do, in all honesty. Some of the younger ones would talk to him sometimes and he would listen. He would sit there and just listen, let them say whatever they wanted and make them feel heard. _

_When there was a report of mage on mage violence, he took it seriously. Protected whoever had come forward and if it was bad, he would let Jassen punish the mage that had stepped out of line, had caused suffering among their fellow mages. _

_He oversaw the Harrowings. He dreaded the day that one of them failed, the day he would have to cut them down. _

_Jassen slowly adjusted in the worst way but he regained his confidence and no longer suffered panic attacks. He took lyrium less than anyone, twice a week if that, but he suffered very little in the way of noticeable effects. He had barely any use for his Templar abilities beyond those he_ _’d trained for. Jassen didn’t require a Holy Smite to level a mage’s world, he didn’t need to use Silence to prevent unwarranted magic. He was brutal and ruthless and the other, more experienced Templars looked upon him with a respect that did not extend to Cullen. _

_Cullen didn__’t mind. He didn’t especially _want_ to be respected by men that he knew frequently raped friendless mages. _

_There were things that went on in Kinloch Hold that Cullen could not prevent, no matter how atrocious they were. If the violence or the abuse were aimed at a human, Cullen knew he would_ _’ve had the full backing of his fellow Templars, of the Chantry entire. _

_But because they were mages, no one cared. No one wanted to hear it. Knight-Commander Greagoir listened intently the first time Cullen went to him with his concerns and then the man sighed, offering Cullen tea before he laid out the facts. _

_‘It can be shocking,’ he said wearily, pouring a hot herbal blend into a metal cup and pushing it over his laden desk. ‘First time in a Circle. We’re all idealists until we see what’s really required to keep control over mages. They’re not inherently bad, but they _are_ dangerous. You haven__’t seen it yet, Cullen.’_

_‘I didn’t train for six years to end up abusing those I was charged to protect.’_

_Greagoir had smiled and yawned. _ _‘Then the mages are lucky to have you, but don’t make the mistake of blurring lines. You’re a Templar first and foremost. Your duty is to protect your brothers and your sisters. The Chantry has no idea how Circles truly operate, what is required to keep order. They train you as soldiers and they send you here to wipe up shit stains. Some can’t handle that and I’m the last one to make anyone’s life worse by denying them their Maker given right to blow off steam.’_

_Cullen held the hot tea and lowered his gaze, his eyes firmly on his Knight-Commander. _ _‘They’re raping them,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s daily.’_

_Nodding as if he understood entirely, Greagoir said, _ _‘It seems that way, yes, but mages are tricky. They use sex as trade much like common city whores. There’s a fine line between rooting out genuine corruption, for example a Templar bringing in special items from the outside or passing on letters, and a Templar who is too weak to resist the temptation that mages present when vying for favour.’_

_Cullen wanted to say that sex for trade and rape were entirely separate things as well, but Greagoir was yawning again and Cullen knew a worthless cause when he saw one. _

_‘Thank you, Knight-Commander,’ he said, placing his untouched tea back on the table and standing respectfully. _

_‘I shall say nothing of this,’ Gregoire said, tone implying generosity. ‘But let this be the last time you question the actions of your Templar family, beyond any rule breaking in the mage’s favour, of course.’_

_Cullen nodded, not quite meeting the older man_ _’s gaze. ‘Of course.’_

_*_

_‘It’s not right,’ Jassen said the following day, playing with his food as he often did. Cullen looked up from his stew, the dining hall relatively empty so late at night. It had been difficult to adjust to eating at all different times of the day, but multiple shifts required such. _

_‘What isn’t?’ Cullen asked, somewhat wary of Jassen’s complaints lately. They’d hardly been able to spend any time together the last three months and though Cullen missed him, whenever they did spend time together, Jassen seemed much changed. _

_Jassen lowered his voice and leaned across the table. _ _‘What you reported to Greagoir.’_

_Cullen blanched and gripped his spoon tight. _ _‘I didn’t—what did you—?’_

_‘It’s OK,’ Jassen said easily, somewhat surprised by Cullen’s’ defensive posture. He blinked and really took in Cullen then, from the shoulders up. ‘Hey, it’s all right, I would never tell anyone.’_

_‘How did you even know?’_

_‘I followed you, listened outside the door. I was worried, thought someone had hurt you or something.’_

_Cullen relaxed fractionally then. _ _‘No, no one has hurt me.’_

_‘What you spoke to Greagoir about, it shouldn’t be happening.’_

_‘Really?’_

_Jassen stabbed a potato with a solemn expression. _ _‘Absolutely. It’s disgusting. When we elevate in rank, it’s the first thing I’m putting a stop to. Fucking Greagoir knows about it and doesn’t even care.’_

_For just a moment, Cullen hesitated. He was unsure, but it didn_ _’t last long. Cullen ultimately knew Jassen too well, had known him for six years, coming on seven. He wasn’t objecting to the rape for the same reasons as Cullen. _

_‘About… the Templars getting the mages pregnant.’_

_‘Well, yeah,’ Jassen said. ‘It’s disgusting. Mage blood is prevalent. Seven out of ten births from a human and mage result in the child presenting as a mage. They knock them up, we ship the babies off to the Chantry or wherever and hope for the best and then they’re back in the system years later.’_

_Cullen made a non-committal noise, thinking of the last woman who__’d given birth a few weeks ago. It was pure agony, watching the babies be snatched away after such hardship. Cullen was always present for the births, the female mages preferred him there over anyone else and while Cullen understood that he was considered one of the _good ones -_ the _soft one _he was called sometimes behind his back - he hated to see that sorrow blossom in the mother__’s face when the baby cried for her and, no matter how she reached, how she begged, was always denied. _

_‘We should sterilise them,’ Jassen sighed wistfully. ‘All of them.’_

_‘We could give them witherstalk,’ Cullen suggested. _

_‘They’d abuse it. Trade it, control the supply and still, the younger ones would get pregnant on purpose. It weakens the Templar who fucked them, makes them easier to manipulate. A lot of them feel pity; fucking void, look at Fulchard. Everyone knows he fathered that last one and now he’s bringing her in extra material for clothes and even promising to look in on the baby.’ Jassen shook his head, becoming agitated. ‘It’s the root of all Templar corruption; temptation. They have too much power over us. They should be sterilised, their entire fucking race.’_

_Cullen placed his hand over Jassen_ _’s and stilled the massacre he was making of his stew. ‘When did you last sleep?’_

_Jassen sighed and closed his eyes. _ _‘I can’t sleep without you there.’_

_Something in Cullen_ _’s chest flipped painfully. Perhaps the worst thing about Kinloch Hold was that they had been assigned separate beds, at opposite ends of the sleeping quarters. _

_‘Tonight,’ Cullen said, squeezing his hand gently. ‘Meet me on the roof after your shift ends.’_

_Jassen seemed unsure. _ _‘It ends late, three hours before dawn.’_

_‘I’ll be waiting.’_

_*_

_Cullen_ _’s second kiss with Jassen happened in a light sheen of drizzle in the darkest part of night, the lowest ebb. It was freezing and windy and when Jassen laughed, his teeth chattered. _

_‘This was a t-terrible—’_

_Cullen took his face in his hands and kissed him. A light, careful press of his lips to Jassen_ _’s, the skin warm and soft and yet prickly with a day’s worth of stubble. Cullen’s heart was pounding in his ears, the feel of Jassen’s skin beneath his fingers and they’d only done this once, almost a full month ago but it felt wonderful. _

_Jassen was still for a moment and then he reached up, wrapping his arms around Cullen in return. He was shorter than Cullen by a full head and something in Cullen loved the way Jassen pushed up on his tiptoes to be closer to him. _

_Holding turned to a full on embrace and pressed lips opened gently, carefully, cautiously. Cullen began to kiss him, to move his lips and make actual kisses. It was a dizzying experience and if he hadn_ _’t known he was in love with Jassen before, he did then. Cullen held his face while Jassen’s arms encircled him entirely. _

_It was a stolen moment in a terrible place but it bridged the distance between them like it had never been there at all. Cullen felt reborn, all his faith in the Templar Order, in the Chantry, in the reasons why they were doing what they did every day_ _… it all came flooding back to him. _

_‘I love you,’ he said when they parted slightly, both panting. ‘I love you, Jassen Ivan Emory.’_

_Jassen blinked a few times, his arms tight around Cullen_ _’s back as he stared. In the dark it was difficult to make out anything that he wasn’t already touching, but Cullen thought he saw Jassen smile, was sure he felt it at the very least. _

_‘I love you, Cullen Stanton Rutherford,’ he said, the smile clear as a bell in his voice. ‘I love you so much.’_

_It was raining and chilly and the next day, Cullen caught a cold but it didn_ _’t matter. Nothing mattered except for Jassen. _

_*_

_Stolen moments were rare and kisses even more so. It was dangerous and the risk of being expelled from the order was a very real one, to Cullen at least. There were examples of other Templars who_ _’d been caught before and were simply no longer part of the Order. Jassen seemed to think it was different because they were men and women. _

_‘I don’t think that’s what it is,’ Cullen would mutter under his breath as they sat alone on the rickety table in the corner that no one else used. _

_‘They can’t have the women coming down with a slight case of bastard bearing,’ Jassen argued, stealing one of Cullen’s carrots from his plate. ‘It’s to discourage unwed pregnancy and you know it.’_

_‘They always said it was—’_

_‘Yeah, I know what they said,’ Jassen cut across, rolling his eyes. ‘The Chantry is your true North and no other. It happens all the time, they only single out the men and women because they can’t have anything official. Anything real.’_

_Cullen swallowed and nodded carefully. _ _‘And… this isn’t real?’_

_‘Cullen,’ Jassen sighed. ‘You know what I mean. Fuck, you’re the only thing that _is_ real. Don__’t look down like that or I’ll have to jump across this table and kiss all your sadness away.’_

_That made Cullen smile somewhat. _ _‘You wouldn’t.’_

_‘No?’_

_‘No, definitely not.’_

_Jassen grinned, a dare glinting in that dark brown gaze. _

_‘Oh really?’_

_‘No, stop!’ Cullen laughed, pushing Jassen away even as the others looked on and rolled their eyes. _

_*_

_On the roof that night they kissed for what felt like hours and afterwards, Jassen held onto Cullen_ _’s armour very tightly. _

_‘I want to be with you,’ he said then and something inside Cullen fucking _imploded_ because he wanted the same, wanted it more than he knew how to vocalise. __‘Do you think you might one day want that with me too?’_

_‘Yes,’ Cullen said, embarrassingly fast. ‘I’ve w-wanted that with you for as long as I can remember, Jassen. I love you, I want you, Maker’s breath, how I want you.’_

_‘I think about you all the time, you drive me crazy. You’re…’ Jassen shook his head. ‘You’re under my skin, you’re inside me every moment we’re apart.’_

_‘When can we…?’ Cullen trailed off, becoming stuck when presented with the rougher language that Jassen had no problem using in everyday life. ‘Be together?’_

_The shorter man laughed and kissed Cullen again. _ _‘Soon,’ he promised and Cullen could tell, no matter how the odds were stacked against them, that he meant it. Jassen always meant what he said. ‘Soon.’_

_*_

_‘No.’_

_‘The children ask constantly about colours.’_

_‘No.’_

_‘And we’ve nothing to show them. The clothes are all drab, the pictures are faded, the textbooks are black and brown.’_

_‘Merek, I said no.’_

_‘Other Circles permit it, not least of all for the use of herbs and other helpful plants.’_

_‘We have a steady supply of healing potions and supplies. I’d be reprimanded even for asking and the answer would still be no.’_

_‘What harm can a few flowers do? The bathrooms catch the sunlight in the morning. A few pretty blooms to make everyone’s day a little brighter.’_

_‘I’m sorry, but the answer is no. Please stop asking.’_

_‘I meant no harm, Ser.’_

_‘No, I know that. I just… I’m not able to help. I’m sorry.’_

_‘We all know you would if you could. You’re one of the good ones.’_

_*_

_Some days it was possible to be happy. _

_The others would wake Cullen, who had never learnt to wake himself with years of Jassen doing so for him, and he would wash and dress, drink his morning philter and pray. Then Maker willing, he would find the opportunity to brush past Jassen wherever possible. Even the most fleeting touch could put Cullen in a good mind set, no matter what the day had in store for them, or so he told himself. _

_On those days, Jassen might be in a good mood, a positive and forgiving mood. Cullen did whatever he could to ensure that Jassen had the best possible start to his day, no matter the shifts. They__’d begun leaving each other notes in a thin slit along their mattresses. Sometimes just little things, reminders of love and wishing one another a good day if their paths weren’t likely to cross. Other times, they were longer. Cullen would wait to read those messages in bed, candle beside him, heart beating hard. On good days, Jassen would call Cullen _lover. _The endearment never failed to bring heat to Cullen__’s cheeks, be it on paper or from the lips of his best friend. _

_Good days saw Cullen steaming through his duties, stopping to listen and apply care wherever was possible to those mages who were suffering most. They all suffered in some way or another and there was only so much that could be done for them. Good days also saw Jassen exerting more patience than usual towards the same mages. If someone broke a plate, he would only scowl and raise an eyebrow while they tripped over themselves to clean up the mess. If there was a rumour of illegal trading, Jassen would work with Cullen to track down the culprits and he would follow Cullen_ _’s lead in the questioning, applying force only when necessary. _

_And Cullen, despite the misery all around, despite the knowledge that he was truly wasted in such a place, allowed himself to be content knowing that no one had died unnecessarily and that Jassen was, for the time being, happy with Cullen, that Cullen had been enough for him that day. _

_But there were bad days and they were the majority. _

_Days when duty would see Cullen unable to make contact with Jassen, unable to read or leave notes. Without Cullen, Jassen was cast adrift and left to his own devices. _

_Jassen, unlike Cullen, had made other friends. Their rotations assigned them varying duties and as such, Jassen spent much of his time with others whose rotations were similar. A group of three other Templars in particular, all men, all of whom Cullen disliked on general principal. They brought out the very worst in Jassen. Cullen was friendly with all his fellow Templars, they were his brothers and sisters in arms and he would die to protect any one of them but he didn_ _’t want friendship from them, he didn't need it. _

_Jassen liked to play games with the mages and he was hardly the only one. For the most part, Cullen tried his best to ignore these games and he warned whoever he could to stay away from Jassen and the others, to never cause trouble around them but the younger men amongst the mage population rarely listened. _

_Bad days saw Cullen standing before Greagoir, Jassen beside him, faithfully swearing that the mage in question who__’d been beaten almost to death had indeed been attempting blood magic. Bad days had him filling out reports of absolute fiction, Jassen’s foot rubbing up his thigh from across the table. Bad days had mages coming to Cullen and pleading, outright begging for his protection against Jassen, protection from _the sharp one_, as they called him. The mages offered sex, they offered companionship, they offered whatever little they had that they thought he might want. _

_They were terrified of Jassen and no matter how sadistic and spiteful his games were, there was never any rebuke. No official condemnation. Greagoir and the others of higher rank were all undeniably impressed with Jassen. His ability to have the mages fall in line at the mere sight of him was certainly nothing to sneer at. Cullen fell by the wayside in terms of attention and appreciation, becoming more of a background Templar, the kind who was rarely noticed. _

_That suited him for the most part, except for one day when Arlington, now Knight-Commander, came for a visit. Where Jassen was the centre of attention, Cullen was only gifted a perfunctory nod and he knew he_ _’d fallen by the wayside then. He had no skills to showcase in this place without resorting to brutality and cruelty, without making a name for himself carved from skittish fear and dread obedience. _

_It would be easy to gain back that attention. It would be easy to follow Jassen and do as he did, to walk beside his best friend, his lover in all respects but one, and earn fear from the mages instead of hesitant, somewhat grudging smiles. To walk tall, to command, to rise up. _

_It would be so easy. _

_*_

_He mopped up blood and he learnt to sew stitches for those too frightened to report injuries. The younger ones in particular came to him. It took months to make it clear that he didn_ _’t want anything in exchange for his help, meagre though it was, and some of them would still casually offer it after he was done. One or two of them, he thought, might have actually liked him, their offers coming across a little more sincere than the others but he never gave it a moment’s thought. _

_It would be rape. They could not consent and he was their warden; their jailer and protector. It would be wrong and besides, he loved another. _

_He never passed letters to the outside and he never brought anything in when he visited the town on his two days of leave a month. He never broke the rules but he did everything he could to make their lives better. It wasn_ _’t much and mostly, his efforts went towards ensuring things like food and belongings were not stolen and hoarded for purposes of trade. The illegal trade was never ending, no way to ever get to the bottom of it. The mages would trade literally anything they could get their hands on. All Cullen could do was ensure that no one was especially victimised by it, that anything stolen was replaced, even if it were by his own supply. _

_‘They’re doing it on purpose, you know,’ Jassen told him over lunch one day, watching as Cullen slipped his bread into the pocket behind his armour. ‘They pretend they’ve had stuff nicked so you give them extra.’_

_Jassen said it quietly, pityingly. _

_Cullen frowned. _ _‘I… I don’t think that’s true.’_

_Jassen sighed. _ _‘So trusting, lover.’_

_*_

_It was true, with some of them at least. Cullen pretended it didn_ _’t hurt like a knife to the guts when he found out, through embarrassingly little investigation too. Some, he was relieved to discover, had been genuine in their pleas but most had indeed been playing him for extras. _

_Such a discovery would likely have drawn a line in the sand for any other man. Meant the end of such weakness, of leniency and kindness. Cullen resolved to be more aware of who he was helping and for what, but he didn_ _’t stop. He couldn’t. _

_Cullen_ _’s kindness was penance for Jassen’s cruelty and even then, it was nowhere near enough. _

_So when the mages snickered behind his back sometimes, when he heard them say things like, _‘Ask the soft one_,__’ he kept his head high and he pretended not to notice. Making their lives worse would hardly make his better, not unless he wanted to void what remained of his soul. _

_*_

_Cullen was twenty when Greagoir first investigated Jassen for misconduct and Cullen was called upon as a key witness. It was rare that Cullen got dragged into any of Jassen_ _’s games beyond anything other than glorified lookout while his best friend locked mages in a closet, pretending they’d been poisoned and offering a sugar water cure to those who survived. Jassen wasn’t the only one to play such games. Many of the Knight-Lieutenants would schedule fights between the mages, would place bets. It was organised and it was airtight in terms of culpability. _

_Jassen__’s mentality had deteriorated at a frightening rate the last two months and though Cullen loved his best friend more than the waking day, he acknowledged that there was something very wrong with him. Cullen blamed the lyrium, he blamed the oppressive walls of Kinloch Hold and some days he even blamed the mages. For pushing Jassen, for never _listening_, for testing him when they should have left well enough alone. Jassen belonged outside that place, fighting and battling and slaying dragons, putting all his energy towards something worthy, not trapped in a dank, lightless place with people he despised. _

_Good days were worryingly rare and though they still met on the roof to kiss and touch, hold and be held, it happened less and less. _

_‘And that’s what you believe happened?’ Greagoir asked, watching Cullen with a kind of sharpness the young Templar rarely saw their Knight-Commander utilise. ‘Because there are witnesses who swear by the blessed Andraste that Jassen and three others locked six mages into a supply closet and forced them to kill each other for the chance to be given some mythical cure to a non-existent poison.’_

_‘Non-existent, Ser?’ Cullen asked, buying himself some time. _

_‘There are no poisons in the Circle Tower,’ Greagoir said heavily rolling his shoulders, attempting to alleviate an ache. ‘Mages favour poison. Answer my question.’_

_Cullen straightened. _ _‘Yes, that is what I believe happened.’_

_‘You believe that the mages were using blood magic and it backfired?’_

_‘Yes.’_

_‘Causing,’ Greagoir checked the report in front of him. ‘A mass-murderous blood lust frenzy?’_

_‘Yes, I do, Ser.’_

_Greagoir sat back and gestured for Cullen to do the same. Warily, Cullen did so, keeping his professional posture even as he lowered himself into the notoriously uncomfortable chair. _

_‘You and Jassen came up together.’ It wasn’t a question so Cullen said nothing. ‘You’re close, or you were. I respect him, he’s got real talent and he commands obedience around here like few I’ve seen but, believe it or not, I do actually care for the wellbeing of the mages. It’s our duty to protect them.’_

_Slowly, Cullen raised his eyes to his Knight-Commander. _ _‘Yes, Ser.’_

_With a huff, Greagoir chuckled. _ _‘You’re not going to root out the sexual misdemeanours in Circles. I’ve lived long enough to know a few things you don’t and no matter what the Chantry preaches or what they believe, the Circles are prisons and in prison, sex is a commodity. Mages learn it from a young age. Templars like yourself are rarely granted leave, discouraged from brothels and taught to believe that fucking chastity and piety are enough to get by on, that and lyrium. It’s never going to stop. The mages have something to offer and the Templars will always want to take. You thought less of me that day when you reported the sexual misdeeds.’_

_The _rape_, Cullen thought, but did not say. __‘No, Ser.’_

_‘I reported it the same as you back in my day. It’s shocking, but it’s just what happens. Believe me when I tell you it’s better to let it happen and allow the mages some…’ Greagoir hesitated, searching for the word. ‘_Sense_ of power. If we don__’t give them that, they’ll take it in other ways. For the most part, it’s harmless. Murder, on the other hand, is something else entirely.’_

_‘Jassen didn’t murder anyone.’_

_‘No, he’s too clever for that. But if he locked six mages in a closet and told them to kill each other on pain of death, that’s not the kind of Templar I want in my Circle or any Circle for that matter. Not to mention that the very last thing we need is to draw the attention of the Seekers. So, I’m asking you Cullen - and this will go no further than you and me - do you think Jassen should remain here?’_

_*_

_‘Knew you had my back, lover,’ Jassen said that night as snow curled through the air, settling lightly on their armour. Cullen’s fingers were numb, the tip of his nose was burning from the frosty air. ‘Knew you wouldn’t let me down. My beautiful, loyal—’_

_Cullen kissed him harder so he didn_ _’t have to hear any more. _

_*_

_‘Merek?’_

_‘Ser? We were just repairing clothes, we have proper permission for the scissors.’_

_‘No, it’s not… I’m sorry to disturb you, I just wanted to ask if you still… wanted… um. If the younger ones still wanted the flowers?’_

_‘Oh. Well, yes of course, that would be wonderful!’_

_‘I can’t promise anything. Greagoir will most likely decline the request outright, but I will try. If it’s… if it brightens the place up for them a little, then I’ll try.’_

_*_

_The third time was the charm and in the end, Cullen was sure Greagoir gave in only to get rid of him. Cullen didn_ _’t mind. He didn’t mind the way the other Templars looked at him when he went outside to gather earth and harmless flowers in a few old, unused boxes. He felt Jassen’s eyes on him as he set them in the communal bathrooms, patted the earth down and then wiped his hands. _

_‘It’s a bad idea,’ he told Cullen when they walked to lunch together. _

_‘It’s a few fucking flowers,’ Cullen said, uncharacteristically terse. _

_Jassen_ _’s brow lifted. Cullen rarely swore. ‘You shouldn’t show weakness like that. They’ll expose it.’_

_‘It’s for the younger ones.’_

_They sat at their usual table, Cullen studiously avoiding his best friend_ _’s gaze. _

_‘It’s a bad idea, Cullen,’ Jassen repeated, but he sounded resigned. ‘Gratitude will not beget servitude.’_

_Cullen rolled his eyes then. _ _‘Quoting the Chantry now?’_

_Jassen only shrugged and said, _ _‘Every now and then they get something right.’_

_*_

_Cullen was not ready for his first failed Harrowing. He hadn__’t been prepared for it to actually go wrong, nowhere _near_ ready for her to erupt into something evil and grotesque. Her screams were shrill and of an unearthly pitch. Her body splitting and twisting and transforming like some sort of squid wrestling with an enormous crab. _

_And because his hand wasn_ _’t on his pommel like it should have been, it was Jassen who reacted first. His best friend was wholly unprepared and he cut her wrong. It took far too long and eventually, Cullen stepped in and lopped her head clean off. She was almost entirely transformed by then, possessed and monstrous. Jassen had a spray of blood across his face as he stared down with wide eyes, breathing fast. _

_Cullen didn't clean up the mess that time and because there was nowhere to spill the contents of his stomach, he kept it down for the rest of the day by sheer force of will. _

_*_

_It was a persistent sickness that spread through the Circle in the months that followed. Dismissed as a cold first, then a type of influenza and then it became anyone_ _’s guess. The meat hadn’t been salted and stored properly, they weren’t getting enough fruit and sunlight, the mages were using blood magic to make them sick… the theories became wilder and wilder and the sickness refused to abate. _

_Cullen was one of the few to avoid the sickness for the most part. Greagoir was ill so often that he delegated much of the time. In his absence, Jassen became a full-on menace to the mages, whenever he wasn_ _’t sick himself of course. Things were worsening in Kinloch Hold. Mages were dying and no amount of kindness from Cullen could make up for it. _

_Jassen was a murderer in all but application. He never actually killed anyone, never struck the killing blow, but he was a murderer all the same. _

_Most times when Cullen would catch himself thinking such a thing, he would immediately recoil. Jassen was his best friend, the man he was in love with. Jassen struggled with so many aspects of their life in the Circle Tower; of course there were issues with the mages. He was technically no more a murderer than Cullen was for putting the young mage out of her misery when her Harrowing had failed. _

_But every now and then, Cullen would quietly, painfully acknowledge that what Jassen did was for pleasure, not necessity. _

_After three weeks, six Templars were dead. Greagoir called Jassen and Cullen into his quarters and the pair kept a respectful distance as he waved them over to his bedside from where he was operating. _

_‘I’m promoting you,’ he said, barely looking up from the dozens of scrolls around him. ‘Both of you, Knight-Lieutenants.’_

_‘Yes, Ser,’ they both replied promptly. ‘Thank you, Ser.’_

_Greagoir scowled at something on the manifest and threw it aside reaching with a trembling hand for his tea. __‘Fucking liars from the market won’t admit they sold us meat shot with poison arrows. From now on, only vegetables in the stew. No meat for a week.’ He looked at the pair of them. ‘I’m relying on you both to maintain order, do you understand? You both have unique, albeit varying talents in this area. If the mages sense weakness…’ he grimaced, shaking his head. ‘Jassen, I’m giving you limited discretionary powers to shut down _any_ suspected blood magic activity however you see fit.__’_

_Very subtly, Cullen swallowed. _

_‘I spoke at length with First Enchanter Irving. He’s seen a spike of renewed interest lately, a lot of the younger ones muttering about blood magic and such. It needs to be stopped, no questions asked. A show of strength, even if that show is alarming.’_

_Jassen straightened. _ _‘Absolutely, Ser.’_

_‘Good. Don’t stay any longer, I don’t want either of you catching it.’_

_*_

_Jassen fell ill for a few days but recovered swiftly when he adopted a deeply paranoid regime that isolated him even more from normality. _

_‘It’s the mages,’ he declared to Cullen when his best friend dared ask why Jassen was filling his own waterskin from the well beside the lake that day. ‘They’re poisoning us.’_

_Cullen shook his head, ignoring the headache brewing within. _ _‘No, they’re not.’_

_‘They are. I don’t know how they got poison in here but they have. None of them are getting sick, none of them are coming down with it.’ He took a long drink, panting when he broke away. ‘There’s no other explanation.’_

_Those days, Cullen rarely had the energy to disagree with him. _ _‘What will you do about food?’_

_Jassen shrugged. _ _‘I’ll figure it out. No more lyrium either. Fuck that shit, fuck it all.’_

_‘Jassen, you can’t just—’_

_‘Addiction is slavery,’ his friend declared, offering Cullen his water. ‘I’m no fucking slave.’_

_Cullen sighed and accepted both the water and the fact that he had no chance of changing Jassen_ _’s mind. _

_*_

_The long nights and new responsibilities had Cullen coming to rely on tea more and more to get him through the days. As he became worn and tired, unwilling witness to all of Jassen_ _’s authorised brutality, he fell sick himself. Jassen took over for many of his duties, covering for him flawlessly. A deep and terrible suspicion burned in the back of Cullen’s mind about poison, about flowers on windowsills but he couldn’t bring himself to fully contemplate it. The flowers were for the children, they were something good in a place filled with bad. _

_Jassen never ate the food and he drank only his own water. He lost weight; lost the youthful look about his cheeks and he hardened into a man over the course of those weeks. Two of his three men died. The Templars were fading. _

_Cullen felt miserable and sick and weak. He was still not himself when it happened. _

_*_

_Cullen was twenty-one years old when the Circle Tower fell to blood mages. The Templar numbers were diminished enormously, almost by half in terms of those who could fight. _

_When the first mage bled, Cullen had been propped up against the wall of the library. A scream fit to split the air sent a wild jolt of adrenaline through him, panic imbuing him with strength. He ran to the source, calling for others, calling for Jassen. _

_The mages were bleeding into a wooden bowl, their palms split wide, chanting and filling the air with dark, demonic magics. _

_Cullen didn_ _’t hesitate to kill them. He didn’t apply kindness or compassion. _

_But it wasn_ _’t enough. _

_*_

_That it took days to fall, and not hours, was only because of Jassen. Cullen_ _’s best friend was, for the first time in years, at his absolute best while everything and everyone else was at their worst. While Cullen wiped blood from his face and fought to focus, Jassen cut down demons and he pulled the other Templars back. They were outnumbered significantly. _

_All that skill, all that talent was finally being used for something and it was nothing short of glorious, despite the horror around them. Jassen was so strong, then. Simply beautiful, the might of the Chantry personified. He tore into the demons, ripped them apart and got everyone out. He rounded up what remained of the Templars and he rallied them, refusing to allow those strong enough to stand the luxury of falling back. _

_‘If we don’t hold the upper floors, the whole place will fall,’ he snapped at Gaveston, his one remaining “friend” who was on the verge of fleeing, Cullen could tell. ‘Pull yourself together. They’re bleeding up there right now and we are the _only_ thing stopping them from unleashing all that poisonous magic out into the world!__’_

_‘He’s right,’ Cullen said, the adrenaline having burned through the worst of his sickness, fight or flight kicking in at last. ‘We have to hold the entrances. Keep them contained in the upper levels and maintain the Circle while Greagoir builds reinforcements.’_

_Jassen placed his hand on Cullen_ _’s shoulder. ‘Everyone strong enough to lift a sword, we’re staying.’_

_‘What about lyrium?’ someone asked. ‘The supplies are on the fifth floor and without it we can’t—’_

_‘A _Silence_ won__’t do fuck all against blood magic,’ Jassen said grimly. ‘We were all trained for more than that. We are the Templar Order! We are the elite, trained to kill, to protect Thedas from the plague of magic!’_

_The rallying cry was weak but it was better than nothing. As they filed out, following what commands Jassen had given, he pulled Cullen aside. _

_‘You still look pale,’ Jassen told him with quiet intensity, his version of a worried tone, away from the others. ‘If you want to go below, I won’t blame you.’_

_Cullen frowned and chanced reaching for Jassen_ _’s hand, grasping it tightly when his friend returned the touch. ‘I’m here,’ he said intently. ‘I’m staying.’_

_Jassen, strong and unshakable, smiled. _ _‘Thank the Maker,’ he breathed. ‘I couldn’t do this without you. I’ll keep you safe, all right? Watch my back and I’ll watch yours. We can do this.’_

_They were very close, close enough for the others to see but Cullen didn_ _’t care. His heart was pounding and his whole body was thrumming with energy, an electric variation born of primal necessity. _

_‘I have your back,’ Cullen swore and meant it. He wanted to kiss Jassen then, wanted to brand them both with a mark of their love, no matter how lost it had become over the last two years. They had found each other again. Jassen was himself. His eyes were clear, entirely removed of the daily residue of lazy cruelty and indulgence in spite. He looked younger. The fray made Jassen unbearably beautiful. _

_‘Stay with me,’ Jassen said, squeezing once more before letting go. ‘And everything will be fine.’_

_*_

_The upper tower fell after three days and nineteen deaths. It felt like months. A sustained assault by the mages, Jassen and Cullen held fast, they never faltered but it came at terrible cost. _

_The mages were insidious and patient. They used tactics that made Cullen_ _’s skin crawl, that made him regret any kindness he’d ever shown them. _

_By the time the mages had beaten them, the Templars on the other side of the door had the sense of mind to barricade them in. The mages could not get out but neither could Cullen or the others. _

_The remaining twenty, Cullen and Jassen among them, were personally captured by Uldred. The doors would not open until there were forces enough to retake the tower and as such, the mages ruled in their limited domain. Containment was crucial and as a soldier, Cullen fully understood such a concept. _

_That didn_ _’t make it any easier to swallow. _

_‘Take this one to the blood room,’ Uldred commanded as four mages dragged Jassen away. Cullen struggled and tried to get free, but Jassen only shook his head, eyes blazing. _

_Uldred_ _’s attention then turned to Cullen, eyes glittering with a smile that didn’t touch his mouth. ‘This one can come with me. Lock the others down for now. We will perform the demonstration later. _

_*_

_It took Cullen a while to realise that the mages didn__’t actually _want _anything. They didn__’t want to negotiate for better living conditions, for any improvement to their daily lives or even for freedom. _

_They just wanted to bask in chaos. They bled and they _bled _and the demons came and that dark, sour magic filled the air. Controlled at first, like large, grotesque pets, those creatures feasted on whichever Templar was too sick to warrant keeping alive, too sick to waste food and water on. It was a nightmare; absolute, unfettered chaos and Jassen had been right. _

_Every single fucking thing he_ _’d ever said about them had been right and Cullen had been so very wrong. _

_*_

_It took no time at all to realise that Cullen_ _’s treatment was starkly contrasted with the others. His cell had a mattress inside, he was given more food and water and allowed to keep his clothes on. The latter was a large distinction as the others were often stripped down to smalls. The Tower was freezing, it always had been and at night, the chattering teeth and shivers of his fellow Templars plagued Cullen. _

_But that was Uldred_ _’s intention of course. Cullen’s blanket was thin and ragged, but it was more than the others had. Had the cells been near enough, he would have flung it to whoever was closest. _

_The mages had total control over the upper levels and there was no attempt at intervention as far as Cullen knew, not yet at least. _

_When Cullen asked, on the fourth or fifth day, how they had accomplished this, Uldred and a few others laughed, looking at him with malicious pity. _

_Uldred knelt in front of his cell as Cullen ate bread on his knees. __‘We accomplished it because of _you_,__’ Uldred intoned sweetly. _

_The answer was Cullen_ _’s absolute dread. It blossomed in his chest, spread to every part of him. He cried for the first time when they left him alone in his small but comparatively comfortable cell with a mattress and blanket, fully clothed with bread and water. Rewards, they’d said, for his good behaviour. _

_From six cells down, he heard Jassen whisper that it wasn_ _’t his fault. _

_*_

_While the Templars of Kinloch Hold may have been none the wiser about Jassen and Cullen_ _’s relationship, the mages all knew. Without fear of reprisal, they openly mocked the pair of them and Cullen realised that he and Jassen had been rather obvious about it, only taking care to hide their intimacy in front of the Templars, never expecting the mages to have been watching, waiting for any hints of weakness. _

_It was all just as Jassen had warned him. _

_And they _hated_ Jassen. There was not a mage in the Tower who felt anything for him other than absolute, violent loathing. With the others, Cullen included, they coached obedience by way of ransoming the lyrium, but Jassen sneered in their faces and laughed when they offered him a philter. _

_It was inevitable and Cullen knew it. Their relationship would be Uldred_ _’s favoured way of breaking Jassen. He could see the delighted anticipation in the mage’s smile. _

_‘Tomorrow,’ Uldred said, wiping Jassen’s spit from his face. ‘We’ll try something new.’_

_*_

_It was new. _

_Having his hand split open with a knife was new. _

_Having incantations chanted and his very blood set on fire like it was flammable, like it was oil_ _… was new. Everything liquid inside him was made molten with gruesome, malignant magics. Being burned alive with a desire that most closely resembled madness was new. _

_‘Make him sorry,’ was all Uldred said. _

_And it was new when they locked him in a larger, more secure cell away from the others and Jassen was already inside. It was new not to want to hold or comfort Jassen_ _… but to rip into him. To get to the core and bury himself inside of it. _

_Cullen cried and he pleaded for Jassen to stop him in the earlier moments but he began to lose himself as the magic took hold, as it hooked in deep. _

_Jassen didn_ _’t stop him when Cullen kissed him. It was an act of violence, of pure cruelty but Jassen just let Cullen take what he needed. _

_He needed too much. He needed everything. _

_‘Stop me,’ he muttered, voice unrecognisable as he forced Jassen to the ground. ‘Stop me, please.’_

_Jassen was a skilled fighter. He was at the very least level with Cullen in terms of ability. The fight he put up was_ _… superficial at best. It was horrifyingly weak and there was a sense of inevitability about Jassen’s defeat when he didn’t pummel the living daylights out of Cullen the way the other man knew he could. _

_Cullen cried and he pleaded for as long as his mouth remained under his control but Jassen_ _’s efforts were not what they should have been and for whatever reason, he let it happen. _

_And Cullen hated him for it, even as he pushed into tight, unwilling flesh, even as he tore and brought more blood forth, fuelling the madness, fuelling the desire. Though it was ragged, bright red bliss to be inside Jassen, to have that friction his body ached for, it still wasn_ _’t enough. _

_He wanted to hear Jassen scream and plead. He wanted to make him cry, make him keen, make him fucking _sorry_. _

_Jassen cried and he made all sorts of disgustingly delicious little noises. Cullen rubbed his mouth over those tears, wetting his lips with them as he fucked Jassen, brutal and fast, driving himself deep enough to cause injury. He held Jassen down and something inside him absolutely relished the feel of his friend_ _’s body beneath his, pinned and trapped like prey. _

_But Jassen was not sorry. Cullen__’s insides twitched, his guts writhed in impotent fury that he just couldn’t seem to make Jassen _sorry _he__’d ever met Cullen, sorry for being born, sorry for his very existence such as it was. _

_He clung to Cullen and wherever possible, he was unjustifiably sweet to him. It made Cullen angrier, made him simply abhor his friend. He said terrible things to him as he fucked him. Things about Jassen being a monster, about Jassen_ _’s father never loving him, never wanting to see him. He said every awful thing he could think of and then some more. Jassen cried, he truly did, but he stroked Cullen’s hair and he wrapped his legs around Cullen’s waist and he kissed him where he could reach. _

_‘Say you’re sorry,’ Cullen grunted. ‘Say you’re _sorry_!__’_

_Jassen met his gaze then, face all mussed with blood and tears and dirt and bruises. Cullen__’s entire body was on the _edge_ of something, he couldn__’t get over it, couldn’t get near enough to tumble off and it was absolute fucking torture. No matter how deep he buried himself into the man he loved, the way now slick with blood and endless pre-come, no matter how hard he fucked him or how fast, he just couldn’t _reach_ what he needed. _

_‘Never,’ Jassen panted, breath broken by the force of each thrust, his bare body grinding hard on the gritty stones beneath him. ‘Never.’_

_Cullen was going to die if he couldn_ _’t come. He would lose his mind and never find it again. He began to cry, he began to plead. _

_‘Please, please just s-say it,’ he gasped, nose against Jassen’s as he pounded into him, body taut and rigid with effort, muscles screaming and bones bending. He couldn’t stop, he would never be able to stop unless Jassen fucking said it. ‘Please. Please. Please, Jassen.’_

_Jassen leaned up and kissed him then, their mouths holding fast to one another and he tightened his thighs around Cullen. Against his lips, he muttered, _ _‘I will never be sorry.’_

_Cullen cried in earnest and it turned into a scream towards the end. He was going to fuck Jassen to death and still never reach orgasm, his heart would give out before that. He would die this way and so would Jassen and he hated Uldred so much then, swore that if and when he was free, he would rip him apart with his bare hands. _

_Some of the fog was clearing, but his body was not his own. Cullen recognised the distinction when he put his hands around Jassen_ _’s throat and began to choke him, fingers digging deep into that soft, unguarded flesh and muscle. _

_‘Say it.’_

_‘No.’_

_‘Say it, Jassen!’_

_‘I’m not sorry, I never will be.’_

_In Cullen_ _’s lower spine, something gave with a resounding snap. The magic that had been holding back, keeping him on the terrible edge, it let go. _

_His orgasm was agony. A vicious, painful sensation that smashed into him, too big for his body and he screamed as it rocked through him. It was so fucking sharp, so extreme it could barely even be called pleasure. Cullen drove himself as deep into his best friend as he could, unable to even differentiate between the sensations, unable to tell where he began and Jassen ended. _

_It was dreadful, all-encompassing _relief_. _

_And then it faded. Entropy beckoned, that eternal law that even magic obeyed eventually. What goes up must come down and Cullen came down _hard_. His body was returned to him and as he regained control, he slowly moved away from Jassen, from the mess he__’d made, from the man he’d raped. _

_There was so much blood. His hand was responsible for a lot of it, but there was other blood, Jassen_ _’s blood. Cullen took in every part of it, looked down at himself, spent and raw and as bloody as any murder weapon he’d ever seen. Jassen forced himself to roll over and Cullen saw the extent to which he’d torn his back. Long, painful scrapes all down the length of his skin, shallow and sticky with half drying blood, grit in every part of them. _

_The blood trailing down Jassen_ _’s thighs as he pushed up onto his knees was what finally reminded Cullen that this was real, that this was his doing. _

_He pitched forward and vomited the meagre contents of his stomach, tasting sulphur and iron as he did. The sick splattered onto the blood covered stones, mostly liquid. _

_When it passed, Jassen laid his fingers on him. Cullen flinched like he_ _’d been stabbed, not expecting anyone to touch him, let alone Jassen. _

_‘Here,’ his friend was saying, trying to meet his gaze and hold it. In his other hand, there was a small cup of water. ‘C’mon, please?’_

_Cullen tried to move away but Jassen stopped him. They were both naked and filthy in the most primal of ways. _

_‘No,’ Cullen said, voice cracked and raw. ‘Get away from m-me.’_

_‘You need water.’_

_‘Jassen, don’t touch—’_

_‘Hey!’ the other man said with unreasonable strength given what had just happened. ‘I’ve got your back and you’ve got mine, right? Come on, you need water or you’ll pass out.’_

_Incredulous and half certain he was dreaming, Cullen blinked and sat back gracelessly on his arse. _ _‘Good,’ Jassen praised quickly. ‘Now drink up.’_

_His hand shook terribly when he fed Cullen the small, lukewarm water and it was such a small amount, barely anything more than a mouthful but it was all that Jassen had and he_ _’d given it to Cullen. _

_Cullen fell apart then. He cried until his chest hurt and his throat ached. He apologised and he pleaded for Jassen to kill him, just kill him because that was what he deserved, he fucking _deserved_ to die. _

_Jassen held fast, stayed strong and he took Cullen into his arms, kissing his face, his hair, soothing him however he could. _

_‘I could never kill you,’ he whispered over and over. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’_

_When he kissed Cullen on the lips, all that love and pain and blood blended together to form something else new. Cullen_ _’s love for Jassen seemed to solidify then and the intensity of it swelled within him. He knew he would die for Jassen, he would kill every single fucking mage in Thedas if it meant protecting him. Men, women, children, elderly, Cullen didn’t fucking care. He loved him and that love was made so very real, compounded by tragedy and grief. _

_Jassen had been right about everything. Every single bad thought Cullen had about him before was so wrong. Cullen should have been playing his games the whole time, should have been working to keep the mages down, to break their spirits rather than lifting them with fucking flowers. If he_ _’d followed Jassen, who had never steered him wrong in all the years he’d known him, none of this would be happening. _

_‘I’m going to get us out of here,’ Cullen swore, kissing Jassen as hard as he dared but the other man took it, offered more and it was a deep, trembling thing they shared then. Raw and total, the essence of devotion binding them closer than ever before. ‘I swear to you, we will leave this place together.’_

_Something in Jassen crumpled. He looked down, eyes creasing and Cullen couldn_ _’t bear it. He cradled his friend’s face. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he breathed brokenly, eyes stinging, unable to shed any more liquid when his body had none to part with. ‘Forgive me, please forgive me.’_

_Jassen shook his head. _ _‘Nothing to forgive. It wasn’t you.’_

_They held each other until the door opened and Cullen was dragged away. _

_*_

_It happened again. _

_*_

_And again. _

_*_

_And _again_. _

_*_

_Jassen no longer put up any kind of fight, nothing like his weak struggles the first few days. It became routine. Uldred would cut Cullen_ _’s hand, he’d be taken to Jassen’s newer, secure cell. Jassen would strip while there was still time to and it would begin. Cullen’s sanity hung on by a thread and that thread was Jassen. _

_Jassen held onto him and he kissed him like_ _… like it was consensual. He made it almost seem that what Cullen did to him, was something he wanted. _

_He did it for Cullen, to keep Cullen sane and sometimes it almost worked. Cullen raped Jassen day after day, he hurt him and he said terrible, unforgivable things to him to make Jassen break down. _

_Jassen never once broke, he never apologised and he never pleaded. He kissed Cullen afterwards and he let Cullen clean him. _

_It became a ritual, the cleaning up. The mages would always leave Cullen inside the cell - Jassen_ _’s cell now, as he was no longer kept with the other Templars and neither was Cullen - and allow them time together. To clean him up, to hold him, to try and help him dress in what rags he was permitted. It was dark and lightless, that cell. There were no windows in isolation row, the place where troublesome mages had been kept either for their own protection or for punishment. Cullen lost the ability to distinguish day or night, time blended together. _

_Cullen had been fucking Jassen for what felt like days the first time he said it. The compulsion within him kept him on the edge for as long as the mage controlling the magic decided. The longer it went on for, the more Cullen lost his mind, became furious and angry and irritable in a way that no words could soothe, no amount of love could contend with. _

_He hurt Jassen more than usual that day. He hit him and he strangled him and he enjoyed every second of it. _

_And when he came, Jassen on the brink of passing out, Cullen screamed so loud it threatened to rupture his throat, loud enough to hurt his own ears, loud enough for the Maker and Andraste to hear it but not loud enough for either of them to care. _

_He cleaned Jassen up, paying meticulous, purposeful attention to every single place he_ _’d hurt his friend. He was never allowed to heal him, never given any bandages or salve. There were still marks from the first time that had not yet healed. Sometimes Jassen was feverish and Cullen worried about internal bleeding, an infection he couldn’t reach or see. _

_He made himself memorise every new mark, bruise, bite mark and cut. Half-moons dug deep by fingernails, dark purple bruises in Jassen_ _’s hips, it was an ugly mess of a once beautiful body. _

_Jassen was losing weight too fast. He was always pale and he was dehydrated. Cullen quietly despaired when he was alone and tried to think of ways to bring him food or, more importantly, water. If he_ _’d been a mage, it would be no hardship to make water; create ice and melt it. He detested the mages for their magic, for something he’d once admired and dreamed about. _

_When he finished cleaning him up as best he could, he sat back. Jassen frowned at the break in their routine. This was when Cullen would hold Jassen and they would kiss and stroke one another_ _’s skin, talking of how they would get out soon, how the Templars beneath were coming for them, any day now someone would come for them. _

_‘What?’ his friend asked warily. _

_‘Jassen, I’m—’ Cullen’s throat closed up unexpectedly, breath catching and shattering because it hurt even to say it. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’_

_Jassen frowned and came closer but Cullen moved back, pretending it made any difference in such a cramped room, pretending he couldn_ _’t smell the rot and sweat and the musk of dried spend. _

_‘Stop it,’ Jassen warned, voice trembling. ‘Don’t you dare.’_

_‘They’re using me to break you.’_

_‘You fucking idiot,’ Jassen hissed. ‘They’re using _me_ to break _you! _They__’re all betting how long it will be before you beg to die! I’ve heard them! They don’t give a fuck about me, it’s you they’re playing with, Cullen!’_

_‘I cannot keep doing this.’_

_‘Hey! Hey, look at me, you motherfucker!’ he grabbed Cullen’s chin and wrenched it to him with what little strength he still possessed. ‘You swore to me,’ he panted, breathless from the exertion. ‘You swore you had my back!’_

_Cullen sobbed gently. He was tired, so beyond tired. _ _‘Please.’_

_‘Please what? Give you permission to fucking die? To leave me behind here to rot and be forgotten? Fuck you! You _swore_!__’_

_‘I would rather die than hurt you again!’_

_‘You’re not hurting me, they are!’_

_Mouth twisting with disgust, Cullen looked away. _ _‘It’s my body they’re using. I can’t… I can’t take it anymore.’_

_‘You’re all that’s keeping me sane. Please don’t leave me, Cullen.’_

_‘Sane? I’m _raping you_, Jassen! That__’s what this is!’_

_‘It’s not,’ the other man assured him, climbing awkwardly into Cullen’s lap even as Cullen resisted. ‘It’s not, I swear it’s not. I love you, I love you so much. I’ve always loved you—’_

_‘Jassen, stop.’_

_‘—ever since we first met.’_

_‘Please, Maker, please stop.’_

_‘Since the others all laughed and you went red, I loved you.’_

_Cullen broke down again and Jassen wrapped weak, trembling arms around him. He cried into Jassen_ _’s chest, trying to ignore the wheeze he heard within, the frantic rhythm of an exhausted heart beneath the skin he’d marred repeatedly since their imprisonment. _

_‘I should have told you there and then,’ Jassen said, pressing kisses into Cullen’s filthy hair. ‘Should have been this way between us always.’_

_When Cullen shook his head, Jassen lifted his face and brought their mouths together desperately. A harsh, pleading kiss with only the barest scrap of anything good left between them. _

_‘Promise you won’t leave me,’ he panted weakly. ‘This is no reason to leave, Cullen. There aren’t reasons enough in the world for you to give up, you hear me?’_

_Cullen nodded, unable to lie to Jassen_ _’s face. _

_*_

_There were days when he didn_ _’t see Jassen. Whole days, weeks in reality, when he was left alone in a windowless room with stale, dank air pouring in and out of his lungs and it made him itch from the inside out. Cullen came to dread those days almost as much as when he was led out by Uldred, small dagger in hand. _

_Alone in the dark, Cullen tried to silence his mind and find inner strength. He tried to cling hard to concepts like bravery and heroism. _

_Sometimes he prayed. Sometimes he knelt on the cold stones and he clasped his hands together hard enough to give his forearms grief. He babbled and he pled and he rocked back and forth until tears spilled down his cheeks, until he collapsed in a ball, forehead touching the ground, dizzy from exhaustion and disenchantment. _

_There were days when Uldred brought him food, soap and fresh clothes. Days when the mage brought lyrium. _

_‘My pet,’ he would greet, bringing light into the pitch black room, a small flickering flame of blue that hurt the back of Cullen’s skull. ‘Come, let me wash you.’_

_And Cullen would let him. He_ _’d learnt long ago, many months, not to fight Uldred. It was always easier to let him do as he pleased. He would wash Cullen from head to toe. He liked it when Cullen was still and pliable, doll like and meek. It wasn’t difficult to emulate. He washed and dried him, then dressed him. _

_‘Sit by my feet while I brush your hair,’ he would say and Cullen would do just that. Uldred brushed him like a long haired dog, like an animal with untamed fur and sometimes he would stroke Cullen too. _

_‘Such a good boy, aren’t you?’ he’d say and Cullen would close his eyes, force himself to remain silent. It would only be Jassen that Uldred hurt for any disobedience or attempt at defiance. ‘A nice little Templar. We are all very grateful for your kindness, hence why you are treated so well.’_

_If he were feeling especially _un_kind, Uldred would stand and make Cullen kneel before him. He would hold his palm in front of Cullen__’s mouth, fingers outstretched like he was waiting for something and then he would pour lyrium over it. _

_And he would say, in a tone denoting generosity, _ _‘Here. Have some.’_

_Those days were rare and Cullen equally hated and anticipated them. There had not yet been an occasion when Cullen had the strength to refuse. He licked the liquid from Uldred_ _’s fingers, took them into his mouth and dragged his tongue over the palm like an animal. _

_In many ways, he was grateful that Uldred showed such restraint. He knew he would have done anything for the lyrium. There was no chance of self-discipline when that bottle was uncorked and that song drifted gently, enticingly into the air. His body took over then, as swiftly and as determinedly as any blood magic. _

_Addiction was slavery, just as Jassen had always said. _

_Left in the dark, airless room, Cullen refused himself the luxury of crying, refused to pray and slowly, he lost track of all time in earnest. _

_*_

_Their old drill instructor from the encampment in Denerim had always said that two weeks of anything becomes routine. It had to have been at least a year by the time Cullen_ _’s routine became commonplace. _

_Demons were no longer extraordinary to him. Magic was common, it held no mystery. Death was frequent, by sacrifice, by torture or by suicide. Cullen became somewhat desensitised to it all around the eighth or ninth month. He watched men and women die, he watched demons feast and rip and rape and he kept himself behind thick, dull glass. _

_They were lined up, their numbers ever-diminishing and Uldred, more unhinged by the day, would rant at them. He went on and on about mage rights, freedom for their people, uniting the crazed few who still supported him unequivocally in fever driven appreciation. Those mages would cheer and chant and then one of the Templars in the line would be killed. Jassen was never in the line-up and Cullen was only there as a witness. _

_Cullen did not look away now when a demon came. He watched, numb and dead inside, as that Templar was torn up, screaming and gurgling. He watched and he knelt and he hoped it wouldn_ _’t last much longer because his knees ached in such a position. _

_Cullen waited to die. _

_It was inevitable, he knew. He longed for it. Every day, he looked at his door and he hoped to see what all other Templars, Jassen included, were so generously gifted. Parchment, quill and ink and a small cup of cold, heavily poisoned tea. Death and the means of farewell. Some of them took it and Uldred always gave the letters to Cullen, made him read them and then left him with the parchment, with the final words of his brethren. _

_Whenever he was thrown in with Jassen, less and less as the years stretched on, his friend had always thrown the tea out through the narrow gap in the upper bars of his door. _

_Jassen was the only light left in the darkness. Cullen despised himself for looking forward to the days when Uldred would come to him, a hungry grin in place, and split his palm. Always the same hand, always the same line. It no longer registered as pain. There was a dangerous and insidious association there now that whenever that mage so much as pressed the blade to his palm, Cullen_ _’s cock was hard instantly. His body knew what to expect, the small break in the otherwise suffocating monotony of imprisonment. _

_Raping Jassen was the highlight of his life. _

_It was human contact, it was touch. It was _speech_ and remembering how to shape words afterwards. It was Jassen__’s well-meant attempts at lying to Cullen and saying it had been barely six weeks since their capture. Cullen appreciated him so much, loved him more than he could bear. He wished they could be together by choice, just once. He wished he had anything left afterwards to give Jassen but he was always drained and exhausted. Blood magic and hours of fucking left him barely conscious some days. _

_And Jassen was slowly fading before his eyes. _

_Cullen had, in those early months back when he_ _’d believed in things like rescue and saviours, sometimes held his own water in his mouth as he was taken from his cell to Jassen’s. The few times it had worked, he’d been able to gift Jassen a mouthful of warm, second-hand water and he’d felt relief then that at least Jassen had had something to drink, no matter how disgusting it was. _

_Uldred had put a stop to it, of course. No special treatment for the sharp one, only his pet. _

_He obsessed about the day he decided to help the mages come to have flowers in the bathrooms. He thought of it over and over. Where might they be now, were it not for his stupidity? _

Outside in the fresh air, bare feet set upon thick, wild grass while Jassen slid his hands around Cullen’s middle and kissed the back of his neck as a warm breeze brushed over their skin.

_That was Cullen_ _’s favoured image. He tormented himself ruthlessly, made himself experience every element of sensations long lost to him in the airless, lightless void that was Kinloch Hold. He had no blade to cut himself with, no clothes strong enough to make a noose that would hold. That image was his penance. _

_Sometimes, when the mages became restless and more blood-thirsty than usual, they would torture Jassen in front of Cullen. Sit him there on his haunches and make him watch while they pushed magic inside Jassen. _

_‘You hate magic so much, sharp one,’ they would hiss, pressing their palm against bare skin. ‘How do you like it burning you from the inside out?’_

_Jassen_ _’s screams then were more than Cullen could tolerate. He could not stay numb when it was the man he loved. There was no glass, no disconnect as there was with the others. He fought and he struggled and the mages laughed, gifting Jassen even more of the power that Cullen had once been obsessed with, had dreamed of wielding. _

_Cullen hallucinated during those times. Sometimes he saw things that weren_ _’t possible. He saw Jassen’s hands light up with red lightning, saw fire in the eyes of his friend as the mages chanted and violated him. Cullen never prayed anymore. His hands were made for bloodletting, not prayer making, but sometimes, when Jassen screamed and writhed under the forced ministrations of men born connected to the Fade and all things evil, Cullen prayed to whatever Gods existed, to demons, to any creature with the power to aid him. _

_Had he magic, he would have bled himself dry if it meant saving Jassen. _

_*_

_Cullen no longer cared for time, for light or dark. It was all the same. He couldn_ _’t breathe when inside his cell, only outside of it. When Uldred asked him how long he’d been there, he shrugged and guessed three years, not caring that he was likely to be corrected with a span far worse, far longer. _

_Uldred only laughed and played with his hair. Sometimes Cullen leaned into the touch simply because it was _touch_. Sometimes Cullen wished Uldred would fuck him. He wished for appalling, terrible things because he was so bored and so alone. It was an awful way to fade from the world. _

_‘Would you beg me,’ Uldred asked that same day, or maybe not, maybe a few months after, it was hard to tell. ‘To let you die, soft one?’_

_Cullen knew better than to get his hopes up, so he answered dully, _ _‘No.’_

_‘How prettily would you beg me? You’ve a lovely accent, a beautiful voice. I should like to hear more of it, I think. If you begged, I might even oblige.’_

_Cullen looked away then, jaw working as Uldred_ _’s blue light flickered. ‘You won’t let me die, no matter what I do.’_

_‘When you want death, truly, you’ll beg me for it. The day will come, I assure you.’_

_Cullen looked forward to it. _

_*_

_When Uldred next cut his hand, Cullen thanked him and Uldred faltered then. Something fractured his self-satisfied, smug expression. It looked like_ _… pity. Like regret, even. Cullen wanted no part of any new games, though, so he lowered his gaze to his palm, watching the familiar thin red bursting happily to the surface, his body awakening and unfurling from the cramped confines of isolation. _

_Uldred and another threw him inside but there was no need, Cullen would have walked willingly, would have run had he the strength. _

_Jassen was waiting for him, waiting with open arms. _

_It felt like it had been well over a year since they_ _’d allowed him to see Jassen, and yet his friend’s hair never grew long enough to curl past his ears, his beard was only long stubble. _

_When they met, it was a clash of bodies, painful and jarring because Cullen was so much bigger than Jassen was, so much stronger. Even though he_ _’d shed drastic weight, it was nothing compared to his beautiful best friend, his precious Jassen who was wasting away, slowly and surely. _

_The blood born hatred and anger barely registered. They met like lovers, they kissed eagerly and made the most of those early moments before the madness would set in. Jassen_ _’s palm had been freshly cut too and by the smell, Cullen could tell he’d had magic inside him not long ago. He hated that they did that to Jassen, laughing and mocking as they forced him to know magic, however brief, however wrong it was. _

_It didn_ _’t matter though, nothing mattered except their routine. _

_Once, years past, there had been a hurried and desperate race to prepare Jassen as much as possible, to make it less likely to tear and rip him up but now, their routine had adjusted. They had perfected it, if indeed such gruesome things could be perfected. Cullen would keep himself clothed as long as possible on purpose, let pre-come build and coat the head of his cock until it was positively dripping. It meant more anger and it meant he would sometimes hit Jassen but it was worth it. _

_By the time he shoved into Jassen, without tearing him up if they_ _’d done it right, the other man was usually in his lap and then Cullen would have to let that vicious spite out in other ways. Had to say horrifically cruel things to the man he loved, had to break him to pieces with everything he knew about him. _

_If he did that, if he inflicted pain in other ways, sometimes he could tangle his fingers in Jassen_ _’s hair and bring him down for a kiss. Sometimes he could pretend it was consensual. Pretend it was only rough sex, only playing. _

_Pretend it was anything other than rape. _

_When he stripped Jassen of his rags that day, there was a red hand-mark on the man_ _’s chest. Burned deep with blood magics. Jassen looked down as Cullen fucked into him, the pair of them feverish with confused emotions and sickness and something that had once been fresh-faced love. Jassen lifted Cullen’s hand and placed it there, covering the mark. _

_Cullen groaned loudly, unsure why. Imagined himself pushing magic into him instead, a different kind of rape, a different kind of penetrative act and it drove him wild, turned his desire pitch black and extreme. _

_He came with a thunderous roar and then remained inside him while he softened, while control returned. Jassen drew patterns on his bare back, hummed something sweet and Cullen smiled. He_ _’d forgotten about music. _

_‘Someone will come soon,’ he told Cullen in a quiet undertone when their cleaning up ritual began. Cullen was pleased to see he’d hardly hurt him at all that time. Strangle marks, skin torn by fingernails, a few bruises and a bloodshot eye. It was good, it was barely anything in comparison to other times. ‘I’ve heard them speaking about the others beneath, that they’re amassing forces for some kind of push.’_

_Cullen sighed and licked his thumb, rubbing over a bite mark carefully. __‘Jassen, there _are_ no Templars. They left years ago, you know this.__’_

_It was perhaps the worst part of his time with Jassen. Having to constantly remind his friend that there was no help, there hadn_ _’t been anyone else in the Tower for so many years, approaching ten at least. Jassen’s mental state was such that he could never let go of the idea, never accept that the Tower was their home now and that they were alone. _

_Jassen_ _’s expression fought to remain neutral, but Cullen saw him swallow. ‘Please, not this again.’_

_‘I can’t leave you with these delusions, love. Hope will eat away at you and false hope will rot you from the inside out.’_

_‘Cullen, it’s been two fucking months, no more!’_

_‘Don’t shout, they’ll take me away early.’_

_‘I’m… I’m not shouting, but please, please just say it’s been two months. Please say it for me.’_

_Surveying his friend, Cullen shook his head and uttered, _ _‘I have to get you more food. Uldred doesn’t want to fuck me, but a few of the others might. I’ll try when I see one next, I swear, love.’_

_Jassen looked away then and tears streamed down his face, mouth in a thin line as he trembled, rigid and unreachable. _ _‘Someone will come for us.’_

_And he felt so bad for his friend then that Cullen just nodded and quietly said, _ _‘Yes, perhaps. Stay still, let me get this bit here.’_

_Jassen allowed Cullen to clean him with his filthy shirt. They were quiet for a while, basking in the glow of simply being close when Cullen had to go and ruin everything. _

_‘Jassen, will you do something for me?’_

_‘If I can, yeah, of course.’_

_‘The next time they bring me here, I don’t know when it will be. Years, most likely, but… please will you save me your tea? I know they still bring it to you every day. Please, my love, please save it for me. To die in here with you is all I want. That’s the greatest gift you could give me.’_

_Jassen stared at him for a long time and then he lifted his hand to his mouth, fingertips moving over his bottom lip back and forth. He seemed to be barely controlling a full on reaction to Cullen_ _’s request, keeping himself calm because Cullen was right, nothing would be worse than the mages coming to take him early. _

_Quietly, voice trembling he said, _ _‘Cullen, I forbid it.’_

_‘I’ve done everything you asked,’ Cullen went on fairly, honestly. ‘I’ve waited and I’ve held out for years now, close to a decade.’_

_‘No, _no, _it’s__—’_

_‘I don’t want to die like the others, away from you.’_

_‘No.’_

_‘I did everything you asked.’_

_‘No.’_

_Despair trickled in dangerously, wetting the paper thin walls he had in place to safeguard himself from things like _disappointment_. Things that simply could not, under any circumstances, be borne. _

_‘I’m begging you.’_

_‘You’re not dying. You’re the strongest of us all, Cullen, the only one that can even stand up. We need you to be strong and keep going. Fuck, you cannot let them break you like this!’_

_Cullen laughed bitterly then, weak and breathy. _ _‘Jassen, they broke me years ago. Every Templar but you and me is long dead. I am living only for you and it’s… it’s agony. Please, please let me go.’_

_Jassen withdrew. _ _‘You can’t leave me alone.’_

_‘I will wait for you, I swear it. I will wait on the other side, no matter how long it takes.’_

_His best friend looked around, floundering and lost. __‘What does that mean to me? Huh? There is no Maker, there is no God. There is only _us_, Cullen! There is only you and me and the bonds between. You are my brother, my lover, my best friend! Without you, I will die a thousand times and even then, they__’ll bring me back, I’m sure of it. It’s all a test, don’t you see? The tea, the poison, the letters. They want to see if I’ll break, if you’ll—’_

_‘Why don’t you, then?’ Cullen snapped. ‘Why even bother at this point? If I had poison, I’d have drunk it a long time ago.’_

_He seemed so betrayed, so fucking hurt. _ _‘You wouldn’t leave me.’_

_Tiredly, Cullen answered truthfully. _ _‘I would if you’d let me.’_

_Jassen swallowed again, loud and thick. _ _‘I will not be used to break you and I will not be a source for your suicide.’_

_The sounds of the door unlocking were a knife to Cullen_ _’s heart as always. They’d been too loud and there was the punishment. Back into darkness, into long months of silence and air that his lungs could not abide. Uncertainty and boredom and the sounds of demonic laughter drifting beneath the doors. _

_‘I love you,’ Cullen said, getting to his feet carefully. It was their customary parting and he waited for Jassen to say it back as the door creaked open but those words never formed. _

_Instead, Jassen reached out and grabbed Cullen_ _’s sore, sliced palm with his own, their twin cuts meeting with a wet, stinging flash. _

_‘Stay with me,’ Jassen uttered in a voice that Cullen had not heard for years, with a strength he’d forgotten his best friend possessed. He was pulled away quickly by the rough hands of impatient mages. ‘Stay with me, Cullen.’_

_Later, in the darkness of isolation, he pressed his thumb into the cut and heard Jassen_ _’s voice, heard those three words until unconsciousness, merciful and motherly, came for him at last. _

_*_

_‘Again.’_

_‘Please, please don’t make me.’_

_‘Read it again, my pet. Let me hear that lovely voice.’_

_Cullen squeezed his eyes shut, tried to gather enough breath to beg some more, to plead but all there was inside him was grief. Sheer and utter fucking grief. It cut him to the quick, stripped him of skin and bones and left behind only meat. Without Jassen, he was only meat, held together by the long-since faded interest of a god who had assembled him once with something like purpose. That purpose was voided now. _

_Because Jassen was gone. _

_Jassen was dead._

_‘Read it again.’_

_Cullen tried to scream but there was nothing inside of him anymore. He fought but he was so weak, his whole body atrophying as he knelt in a boneless ball, Jassen_ _’s looped, arching writing on a piece of paper in front of him on the floor, lit up by Uldred’s blue light. _

_Uldred laughed when he fought. Held him back easily. _ _‘It’s good to see you still have a little fight, my pet.’_

_‘I’m not…’ Cullen panted, but it was like trying to scream in a nightmare, like trying to make words without a tongue. ‘Please.’_

_‘Please… what? Are you begging to die, kind Templar?’_

_Cullen clutched his stomach and pressed his head forward into the stones. _ _‘Yes,’ he ground out around something that resembled a sob. ‘Yes, please. Please kill me, kill me, kill me, I’ll do anything.’_

_‘Read it again and we’ll see.’_

_There were no tears, no surplus moisture to part with and his body dry heaved, rolled with the pain of a loss he couldn_ _’t even calculate. Jassen had killed himself because of him, because of Cullen. _

_All this was because of Cullen. Everything. _

_He took a great, shuddering breath and began to recite it again, not needing to see it anymore. The words were branded into him, they always would be. _

_‘Cullen,’ he began. ‘I am so sorry my friend—’_

_Uldred hummed a questioning noise. _ _‘Friend? Is that really the way to bid his lover farewell?’_

_Cullen had to bite the inside of his cheek hard then as something like anger twisted inside him. He knew why Jassen had called him friend, the same reason why he__’d killed himself. Because he believed they would be saved. He believed Cullen could make it, believed Cullen was strong and when, in Jassen’s mind, Cullen was saved, he didn’t want to imply that anything _untoward_ had happened between them. _

_Protecting him even in death. _

_And Cullen wanted to kill Uldred then. He visualised it, he imagined ripping him open, mouth first. Splitting and splitting until he had unwrapped the mage like a name day gift, divesting him of skin and reaching hot, steaming innards. _

_‘He _was_ my friend,__’ Cullen uttered, shaking with hatred. _

_‘I suppose he was,’ Uldred said, pushing fingers through Cullen’s hair. ‘Continue.’_

_Cullen read on, forcing himself to parrot the words but within, something had been lit and would not extinguish. He hadn__’t felt anger, not his _own_ anger, for so long and it was strangely powerful. It burned through the despair, through the sticky, tar-like hopelessness. _

_Uldred finally relented, placing a quill and inkwell carefully onto the floor. _ _‘You may leave your own goodbyes if you so desire, little pet. You’ve done well to last this long.’_

_‘You’re not going to kill me?’_

_Uldred looked back from the door. _ _‘To kill you requires no action from me, Templar. Only for me to stand back and do nothing, something you should be all too familiar with.’_

_*_

_The anger gave him clarity and clarity made him obsessed. He didn_ _’t go near his bed, he didn’t let himself wallow and grieve. Cullen pressed himself to the door, looked under the thin, tiny gap between wood and floor and he watched whatever he could, listened to the growing carnage. _

_Things were finally falling apart for the mages, he could tell. They_ _’d conjured too many demons and had not enough bodies. He didn’t let himself imagine what they had done with Jassen’s body. _

_He had to focus. He had to get free. _

_Sometimes when he listened, he imagined Jassen_ _’s screams. When that happened, he hummed the song his best friend favoured, forcing himself to watch the demons slithering around, snarling and seeking out fresh blood. _

_*_

_They had forgotten about him, he was certain. They_ _’d forgotten or they no longer cared. He’d begged for death, he’d broken down. Jassen had warned it was a test and now the mages no longer cared whether Cullen lived or died. _

_Or maybe they were too busy being eaten alive. _

_Either way, Cullen didn_ _’t care. _

_The door between him and the open madness of the Tower was extremely thick. He had no chance of breaking it down, not in such a state. _

_But the demons were hungry and they were strong. _

_Cullen rubbed his wrist on the stones, grinding the crux as hard as he could into the rough gritty surface, back and forth until blood blossomed. He pushed his wrist against the crack at the bottom of the door and bled under it, bled as much as he dared and the demons took interest in him at last. _

_*_

_When the door gave way, Cullen ran. He didn_ _’t stand and fight, didn’t even try. He ran like a coward, like a fucking child and even that, even running, felt like it might cause him to die. His legs were unsteady and weak, threatening to give out as he pelted past the demons. _

_They gave chase but he knew the Tower well, better than those things. Most rooms had seen the doors torn off at the jamb, but one room was barricaded and when he pounded upon it, pleading for entry, he heard mages from within hissing at him to leave, not to attract attention. _

_Cullen ran on and skidded around a sharp corner, into what had once been a storeroom. Inside, he found another mage, cowering and hiding beneath mops, brooms and cleaning rags. _

_‘Please,’ the mage begged, eyes wide and terrified. _

_Cullen hauled the mage out and shoved him towards the demons and then Cullen hid inside, used the brooms to wedge the door shut. The mage_ _’s screams were almost as musical to him as Jassen’s soft, sweet humming had been. _

_*_

_When the demons lost interest, sated and fed for the time being, Cullen crept out of the storage room, a jaggedly snapped broom handle his weapon as he made his way carefully towards the stairs leading down. The fourth floor had weapons, armour. _

_There were precious few mages left and those that remained were huddled in the Harrowing Chamber, chanting and conjuring. _

_Cullen didn_ _’t look back at the row of cells, didn’t look back at anything as he descended the stairs. _

_The fourth floor was overrun with demons. They were everywhere, like cockroaches in a basement. They slithered and they sought, sniffing out blood and heartbeats. Cullen clutched his wooden weapon hard, remembering how to breathe, how to prepare, how to evade. It was like a different life, all those years ago, training with Jassen. _

_He closed his eyes and, despite the trembling fear, made himself move forward. _

_*_

_The armour was ill fitting and not his own but he donned it anyway, ease born of familiarity hindered by weak wrists and his left hand which had been cut so many times, so deep that his fingers were sometimes slow and uncooperative. It weighed heavily, added labour to each step as did the sword but he had lyrium in his body and that gave him borrowed strength or at least the illusion of such. _

_He killed what demons he could, but avoided the rest. Uldred_ _’s magic and chanting drew them up a level after a while and Cullen took the opportunity for what it was, didn’t hesitate. _

_The door was within his sights, he could _see_ it but all around it, there was some kind of__… cage. Shimmering light he could not pass through. Built to withstand attacks, to withstand puny swords swung in vain and fists smashing, built to withstand a single man trying to get free, trying to make his way to freedom after so many years lost. _

_Cullen backed away, dropped his sword and fell to his knees then. Hopelessness returned, crushing him like a rogue wave and he cried. It had all been for nothing._

_He waited, on his knees, for a demon to find him. _

_*_

_When people came upon him, he was certain it was a trick. A spiteful dream, Uldred_ _’s revenge for escaping his cell. The one at the front spoke to him with barely contained disgust. A red haired woman, young and heavily accented, crouched before him, the barrier between them. _

_‘We are real,’ she said in a practical, gentle kind of way. ‘It’s been two and a half months since the uprising. You’ve been here the whole time?’_

_Cullen blinked, lowering his hands from his head. Her green eyes portrayed no hint of pity, no disgust. Too good to be real, he decided, but something traitorous in his heart insisted she might be real. She looked real, she _smelled_ real. _

_‘He broke the others?’ she echoed when Cullen said as much, couldn’t keep his mouth shut, babbling all kinds of dangerous, ridiculous things because part of him that never learnt was sure they were real people. _

_‘I will stay strong,’ Cullen insisted, fingers tearing at his hair, rocking back and forth. ‘I have to stay strong, for his sake, for mine…’_

_‘Shhh,’ she said, the girl with the red hair. ‘You are safe now.’_

_Cullen shook his head. _ _‘No. It’s a trick.’_

_‘It is no trick,’ she said, stern and yet kind. ‘Look upon us, see it for yourself.’_

_He did so with trepidation. She was young and pretty, but there was something strong about her. A kind of resolve._

_‘I’m so tired,’ he confessed to her then, childlike and breathless. ‘I’m so tired of these games and tricks. Please.’_

_‘The poor boy is exhausted,’ someone said, but Cullen didn’t dare look away from the woman before him. _

_‘He’s been tortured,’ she corrected softly. ‘What is your name?’_

_It took him a moment to remember. How long had it been since he_ _’d met anyone new?_

_‘Cullen,’ he answered at length. _

_‘I’m Leliana,’ she said, studying him intently. ‘You’ve been through a great deal.’_

_He flinched, shaking his head because that simply wasn_ _’t right, not at all but how to explain, how to make anyone understand anything? ‘The Maker knows my sin,’ he whispered. ‘He will not forgive me.’_

_‘Speak of the mages,’ another woman, raven hair and cold, golden eyes, demanded. ‘What of the fifth floor?’_

_Leliana looked back and glared. _ _‘Hold your tongue, Morrigan. He is struck deeply, can you not see it?’_

_The other at the front was impatient too. Cullen was holding them up, he realised. Keeping them from moving onward, into the interior of the Tower. _

_‘You’ve come to kill them?’ _

_‘To slay the demons, yes,’ Leliana said. _

_‘No, not the demons,’ Cullen said with a frown, getting to his feet with effort, the armour making it difficult. ‘The mages. They… they caged us like animals, looked for ways to break us.’ His mouth went dry, chest contracting. ‘I’m th-the only one left.’_

_A large man told Cullen to be proud. _

_‘Be proud?’ he echoed in a thin, incredulous hiss, nausea creeping up the back of his throat. ‘Be _proud_? What is there to be proud of?__’_

_‘You mastered yourself.’_

_Cullen began to laugh then and Leliana_ _’s brow furrowed as she stood to meet his gaze. He seemed mad to them, he suspected. ‘They turned me into… into a monster,’ he said, the laughter turning weak and nasal. ‘There was nothing I could do.’_

_‘The boy is raving, Jaime,’ Morrigan said. ‘We should move on.’_

_‘Where are Irving and the others who fought Uldred?’ the man at the front, Jaime, asked. _

_There were others that had fought? He_ _’d seen nothing of the kind. Mages had hurt him, mages had cut his palm, mages had poisoned them. _

_‘All mages are in the Harrowing Chamber,’ he answered, trying to recall what it was to be a soldier, to give information when asked. ‘You… mean to _save_ them?__’_

_The one named Jaime, dispassionate in the extreme, said, _ _‘Of course.’_

_*_

_It was hard to accept that it had been weeks, not years. Harder still to accept that the people who came were real. _

_Greagoir was astonished to see him. _ _‘You’re alive,’ the old man gasped. Cullen looked him up and down and for the first time, he truly believed them that it had not been years. Greagoir was unchanged, not a hair out of place from when Cullen had last set eyes upon him. _

_Like every other thing, Jassen had been right about that too. _

_*_

_It seemed so easy, restoring order to the Circle. Cullen wondered what had kept them from doing so before now. They stepped over bodies, mage and Templar, over demon innards and blood. So much blood it penetrated the stones, made a thick, sticky carpet. _

_When Cullen told Greagoir of poison, of how the mages had planned it all, every single one of them, Greagoir dismissed him out of hand; ignored him, didn_ _’t quite meet his eye. It was a betrayal. He betrayed the Order, every single man and woman who died up there. _

_Betrayed Jassen. _

_When the others made to leave, Cousland having other adventures to pursue, Leliana looked back at Cullen and said, _ _‘I am so sorry for what you suffered.’_

_He wanted to say that he_ _’d suffered nothing, but she was the only person to show him kindness and he was too weak to deny it. Cullen managed to nod and then they were gone. _

_‘What a fucking mess,’ Greagoir complained, looking around at the fifth floor, towards the cells, towards the one that had been Cullen’s and then… towards where Jassen had been kept. ‘Cullen, go clean yourself up, son. Take a few hours rest, have some food and then report to me for debriefing.’_

_Cullen blinked hard. _ _‘What?’_

_Greagoir frowned at him, likely displeased by the lack of title when addressing his commanding officer but Cullen didn_ _’t care. Found nothing commanding in Greagoir then, nothing worthy of respect. He’d been down there the whole time, only a floor beneath. He’d heard their screams, he’d eaten and slept and bathed while Cullen had raped Jassen, while Templars had been eaten alive. While Jassen took his own life rather than be used to break Cullen. _

_‘You heard me,’ Greagoir warned. ‘I know you’re exhausted, so I’ll let it slide, all that back-chat in front of Cousland and the others. You did well to survive, but you’re a Templar first and foremost. Protecting mages is our mandate.’_

_Cullen had so many things he wanted to say then. Thousands of things. They were crashing lightly around in his chest like panicked birds and if he said any one of them, the others would all come out behind it. _

_But he_ _’d learnt to bite down, learnt when to drop his gaze. _

_He nodded and Greagoir patted his shoulder as he left. _

_‘Good lad.’_

_*_

_The clean-up was well underway, the focus on the Templar Quarters. Cullen slipped upstairs to the fifth floor, unnoticed. No one cared, none of the others even blinked. Too distracted by the horror of what they found, most likely. It was new to them. Shattered bones and drying guts, grey brains and enough blood to fill all of Lake Calenhad. _

_He went to the door he_ _’d banged upon earlier when seeking shelter. It was still barricaded. The Templars had performed only a perfunctory sweep of this level. _

_Cullen knocked. _ _‘Is anyone alive in there?’ _

_A familiar voice answered, _ _‘Yes… please, is it safe?’_

_‘Uldred is dead and the demons are gone.’_

_‘You are certain?’_

_Teeth ground, Cullen said, _ _‘Of course. Open the door.’_

_It unlocked from within and through the crack, the mage named Merek peered out. _ _‘Just you?’ he uttered, bloodshot eyes moving behind Cullen. ‘Truly, they’re dead?’_

_Cullen kicked the door as hard as he could, sending Merek flying back. Two other mages, older and weaker, skittered away in fear. Merek scrambled to his feet as Cullen shut and locked the door behind him. _

_‘You’re going to tell Greagoir what you did,’ Cullen intoned then, everything within him trembling and dangerously unstable. ‘About the flowers and the poison.’_

_Merek__’s eyes narrowed. ‘What _you_ did, you mean?__’_

_Cullen_ _’s mouth opened and the implication hit like a gut punch. He saw Jassen, he felt him. Laughing and kissing on the roof, shivering in the rain. Signalling which of them would win the fight before it began because they were so evenly matched. Staring at one another before they fell asleep. _

_Their hands, cut by mages, pressed together as Jassen begged Cullen not to leave him. _

_‘You grew poison.’_

_‘Yes, we grew poison,’ Merek spat, backing up as Cullen advanced. ‘We grew it to poison your _lover_! To protect ourselves against those of you who raped the youngest! You were the only one stupid enough to allow it. The soft one,__’ he sneered, even though Cullen could see he was shaking. ‘You brought this upon yourself!’_

_Cullen inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. He gathered every ounce of lyrium within him and condensed it into the hardest, strongest _Silence_ he had ever wrought. It was a thunderous thing, reverberating off the walls and humming in the air. It didn__’t seem to fade, didn’t seem to leave and the mages weakly flailed, writhing against the sensation of being severed from their power. _

_A calm came over him then, a sense of peace. It was the first time in months he let himself feel such a way. A moment of tranquillity before the storm. _

_They tried to cut their palms, searched frantically for anything in the room with a point. It was a bad idea. _

_Cullen had no sword, no daggers. Nothing sharp enough for the mages to cut themselves with had they been strong enough to wrest anything from him, which they weren_ _’t. _

_He didn_ _’t need sharp things to kill them. Cullen himself was a weapon, forged and twisted into something capable of dealing death even without metal or magic. He was sharp enough, blade or no. _

_When he opened his eyes, he smiled before he tore them to pieces. _

_*_

_‘A demon,’ Greagoir echoed flatly, his eyes riveted on Cullen’s hands, his wrists and bare forearms. They were red and sticky, the skin taut as mage blood tightened and dried, pinching the skin. ‘A demon killed them.’_

_‘Yes, Ser,’ Cullen answered dutifully. ‘A rage demon, by the looks of it. I was sadly too late.’_

_‘Hmm,’ Greagoir said, but there was no rebuke, no argument. He simply nodded, clearing his throat. ‘I… I see.’_

_‘I did everything I could to save them, Knight-Commander,’ Cullen went on, voice mechanical and dead. ‘Protecting mages is our mandate.’_

_The older man looked sharply at Cullen then. There was actual fear in his eyes and Cullen basked in it, dry and unsatisfying though it was. Nothing like the warm, wet gurgles of Merek as he_ _’d rent him physically in half. Nothing like the soothing, musical pleas of the others as they’d quailed when Cullen turned on them. _

_‘It is, yes,’ he agreed slowly. ‘Yes, well. Good work, Knight-Lieutenant. Good work. Retire for the night and we’ll debrief tomorrow, I think.’_

_‘I’d rather work, Ser. I’m not tired.’_

_‘You need sleep, Cullen.’_

_‘If it’s all the same, Ser—’_

_‘It is _not_ all the same, away to the temporary quarters immediately!__’ Greagoir snapped, eyes wide and mouth thin. ‘In the morning, we’ll talk more.’_

_*_

_In the morning, Cullen was swiftly reassigned. Greagoir didn't even look at him when he informed him of such. When Cullen asked about remains, enquired if anyone had recovered Jassen_ _’s body, his Knight-Commander answered that they had recovered barely a third of those killed in the Tower and that the rest had been eaten or consumed by magic. _

_Cullen went back to his cell before he left; the door broken down by rabid, starving demons and inside, beneath the stained, stinking mattress, he found the letters. All the letters of the Templars who_ _’d been lucky enough to take their own lives, Jassen among them. _

_He left the letters on Greagoir__’s desk, all but Jassen’s. That he placed carefully inside _The Watchful Ambler_ and then went to the bathrooms. The flower boxes were smashed, the earth displaced and all the bright, common flowers Cullen had once plucked from the earth had withered and died. _

_There, hidden beneath them, were small, black buds of witchgrass, far more resilient than the flowers. He stared at the spiky thistles for a while before taking one and placing it inside the book too. It was wishful thinking, to imagine dying the way Jassen had, but maybe one day. Maybe if he earned it. _

_He left without a word of goodbye to anyone who lived, accepting his transfer papers and watching the lake for as long as possible from the carriage bound for Kirkwall. When he lost sight of it, he opened his book and took out Jassen_ _’s letter, deciding to add to it again. _

_*_

_Kirkwall was brutal and lethal and fucking horrifying. Cullen loved it. He laughed on his first day when blood mages came at him in the streets, thinking they_ _’d found fresh meat in the form of someone new, someone green. _

_He laughed and cut them down and then he slept well for the first time since the uprising. _

_*_

_Jassen_ _’s father was an archivist for the Chantry in Kirkwall, a respectable profession for a retired Templar. Cullen went to him after his first week and spoke with him about Jassen’s death. As Jassen requested, he spun a fine, glittering lie of how his best friend had died saving his life in a valiant battle which they would have lost were it not for Jassen Ivan Emory. _

_The man stared at him for a long time, his whole body juddering constantly with the kind of tremors that sometimes plagued the elderly. He blinked unevenly and then asked who it was Cullen spoke of. It took three attempts before he remembered. Three times Cullen had to explain, had to remind him of his son_ _’s name before the man understood, before he believed Cullen and then, at last, he cried. _

_*_

_Cullen kept the witchgrass in his pocket, well-hidden and secure. He would never be caught unawares again. Should an uprising take place in the Gallows Circle, he would not be the last man standing. That poison was his salvation. _

_He tried to replace the hole that Jassen had left in his chest with lyrium, with violence and retribution. With the kind of cruelty he knew Jassen would have appreciated. When sly, pretty mages in Kirkwall tried to seduce him, Cullen found creative ways of humiliating them. They weren_ _’t used to that, being humiliated. Sex had been a kind of control for most mages, something solid in the way of trade and Cullen revelled in stripping them of it. They learnt to fear him quickly and that felt good too. _

_But it never came close to filling the hole left by his beloved. He suspected nothing ever would._

_*_

_Cullen was twenty two when his sister Mia wrote to inform him of their parents passing. He stared at the letter for a long time, trying to recall what his mother and father had looked like. It seemed like a lifetime ago he_ _’d left them, accepted kisses while his heart thundered excitedly, Arlington waiting nearby. _

_He tried to write back to her but everything he wrote sounded like a suicide note. _

_*_

_Brutality and a voided set of morals earned him attention and respect, the same way it had for Jassen in Kinloch. He fulfilled his duties, throwing himself into keeping the mages suppressed and utterly downtrodden. His body grew strong again, stronger than before. Sometimes, he dreamed of being strong enough to quit lyrium the way Jassen had but Cullen feared not having the ability to Silence any mage who looked at him wrong, who raised a hand to conjure or to create. One day, perhaps. _

_*_

_The young woman named Leliana wrote to him sometimes. It was impossibly strange and Cullen ignored the first few letters, unwilling to be drawn into a part of anything that represented _before_. She was persistent though and she kept on writing until one night, bored and alone in his private room, off rotation and agitated by the lack of routine and stimulation, Cullen wrote back to her. _

_It was terse and rude and he made it plain that he didn__’t want her writing to him anymore. At least, that was how it began. The second paragraph was markedly angrier. He realised he was ranting, blaming her and those fucking _companions_ for not coming sooner, for not believing him, for choosing to save murderous, underhand mages. His hand shook and the quill scratched loudly and he was sweating, breathing hard by the time it was done. _

_The decision to actually send the missive gave him a moment__’s pause. He told himself he didn’t care what she thought, didn’t care if she was hurt or never wrote back again. That was what he hoped for, wasn’t it? He didn’t need anyone, didn’t _want _anyone caring about him or distracting him. _

_He sent it and Cullen expected that to be the last of it, but Leliana wrote back the following week. She made no reference to his bile and vitriol, merely spoke of her own life, of what was happening at the time. Cullen frowned hard at the letter, trying to think of what else he could say to discourage her, how much deeper he_ _’d have to dig to find words that would make her finally understand. _

_He meant to write back and tell her, in no uncertain terms, to _fuck off. _What actually came out onto the paper was more like a cantankerous, reluctant retelling of his own daily life. She__’d requested it, after all and Cullen often had nothing else to fill his free time. _

_He dreaded free time. _

_*_

_There were days when he would hold a dagger to his wrist, days when he thought of nothing but poison and death. Instead of dragging that blade sharply down, he put quill to old, fading parchment and he spoke to Jassen. Wrote whatever he could bear to and then he would add a reason he_ _’d collected around the edge. He told himself, if he could fill the edges, then that would be enough. Enough reasons to die. _

_He wrote to Jassen and then he suited up. Cullen always volunteered to patrol Darktown on the nightshift. It was as close as he could bring himself to death_ _’s open and waiting arms without inflicting it by his own hands. _

_But death had no time for him, no interest in Cullen Rutherford. Skill kept him alive, instinct put him on the right path and offered only close calls that were not close enough. He thrived, despite himself. _

_*_

_Years passed, time moved slowly and Cullen stopped keeping track of his age. He was miserable and he often felt dead inside, but he was a Templar and a damned good one at that. He saved lives and he made a difference. _

_Sometimes, when he wrote to Leliana, he would tell her about the lives he_ _’d saved. About a family who would have been dead had he not intervened. It wasn’t bragging, wasn’t pride. Maybe he was just showing her that he was still human, still alive despite the feeling in his chest. _

_Leliana was not an affectionate person and he liked her for that. He liked her pragmatism and lack of pity, in words at least. When he wrote to her about saving lives, she would always reply with a similar story. Something she had done lately, something good. _

_Something to show that saving lives was not unusual or extraordinary, but commonplace and expected for those who considered themselves to be decent. _

_It could have been taken with offence. He could have resented her for it but Cullen thought he knew her well enough to recognise the method behind it. Normalising decency was uncommon practise in Kirkwall. Leliana gave him no praise for it, only assured him that the rest of the world – herself included – were doing the same. _

_Cullen wondered if they were friends. Formal and occasionally rude to one another, he doubted it. He didn_ _’t want friends anyway, or so he told himself, often aloud, often to little avail. _

_Which was why it wasn_ _’t especially surprising when he forged something similar with an elf named Fenris, one of Hawke’s many cohorts. The elf hated mages almost as much as Cullen and Hawke - fucking Hawke, lying apostate piece of shit bane of Cullen’s existence – had joked once that the two of them should be best friends. Cullen had frowned, ever the ill-tempered, unreachable Templar and Fenris had snorted with dry, derisive laughter but it still seemed unusual, a strange coincidence, that they were both in the same tavern later that night. _

_Cullen was wary. Fenris was a real person, a living being with expectations and complex needs, not like Leliana, who was paper and distance, safety and control. _

_‘You hate mages, do you?’ Fenris said, buying Cullen a drink that the Knight-Captain would not touch. Cullen never actually drank when in taverns, never drank anything unless he’d procured it himself from an untouched source. It was a good place for information, a decent enough distraction and the chance of a fight later in the night made it worth enduring the smell. _

_‘Yes,’ Cullen answered carefully, the din all around making it so that their conversation was obscured. ‘I do.’_

_Fenris nodded and Cullen thought that might be the end of it, but then Fenris started talking about other things. Things that had nothing to do with mages or magic or horrible pasts. He was surprisingly well spoken and possessed a fairly stunning array of stories. He_ _’d travelled extensively, or such was Cullen’s impression as he told stories of Fog Warriors, of Seheron, of his best fights and his favourite scars. _

_Cullen listened. It had been a long time since he__’d had anyone to _listen_ to, anyone he wanted to hear from at least. _

_‘What about you?’ Fenris asked, casually downing another tankard of ale that was purposefully watered down. ‘Best fight?’_

_Immediately, Kinloch Hold came to the forefront of Cullen_ _’s mind. Not because it was the most accurate answer to the question, but because Fenris had asked something about him. The Circle Tower was so much of who Cullen was, so deeply embedded within that it sprang forth unbidden. _

_But Cullen had had better fights since then and so he put it aside, carefully, painfully, and he answered honestly, despite something inside telling him to lie, to protect himself and remain alone. _

_Maybe he didn__’t _want_ to be alone, even if that was what he deserved. _

_*_

_They would go on raids together sometimes. Fenris had a deep propensity for hatred, one that matched Cullen_ _’s. Sometimes, he would go to Cullen, visibly agitated and ask if the Templar wanted to accompany him. It would be off the books, off the record and Cullen never refused. Inaction was a monstrosity that Cullen understood all too well. Fenris was his friend, in as much as either of them were capable of, and he wanted to help. _

_It was no hardship, either. Tracking down blood mages and slavers in the dead of night, in the lowest, filthiest bowels of Kirkwall and killing them. _

_Fenris burned brightly with the lyrium in his veins. He could put his hand through a man_ _’s chest, pull out the heart and toss it aside. He was extraordinary. He was… magic, despite how Cullen rankled at the word, at the implication. _

_Cullen always took care to remain physically distant from Fenris when his lyrium glowed. There was something worryingly alluring about it to Cullen, a kind of heated scent that morphed into taste. Fenris was his friend and he would never, ever intertwine desire with decency. The two did not mix, it was that simple. If Fenris noticed, he never commented and besides, Cullen was the absolute master of restraint. _

_Around Fenris, Cullen found himself feeling almost human again. He and Fenris would drink together sometimes in the mansion. Fenris would purchase cases of untouched, unopened alcohol and pretend it was something for himself, something rare he liked and had not been able to import until then. Cullen appreciated the gesture and he put aside the worst of his anxiety and poured himself a drink for the first time in many years. _

_Some nights they sat in companionable silence, simply existing in the same space. Cullen denied how _nice_ it was not to be alone. He denied that he breathed easier in the mansion of Fenris__’s old master, windows thrown wide for Cullen’s sake. Some nights they would talk. Fenris would tell him things, terrible things. Cullen had terrible things to offer in return. _

_Fenris declared him a good man and a friend. _

_Cullen felt cautiously optimistic that he was one of those things. _

_*_

_Fenris came and went as more time passed and Leliana was not always able to write. Cullen collected scars. His mouth was split open in a vicious fight in the Lowtown alienage and he regretted that after it healed, long and painful without magical intervention, he couldn_ _’t go to Fenris and show him. Without them, he devolved. Without them, he returned to Jassen’s letter. _

_Cullen could not get the reasons to reach all the way around the edge. It was nothing less than failure. _He_ was a failure. There was a gap in the top right hand corner and without resorting to a fabrication, he found he had nothing more to fill it with. _

_It plagued him, that space. _

_Cullen was no longer able to recall Jassen_ _’s face, only the vague shape of him, phrases and movements. His voice was crystal clear, at least. It didn’t seem likely to fade, not until the lyrium took it by force like it took much else. Cullen heard Jassen’s last words but could not recall his own. Those nights saw him courting the streets of Kirkwall for the one thing that kept him going in the absence of friends; risk. _

_Even for someone as well trained as Cullen, as talented with a sword, as proficient in dealing death and defending himself, the risk was substantial. Kirkwall was immune to their efforts, a place of darkness and danger, no matter how many patrolled, no matter how many were deployed. _

_Cullen_ _’s duties as Knight-Captain were enormously different from those of the same rank in Kinloch Hold. Some months, he rarely saw the inside of the Circle. He trained new recruits, he orchestrated military patrols and he commanded those beneath him. Kirkwall was a battlefield; a war that raged on and never abated, offered no end point. There would not come a day when Cullen could walk the streets by night and trust that he would make it back alive. _

_And for that, he loved and hated the place. _

_Risk was what kept him going when alone. Danger and adrenaline and excitement were shallow replacements for the substance of friendship but he took what he could. The men and women beneath him in rank sometimes whispered that he would benefit from getting laid, joked about buying him a night in the brothels to ease his sour moods. _

_They didn_ _’t understand and he didn’t blame them for it. Normal people enjoyed sex, sought it out for a multitude of reasons. _

_Cullen could not. _

_He_ _’d suit up instead, abandon the possibility of sleep and force himself onward. Kirkwall offered the promise of fair death and for that, she was his mistress in the absence of other, kinder distractions. _

_*_

_It wasn_ _’t enough, it would never be enough. There was a hole, a deep dark well of emptiness and Cullen knew he had no right to wish for things to get better. But he was weak sometimes and on those days, he longed for change. He could almost recall the man he’d been once, young and full of belief, full of hope but, like Jassen’s face, it was just out of his reach. _

_It wasn_ _’t enough and that hole in his chest ached when he thought of how things might have been, of things done differently, done better. _

_Cullen drank and tears would slip free no matter how hard he fought to contain them, Jassen_ _’s letter always nearby, the only company he could hope for during such dark days. _

_*_

_In Kinloch Hold, they_ _’d called him the Soft One. _

_In Kirkwall, he was Meredith_ _’s Fist. _

_Knight-Commander Meredith had promoted him steadily. Brought him up through the ranks to Knight-Captain with a blend of tailored support and guidance that Cullen had both welcomed and deeply resented. _

_In Meredith, he found a leader who would nurture all the worst of him and train it to climb, bring it to sunlight and watch it bloom. _

_For years now she__’d been shaping him into something bad and Cullen knew it. Words like _good_ and _bad_ held precious little meaning to him most days. _Alive_ and _dead_ provided more clarity. Mage and human offered better distinction. _

_But he knew what it meant when she encouraged brutality, when she openly praised him for actions that left him filled with shame afterwards, bodies cooling in the street, his anger draining away fast, even though it would creep back later, never fully sated. _

_It was an old, rotting anger inside him. A part of him he knew better than to try and cut out, but it was a disease and he loathed it as time wore on. _

_Meredith called it potential. _

_He began to remember, despite himself, what it had meant to know right from wrong. For the first time in Maker knew how long, Cullen looked around at his life and felt sick to realise what he_ _’d become. _

_*_

_It was weak, the remaining goodness inside of him. A weed attempting to grow in a lightless place, as dark and dank as his cell in Kinloch Hold had been. Some part of him yearned to be _good_, to be free of the hatred and the grief he felt, to be how Leliana and Fenris saw him. With effort, he stopped doing what was easy and started considering the other paths. Those that were beset with obstacles and difficulties, but led somewhere that offered the chance of dawn. _

_*_

_The Kirkwall Chantry went up in a stunning red bolt of light, the likes of which Cullen had never seen before. It made him feel small, insignificant. The sound followed moments after the explosion and Cullen couldn_ _’t help but think that was strange, even when he was knocked back by it. _

_Cullen stood against Meredith after she_ _’d gathered them in a screaming rage, ranting about the Right of Annulment and dragging them to the Gallows. It hurt to do so, especially after the devastation he’d just witnessed. But she had lost herself to the red of that lyrium the same way Uldred had to the red of his own palm. _

_As Knight-Captain, Cullen rallied the other Templars against her and they followed him. He fought for something new then, for something other than distraction or the mindless path he_ _’d been set upon since becoming a teenager. He fought because he knew, deep in his bones, that it was the right thing to do. _

_He fought alongside his brethren, alongside Maker damned Hawke and even Fenris, who had returned for the fight out of no loyalty to Hawke but for the same reasons as Cullen. The _right thing_ required personal issues to be set aside and for the first time in almost ten years, Cullen did just that. _

_*_

_When it was done, Cullen__’s hearing was damaged from a blow to the head, but Meredith was dead and they had succeeded in… something. Something good, he hoped. Something _right_. _

_Fenris hurried over, splattered in gore and blood, especially around his wrists. Cullen_ _’s teeth were chattering slightly and it was so strange because when he fought and killed, he never shook, he never felt this way. Fenris took his face in his hands and made Cullen look at him. There was a ringing in his ears and the blood up Fenris’s wrists reminded him of Merek, of the two others in the Tower and that made him laugh even though he wanted to cry. _

_Fenris was saying something and Cullen knew it was probably very reassuring. He had a nice voice, that elf. Cullen nodded like he could understand anything. Fenris looked back, scowling intently at someone else and then everything went very dark. _

_*_

_When he awoke, he was not alone. The sensation was deeply alien and he couldn_ _’t quite place how he’d known, but Fenris was sitting in a chair near to his bed. Cullen’s armour had been removed and his head was bandaged. _

_Fenris leaned forward and thank the Maker, when he spoke, Cullen could hear him. _

_‘Water?’ _

_Cullen nodded but then quickly caught himself. _ _‘Um, I… maybe if there—’_

_Fenris had Cullen_ _’s own waterskin, the one with the clasp that indicated if anyone had tampered with it. ‘I haven’t opened it,’ Fenris said, passing it to his friend. ‘No one has.’_

_Cullen felt a deep prickle of shame to be treated like a child. Fenris knew about his fear but to have it be so blatant between them_ _… Cullen was hardly proud of himself. He opened the complex lid latch and Fenris sat back a little. _

_‘You’re all right?’ Cullen asked, panting slightly from drinking his own water too fast. ‘The others?’_

_Fenris slanted an eyebrow, mouth twisting. _ _‘Hawke lives to ruin another day. The rest were fine when I left them. Your Knight-Commander is extremely dead. How do you feel?’_

_‘Fine,’ came the automatic response. _Fine_ was anything less than dead and they both knew it. If he was truly hurt, there would be healers, potions. __‘I took a hit to the head, I think.’_

_‘You think right, Templar,’ Fenris teased, tiny smile giving Cullen the strength to sit fully up. ‘I wanted to make sure, before…’_

_Cullen nodded, swallowing. _ _‘Before you leave. I thought as much. I appreciate you returning when you did. It could have gone a different way without you. Are you going back, then?’_

_Fenris looked down at his clasped hands. _ _‘To Tevinter, yes.’_

_Silence bubbled between them and Cullen bit down as hard as he dared on his bottom lip without piercing the skin because Maker fucking damn it all to _void_, he was not going to sit there and shed tears like some kind of—_

_‘I’m going to miss you,’ Fenris said quietly. ‘You’re the only thing in this whole place I genuinely regret leaving behind. I’d ask you to come with me, but… well. Maybe one day.’_

_It was burning inside Cullen, the compulsion to say it, just say it. _

Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me, please_. _

_‘Yes, I’ll miss you too,’ he said instead, fighting for control because the thought of Fenris leaving him, truly leaving, had his stomach in knots, his heart in a frantic rhythm born of panic. ‘You’ve been a good friend to me.’_

_‘And you to me. Have you any idea of where you’ll be in a few months’ time?’_

_Cullen clutched the covers tightly to stop his hands from trembling. _ _‘Um, not as such, no. Here, probably. Why?’_

_Fenris frowned. _ _‘So I can write to you.’_

_‘Oh. You’d still want to… write to me, then?’_

_The elf seemed somewhat annoyed at that. _ _‘Distance doesn’t dissolve the bonds of friendship, Cullen. I’m your friend here and I’ll be your friend in Tevinter. The only difference is that I’ll not have you with me while I cut a fearsome path through slavers and evil-doers.’_

_Cullen laughed then, ashamed when he blinked tears down his cheeks and no matter how quickly he wiped them away, Fenris had to have seen. What was _wrong_ with him?_

_‘We’ll write to each other, see if we can’t expunge that reputation for being broody and laconic along the way.’_

_Fenris was openly teasing now but there was no malice or spite in it. He was teasing because they were friends and friends could do that sometimes, especially when things were raw and awkward. _

_Cullen swallowed, eyes closing. _ _‘Why does everyone always want to write me fucking letters?’_

_Fenris said nothing for such a long time that Cullen had actually managed to gather himself in the painful silence, pull himself together and regret his weakness. Fenris looked up as he shifted to get out of the narrow bed and those green eyes held him in place, white hair framing them as surely as the currently dormant lyrium. _

_Plainly, without inflection, Fenris said, _ _‘Maybe because they love you.’_

_*_

_He was drunk the day he met Cassandra Pentaghast. _

_‘Knight-Commander Cullen?’ she enquired warily, standing in the doorway of his new, slightly less cramped office. _

_‘Acting, but yes.’_

_‘May I come in?’_

_He gestured vaguely and she did not comment on his lack of manners. The impressive woman whose name he already knew took a seat and gave him a hard stare. _

_‘I would not trouble you without good reason,’ she prefaced and because Cullen was low, he had no patience for it. _

_‘State your business, Seeker.’_

_She inclined her head as he poured more whiskey. _ _‘Very well. A friend of mine has recommended you for a position within an organisation we are—’_

_‘I know what you intend to build,’ he said, interrupting her rudely. ‘Your friend is mine also.’_

_A dark eyebrow lifted. _ _‘Then you know the importance of my visit here.’_

_‘I’m not the man you want,’ he said curtly. ‘There are others, plenty of others I could recommend, far better suited to the job than I would be.’_

_Cassandra nodded and sat back in the chair, glancing around. _

_‘Kirkwall is a terrible place.’_

_Cullen shrugged. _ _‘Depends on your point of view.’_

_‘No, it is a terrible place but some people like terrible places. For them, carnage and cruelty suits their tastes. Are you such a man, acting Knight-Commander?’_

_His jaw worked, staring down at the desk. _ _‘It would seem that way, yes.’_

_‘I disagree and so does Leliana. You save lives, Cullen. You save lives every day. Your reputation precedes you. Every Templar I spoke with on my way here had nothing but positive things to say of you.’_

_He sipped his whiskey. _ _‘They’re good soldiers.’_

_‘They have a good leader, or at least now they do. You know what will become of the Order in time, Cullen. You know what is coming after this attack.’_

_‘My duty is to Kirkwall.’_

_‘You have given enough to Kirkwall. You have plateaued here and you know it. If you remain, they will keep you on as Knight-Commander but you will never know if you could have been more. Could you truly command, I wonder? Could you lead and guide people into a battle of your own choosing? Would you learn from the mistakes of your predecessors or will you further entrench them?’_

_‘I will not leave my people behind in this void hole.’_

_‘And I would never ask you to. Bring whoever will follow you, Cullen. I think you’ll be surprised how many will do so of their own volition. There is another battle yet to come, a fight bigger than anything you or I have faced.’_

_Cassandra got to her feet before he could reply. _ _‘I will return tomorrow. That’s when I leave. Have your answer by then.’_

_*_

_Cullen wrote in Jassen_ _’s letter that night as he considered the offer. The desire to remain in Kirkwall, among darkness and danger and an ever-present justification for killing mages was strong._

_But he couldn_ _’t live that way forever and there would never be enough reasons around the edges to die. _

_He wanted more. He needed it, if he was to go on living. There had been reasons to live once, reasons to wake up beyond duty and routine. _

_Cullen had nothing to lose when he packed up his things and addressed what remained of the Order. _

_*_

_It was a chance to begin again. A chance to be on the right side of history and Cullen decided, when the elf with the mark agreed to help them, that he would give everything he had this time. A cause worth dying for, an opportunity to save lives and put a stop to a great and terrible evil. _

_The breach was green and malevolent. It flooded the air around it with mana, a cloying taste like heavy metal and ozone in the back of Cullen_ _’s throat, making his teeth grind in the perpetual and well ingrained need for lyrium. He threw himself into his work, he tried to build himself into something… new. _

_He found a pelt at the bottom of his trunk, crimson and black fur from a red lion he_ _’d killed well over a decade ago. A hunting trip, a majestic beast with an already broken leg. Jassen had bid him leave it, there was no sport in killing a lame lion but Cullen couldn’t bear it’s suffering. He’d killed it quick, a deep, swift blow to the heart as the others came upon him, applauding and cheering. A week later, he’d been gifted the fur but had never worn it, not after Jassen had made his disdain clear. _

_And though Jassen had been a part of the memory - he was a part of so many - when Cullen wore it, he didn_ _’t think of Jassen, of that boy whose last and middle names had been eroded by lyrium, by the blurred years in Kirkwall, by pain and blood and alcohol and shame. _

_He had Harrit craft him new armour and the fur was made into a mantle. It was warm and shaggy and it reminded him that even though it was shameful, he had been a kind man once. _

_*_

_Cullen was thirty years old when he met Dorian fucking Pavus._

_*_

‘No, no, no.’

Slipping.

‘_Look_ at me, Dorian.’

Fading.

_‘Please_ look at me!’

Leaving.

‘No, _no_, you have to stay with me. Maker, please. Dorian. _Dorian!__’_

Jassen was laughing and the world was coming to an end.

Cullen felt like he was falling, had nothing to hold onto, no gravity to anchor him. He couldn’t keep Dorian’s gaze on him, couldn’t keep him _there,_ no matter how he tried, how hard he shook him.

He needed to focus. His hands on Dorian’s shoulders felt numb and clumsy, trying to wake the mage from sleep, but it wasn’t sleep.

Because even in sleep, Dorian was easy to rouse. Warm and curled like a cat around him, dreams mostly shallow unless they were nightmares. Easy to wake, easy to draw a smile from if it was waking him with kisses or even better, with tea _and_ kisses.

Dorian was slipping away right in front of him. A curse that Cullen had never understood, had sometimes doubted even existed, was taking him. Halward had looked upon his son and seen him in love. Fate had been patient and all good things to those who wait.

Dorian was _fading_ and Cullen could not, _would_ not, accept that. If Dorian faded, so faded the light of the world.

‘You’re going to stay with me, you understand?’ He shook the mage for emphasis but it just wasn’t working. Cullen looked around, blinking through his confusion, through a sensation that was far ahead of him in terms of comprehension. Halward was staring at Dorian, bound tightly by the chains. Nothing made sense, nothing came together to form a solid and cohesive picture and all Cullen knew was that Dorian needed to wake up, to stay with him, to not fade away.

Cullen opened his mouth to say Dorian’s name again, to say it louder, _make_ him hear it but the name caught on something sharp.

Dorian went lax, body suddenly soft and pliable as he exhaled in a way that Cullen recognised. It rendered him still, struck him deeper than if he’d been cleaved in half. He knew the sound, the slight rattle and the sudden _loss_ of anything resembling strength in muscles.

How many times had he held dying soldiers in Kirkwall? He’d loved none of them, though. Had regretted their loss and allowed it to fuel his desire for vengeance but death had never threatened to take him down with it. Not until then.

Dorian was _gone_ and Cullen… Cullen simply ceased to be, in all but basic functions.

The mage’s eyes remained open but they were unfocused and Cullen railed against such an expression. Those grey eyes were sharp, they were intelligent and passionate and stormy, the source of all stability in the world.

‘No. No, Dorian, no. Please, please don’t. _Please!_’

As the world tilted, as it swayed and blurred around the edges, Cullen shook Dorian. He put hands to his face and tried to wake him but all his movements were slow and stupid, mired in treacle and a phenomenon so terrible he dare not examine it. Not grief, not loss, but something far deeper, something resembling a death sentence.

And then he felt the magic. It was moving slowly from Dorian _into_ Cullen, into his core, the place Dorian had carved out for himself, for a magic born of them both. It came in a warm, mournful rush.

Cullen closed his eyes tightly, trying to breathe through it. The magic brought such _sadness _into him that it made him dizzy, threatened to overwhelm him. He took it into himself, cradled it then and although he couldn’t accept what was happening, could not contemplate it on anything but a surface level… he held the magic within him, and sought to give it what comfort he was able.

He loved it, their magic, as he loved Dorian.

Cullen couldn’t stop saying no, rocking back and forth slightly. He prayed, he pleaded, he would have done _anything_.

After a long period of time - or perhaps not, perhaps only seconds - in which Dorian refused to wake, body loose and horrifyingly _empty_, a dull agony blossomed right in the centre of Cullen’s chest and the force of it, coupled with the energy of _denying _it, made the room spin. Cullen held fast to Dorian, kept himself upright because if he fell, he might never get up again. The magic spread to every part of him and it was lightweight, despite the crushing desolation it brought. No anchor, no tie to the fade. No ties to…

Cullen _refused. _He’d endured a smaller fraction of this pain four times before, but never like this. There was always an element of uncertainty when he thought he’d lost Dorian in the past. This - Dorian lying still, his eyes open and unseeing – this he could not bear. He refused to believe it and that refusal morphed into weak, fractured anger.

‘No, no, _no_, come on! You can’t do this to me again! You d-don’t get to do this to me _five times_, you hear me?’ Cullen yelled, shaking him hard enough that, were the mage awake, he would have glared at Cullen reproachfully. ‘Don’t you _dare_ do this to me! I won’t let you, I won’t _let_ you!’

He couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t make himself remember what they were doing there, what was even _happening. _

The world had narrowed to Dorian and Dorian was not _there_.

*

_The world had narrowed and Cullen wasn__’t entirely sure what had happened or how, but that it had _happened_ was certainly not up for debate. It was breath punched from his lungs, a swooping feeling in his sternum, the sensation of falling all the while standing perfectly still. _

_It was lightning lancing his very centre, a jolt that bypassed years of isolation and dusty, grey armour meant to keep people, mages especially, very much _away_. _

_And it was a fucking mage that caused all of it. _

_Tevinter by the faint accent. Ridiculous, highly impractical armour, typical mage. Cullen gave him a thorough once over, the way he did with all mages - assessing threat and potential damage should they strike - but something tightened in his chest, something that hadn_ _’t been there for a long time. _

_There was a casually rude way about him, like he hoped to piss off as many people as possible on his way through the world. He was tall, well built for a mage. Most often, they were skinny and frail, keeping their distance from anything physical. Pale, sickly creatures for the most part. This man was not like that. He was tanned, healthy, arrogant and strong. _

_‘Then you’re… staying?’_

_Maker, but she sounded so hopeful, so happy. Cullen frowned at Lavellan, at their Herald, and then at the slouching, haughty mage. Just lurking there, undermining the importance of their hallway gathering like he had any place in the Inquisition, regardless of how apparently _helpful_ he__’d been. _

_The mage smirked. __‘Oh, didn’t I mention? The South is so charming and rustic.’ Grey eyes slid onto Cullen and held fast. ‘I _adore_ it to little pieces.__’_

_Fuck. _

_The feeling stretched and twisted, making room, making itself _known _just in case Cullen hadn__’t already noticed it yet. _

_‘There’s no one I’d rather be stranded in time with, future or present.’_

_Cullen couldn__’t help it, looked at Lavellan then with an undeniably sceptical glare. To _warmly_ invite a mage of Tevinter into the fold, to make jokes and act so__… so openly affectionate. It grated on Cullen, set him on edge even as the new feeling took up residence beneath his ribcage. _

_The mage smirked again, rolling his shoulders and pushing away from the wall upon which he_ _’d been so insolently leaning. He was just the type to lean in such a way. Indecent, provocative, brazen. _

_Beautiful. _

_Fingernails dug into the palm of Cullen_ _’s right hand, not daring to risk the left. That reaction would be nothing short of excruciating, gloves or not. _

_They quipped back and forth like old friends and Cullen_ _’s gaze moved, quite of its own accord, down to the exposed skin of the mage’s upper arm and partial pectoral. Who wore such things? To leave such a vulnerable part exposed like that, so close to his heart, it was nothing short of staggering. _

_Fucking mages. _

_Fucking beautiful, grey eyed, tall, strong mages with well-built arms and full lips and hair that Cullen wanted to touch, wanted to—_

_‘I’ll…uh, I’ll begin preparations to march on the summit. Maker willing, the mages will be enough to grant us victory.’_

_‘Very good, Commander. Dorian, join us in the War Room.’_

_Cullen fully expected him to refuse, to attend to his own selfish matters as was the way of mages when given the opportunity. _

_‘Of course,’ this _Dorian_ said, falling into step alongside Lavellan as the pair led the way. Leliana was watching Cullen carefully as always so he kept himself neutral, allowing only an outward expression of mild irritability as they followed the other two. The pair chatted pleasantly and when Cullen closed the door behind them with more force than was strictly necessary, Lavellan _laughed_. _

_The mage had made her laugh. It was the first time Cullen had ever heard such a thing from Ellana Lavellan. _

_‘Well, let’s do this properly, shall we?’ she said, expression bright and easy as the mage settled beside her, the table between them all. She then went about introducing everyone to Dorian. Cassandra first, Leliana second, Josephine next and then…_

_‘Cullen, this is Dorian Pavus. Dorian, this is Cullen Rutherford, Commander of our armies.’_

_The mage was just openly smirking now, smile pretty and distracting, drawing Cullen_ _’s attention doubtlessly by design. Cullen kept himself steady or so he hoped, but it was unexpectedly difficult. The full weight of the mage’s attention was a heavy, dangerous thing and Cullen wished it would move away. _

_Dorian, in a warm, deep voice, said, __‘A pleasure.’ Striking grey eyes travelled over the length of Cullen’s body then, taking him in the way Cullen had done earlier, except Cullen’s observation had been to assess a potential enemy, whereas Dorian’s focus was decidedly more… carnal. Assessing a potential lover, measuring compatibility, seeking out things he liked. Cullen felt horribly exposed, felt _seen_. _

_He dug his fingernails deep enough to cut the skin, heart betraying him in a precarious rhythm. The back of his neck burned, arm pits stinging and everywhere those grey eyes moved, he felt gooseflesh erupt like it was a physical touch, featherlight and teasing. _

_Fucking Maker, what was _wrong_ with him? If he didn__’t know better, he would have said it was magic. _

_When his unhurried study of Cullen concluded, the mage gave him a deeply patronising smile. __‘Oh, don’t look _so_ happy to see me now, Commander. The wind might change and then you__’ll be stuck wandering around with a love-struck expression all day.’_

_It showed on his face, Cullen was sure of it; the disgust that gripped him, a strange kind of hatred, shockingly intense for someone he didn__’t _know. _It surprised even Cullen, must have been positively alarming to the others, but Dorian did not seem intimidated. _

_Quite the contrary. _

_Dauntless and evidently delighted with what he saw of Cullen, the mage waited like he had all the time in the world. The expectation of a reply weighed heavily in the air around them. _

_It came out tighter than intended. _ _‘Pleasure indeed.’_

_Dorian liked that, cocked his hip and made a deep, soft kind of chuckle which Cullen felt in the very base of his spine. His gaze travelled low again, all the way down to the vicinity of Cullen_ _’s hips and then, quite pointedly, resided on Cullen’s sword. The place where his hand frequently rested, an old habit long since ingrained after memorable, youthful failure. _

_Cullen noticed how the mage_ _’s eyes darkened somewhat, how there was a rougher element of undeniable desire in all the steely grey when he looked at Cullen once more and then away, focused on the rest of the room. _

_Oh, this was going to be a fucking nightmare. _

_*_

Cullen looked around, struggling to think clearly. Panic made everything fuzzy, made him tired and nauseous. Dorian was so still, so… _quiet_. There had to be someone around who could help.

Hawke. _Hawke_ knew healing magic, except… he wasn’t there. Fuck, Cullen just needed to bring Dorian back, treat it like an injury. Cullen had saved people from the jaws of death dozens of times. It was no different, not really. He just had to…

_Maker_.

Cullen _knew how_ to revive someone whose heart had stopped. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

He laid Dorian flat, taking care to protect the back of his head. It had been many years since he’d done this but they’d all learnt the procedure, a necessity due to the dangers of over-enthusiastic lyrium consumption.

Cullen placed his hands over Dorian’s heart as Jassen crouched on the other side of the mage, opposite Cullen.

‘You can’t wake him, lover.’

Cullen only shook his head, denying and blocking Jassen out as best he could. He began to compress the ribs above Dorian’s heart. He could do this, he just had to remember how many times they’d been taught. Was it twenty? Eighteen?

‘It isn’t his heart that failed him,’ Jassen said quietly as Cullen lost count, pushing down harder each time. ‘Death has taken him whole. Even if you revive his body, he will not be inside it.’

‘Shut up,’ Cullen panted, counting mentally, arms compressing, hands pushing and _pushing_ over the same place where Dorian had _pushed _all that magic into him once, filled a void and birthed a bond. ‘I can bring him back.’

‘You can’t,’ Jassen said, placing his hand on Cullen’s shoulder. ‘He’s gone.’

Cullen shrugged out of the touch, unable to focus on anything but Dorian who lay beneath his frantic ministrations, beautiful eyes open and fixed unseeingly on some point behind Cullen. Empty. They were _empty_.

No.

_No_.

It was temporary, that look. Nothing but temporary. All Cullen had to do was bring back that strong, steady heartbeat and those grey eyes would flood with life once more, with everything that was Dorian. His mage would cough and gasp and Cullen would hold him tight, protect him always from then on. Never to be parted, magic swirling between them.

His arms were aching and he kept losing count. Why couldn’t he _count_?

And nothing was happening.

He checked to see if Dorian was breathing, checked for any sign of a pulse but it was still and flat.

‘He _is_ gone, Cullen,’ Jassen said softly. ‘And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.’

Cullen froze, his movements coming to a grinding standstill.

‘You’re _sorry_,’ he breathed, brow lifting, expression blank with something like shock but it registered like a stab wound.

‘I’ve never been sorry for anything, but for this I am.’

Slowly, Cullen looked up from Dorian’s chest, hands still pressed over ribs and heart and the world tilted then, it _blurred_. It was rage, transcended. It was whatever came after being too angry to even acknowledge it. It was loss and grief and the refusal to feel _any_ of it because he couldn’t lose Dorian, he would not.

Cullen was paralysed by the enormity of it. He stared at Jassen then, Dorian’s lukewarm body beneath the palm whose scar had originated in this very place.

‘You loved him,’ Jassen said, like he understood. ‘And I hated that, but it was real and it was beautiful in its way. I’m sorry for your loss.’

Trembling and thunderstruck, Cullen uttered, ‘He is _not_ lost.’

‘He’s gone, you must accept it.’

‘He will never be lost while he has me. I will bring him back.’

Jassen was quiet then and Cullen couldn’t remember why that was probably bad, could not _make_ himself care about anything beyond the fact that Dorian was still and silent.

‘Dorian,’ Halward gasped from behind Cullen. ‘Oh Maker, please, no.’

‘You loved him _more_ than me?’ Jassen whispered and Cullen tried to think, tried desperately to think because his mind was a swamp and he had to wade through it in a desperate attempt to get free, to remember what to do.

‘Cullen,’ Halward gasped, so wretched that Cullen barely recognised the voice, Tevinter accent and all. ‘Cullen, is he…?’

There was no answer Cullen could give that would not kill him too.

‘I’m… I’ll bring him back,’ he said to Halward then, but precious seconds were slipping through his fingers and Dorian was so still, body losing warmth. ‘I just have to… um… I just…’

‘There’s _nothing_ you can do,’ Jassen told him, colder that time. ‘You can’t bring him back any more than you could save me.’

Dorian’s magic _flashed_ inside Cullen then and in a tumbling rush, he remembered. Dead things come to life, crawling up from the earth, darkest purple and reanimated. Dorian was a necromancer. Dorian brought things back to life all the time.

Cullen could bring Dorian _back_.

‘I can… I can use blood m-magic,’ Cullen stammered, pulse pounding in his ears as something like hope began to cut through the fog. ‘Yes,’ Cullen said, turning towards Halward, grasping Dorian’s fingers as if losing contact would somehow mean losing him for real. ‘Halward, you—’

A hand shot out and caught Cullen by the throat, whipcord fast and tight enough to cause Cullen to spasm reflexively. His heart jolted with adrenaline, shock soaked instincts flaring to life once more.

Jassen was dangerous, Jassen was _alive. _

And Jassen was the reason that Dorian… was _not_.

‘He’s _gone_,’ Jassen spat with malicious, forceful intent, holding Cullen in place. Whatever Cullen was drowning in, it turned fucking _murderous_. ‘He was naive, just like you, lover. As if I didn't know what you were planning with the chains. As if I would let your friends make their way in here so easily. They’ll circle for days before this place allows them entry.’ He was fully strangling Cullen, no hint of holding back. Fingers digging into the trachea, nails breaking skin and all Cullen’s air gone, lungs flailing. ‘Did you think I would let you kill me… _with fucking magic?__’_

With such effort it physically hurt, Cullen released Dorian and punched Jassen as hard as he could in the face. The other man’s head rocked to the side but he didn’t release Cullen. Jassen had always been able to take a punch. He clung to Cullen’s throat, dug deep with intent to penetrate, fingers curled like a snake.

Cullen’s focus shifted, moved entirely and wholly onto Jassen then as the storm within, as all that magic bound with grief… found a true target.

*

_Quiet nights found Cullen drinking alone in his quarters with the mage_ _’s face burned into the back of his eyelids, heart refusing to quell, no matter how much Cullen drowned it in alcohol. _

_Quiet nights in Haven were stifling and dull and absent of things to kill. Kirkwall had been a safety net in those terms. A never ending battle, a fight to the death around every corner. Haven was peaceful and domestic. _

_Safe. _

_Safety was an itch beneath Cullen_ _’s skin. It was oppressive heat, made all the worse by the window that didn’t open wide enough in the room where he was expected to sleep. He drank and he stared and no one came bursting in, no urgent interruptions, no deaths, no mutilations._

_It was only at the lowest points of his new life that he wrote to Jassen. He_ _’d moved to the back page, having run out of space on the front. The paper was thin and crisp. He was careful with it, wary of destroying it even though sometimes he longed to do just that. It was a rotting addiction, a decayed habit, turning to that letter. _

_He wrote about Dorian for the first time. It spilled out of him in the shade of anger, but even when he read it back he could see what lay beneath it. _

_Quill tip trembling, he wrote Dorian_ _’s name in the top right hand corner of the front page. Stared at it for a long time, that night. _

Dorian Pavus is a reason.

_And he was. He was a reason to die as surely as every other unbearable thing on the list. Memories, daily difficulties, parts of his life that plagued him. That fucking mage had strolled into Cullen_ _’s newfound reason to live and destroyed it all so carelessly, so effortlessly that part of Cullen admired it. Often admired wanton, absolute destruction the same way he couldn’t help but think the red light that had rent apart the Chantry in Kirkwall was oddly beautiful. _

_The space was filled, the reasons were a circle. It was enough, at least by the childish standard he_ _’d set for himself so many years ago. Dorian Pavus was the final reason to let go of life and leave at last. _

_He stared and when the ink was dry, he traced the very tip of his index finger over that first name. Dorian. It was a pretty name. Unusual, musical almost, much like the mage himself. _

_Cullen could feel the desire to smile and he hated himself for it. _

_He sat back, breathing harshly. The sensation returned, as if it had ever truly left, and he didn_ _’t know how to counter it. _

_There was a longing, a _need _to go and find the mage. Speak with him, learn more about him. Hear that voice shape his title, teasing and playful. He wanted to see Dorian more than he could admit. He longed to feel that jolt, that frisson of excitement from just being _near_ him. _

_His gaze moved left to the other name. Jassen had been the biggest reason to want to die for so long now but if he truly pressed himself, it wasn__’t valid anymore. If he discounted every other reason to die and was left with only Jassen and the unbearable torment he’d suffered in losing his best friend, the man he’d loved, and was _honest_ with himself__… he knew it wasn’t enough to want to die. _

_Dorian made him regret his entire existence, he made him want to die. Sometimes, it was a physical thing; a feeling in his gut, an extreme kind of pain that had nothing to do with injury. It was new, completely new to Cullen. Bittersweet and never easy, Dorian elicited one agonising emotion after another, dredged _feeling_ from him with the simplest of interactions. He made Cullen want to smile, to fucking laugh. To know him better, to know him as a friend might. To fall into him, to earn the right to kiss and care for and__…_

_Cullen threw the bottle against the nearest wall. The impact was disgustingly disappointing and because the walls were wood, the glass didn_ _’t even fucking shatter. It landed on a fur, spilling in weak glugs and Cullen watched it, trembling all over. _

_To feel such things for a mage, for another man who was the living embodiment of everything opposite to Jassen, it was pure torment. _

_When he slept, rigid with the sensation of being possessed, he dreamed of Dorian and then denied it the next day. _

_*_

He and the magic were one, bound in grief and incomprehensible loss and Jassen was the reason for _all_ of it. Cullen had never been able to commune with the magic the way Dorian could, but he felt the intent there and it matched his own.

It swirled, built and then rushed into his hands, familiar power waiting to be shaped by thought and desire.

Cullen made _force_, he made enough force to smash the air between him and Jassen and it hit too hard, too fast, jarred in his bones but he didn’t care.

Jassen was shoved away, finally _away_ from Dorian and his grip around Cullen’s throat vanished. The Commander didn't allow himself the luxury of gasping, got to his feet slowly and purposefully, every single part of him vibrating with a fury that resonated like _death_, like real live fucking _genocide_.

‘Get up,’ he snarled at Jassen. ‘_Get up_!’

Smiling, panting, Jassen kicked up. He wiped his mouth, licked blood off the back of his palm as Cullen’s magic built again, prepared to shatter the world, bring the skies down around them, raise the oceans and _boil_ them if that was what it took to kill Jassen.

‘Yes,’ the other man breathed, swaying slightly, but recovering fast. Cullen could taste it when Jassen drew magic into himself, _borrowed magics, _from others nearby, from blood mages beneath him. Cullen’s magic bared its teeth, growled low and lethal because they were going to annihilate this thing and then they would bring Dorian back, bring him back to a world made better. ‘Give it to me, lover. Give it all to me.’

_Fire. _

The magic fuelled it and Cullen shaped it, aimed it at Jassen like before, only hotter, so much hotter now but Jassen’s magic met his halfway. No shield this time. He rained down an ocean of red water against Cullen’s indigo fire. The water rolled and crashed like a wave, flooding the chamber like all the blood in the world burst free, like the day Jassen had split a woman open and Cullen had been forced to finish it only this was enough to drown in. Dorian’s body was briefly drowned and for a moment, Cullen panicked but then he floated, Dorian _floated_ and Cullen remembered that bodies… bodies tended to float.

Fire and water met and they tangled, burning and dousing, struggling for dominance. Thinking quickly, Cullen dropped to his knees, shifting the shape of his thoughts. He plunged his hands into all Jassen’s red water and he made it _cold_. Ice and frost and freezing what he could, he sent it towards Jassen, trapping the man in red ice from the knees down and while he was distracted, Cullen lifted another hand and froze the water coming from Jassen’s palm. Made it heavy and sharp, brought it down upon Jassen with more force than gravity could lay claim to. He smashed that blood coloured iceberg atop Jassen and it shattered, exploded, the shards flying off in every direction.

Cullen managed to make a shield around Halward, but failed to bring his own up in time. The jagged ice shards cut his bare chest, his upper arms. He managed to protect his eyes but it had given Jassen all the time he needed to create an offensive attack.

Jassen’s magic shook the walls of Kinloch Hold, made the stones beneath Cullen’s feet tremble. That shallow lake of red ice splintered and cracked. Jassen shaped something _monstrous_.

Cullen saw a mouth, he saw _teeth_ and he saw one great, white eye atop the vast, scaled head; a sea creature, a behemoth of Jassen’s own creation or something forgotten by time and lost to the depths. It swam in the air, big enough that it’s fins brushed the top of the chamber. The single eye fixed upon Cullen and it moved towards him, groaning and gaping.

Before Cullen had the chance to falter, his magic urged him onward, flooded him with what he needed to match it. As the red sea demon made for Cullen, intent on swallowing him whole, Cullen threw his hands forward, palms exposed and that magic took over, shaped itself, twisted right out of his body and _formed. _

A snake; a glorious, twisting writhing two headed snake. The heads were feline and ferocious, unfamiliar to Cullen in all but _intent_. Purple and gold, it glided through the air like the behemoth but so much faster. Jassen’s beast was far bigger but it was slow.

Cullen urged his magic on and it shot forward, silent and bright.

The creations clashed in the space between Jassen and Cullen and the impact was such that it split the atmosphere, dented the fabric of the world in which they stood and made Cullen gasp, lungs spasming. Light erupted, sensation simply _exploded_ and Cullen could feel every part of the clash because he was the magic and the magic was _him_.

The snake went right for the eye, wrapping itself around the monster, tightening where possible and narrowly avoiding the _snap_ of almighty jaws that surely would have cut it in two. It took every ounce of magic to maintain the manifestation and Cullen’s whole body was screaming with effort, taut with the pain of forming such a thing and bidding it battle Jassen’s own.

A silent roar had Cullen flinching from sensation rather than sound as the snake sank it’s teeth into that lidless eye. The behemoth writhed and shifted fast, too fast, caught the body of the snake in between dread jaws and bit down _hard_.

Cullen screamed, white hot agony in his midriff. It was pain unlike anything but the snake did not stop. Even as the jaws clenched, teeth piercing and stabbing like a dozen knives, the snake dug deeper into the eye, burrowing inward, penetrating and _killing_.

The jaws loosened in another strangulating roar and the snake got free, not pursuing freedom when offered and retreating, but pushing deeper and deeper into the eye, seeking the source, seeking the _power_.

A sound tore from Jassen and the beast lit up like a barrel of gatlock and then _disintegrated_. Jassen’s arms were thrown wide, head back as the monster died and Cullen’s magic howled victoriously, bitterly.

Jassen fell to his knees and Cullen stayed upright only by force of will. He called the magic back, bade it retreat within but it did not. It turned its dual gaze upon Jassen, upon the man on his knees, clutching his chest with his red magic in melting shards all around him. It was wounded, the magic, bleeding and broken around the middle but it was strong enough to _finish_ Jassen, to make him pay for what he’d brought about, the loss that neither Cullen nor the magic could even contemplate such was the depth of it.

It sped at him, murderous and vicious and Cullen could not deny the opportunity, wanted to see Jassen in _pieces_ like all his red, like all his _failure. _

But Jassen raised both hands when the snake was inches away and it ground to a halt, trembling mid-air with the effort of being kept at bay. Jassen was panting, he was so pale and so close to being dead like Cullen wanted, but he muttered something, spoke words Cullen could neither hear nor recognise and the magic _shuddered_.

_No. _

It shuddered and it _groaned_, that beautiful, bright snake and then it bent to Jassen’s will, became forcefully anchored inside of him and Cullen lost the tether, lost control before he’d even realised what Jassen was doing.

Jassen had drawn upon Cullen’s magic.

Red polluting the purple, turning the gold a sickly pink, the snake juddered and turned like a poorly controlled puppet, fighting Jassen to the best of its ability but it could not hold out.

Cullen stared at the snake, at the two pairs of crystal blackberry coloured eyes as they focused on him and then, unwillingly, attacked.

*

_Lavellan was perceptive, far more than people likely gave her credit for. _

_‘Cullen,’ she prefaced when he hung back in the war room as requested. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about… well. Is there a problem between you and Dorian?’_

_Neutral, unassailable, Cullen held her questioning gaze. _ _‘Not at all, I assure you.’_

_‘Hmm,’ she said, but didn’t seem convinced. ‘It’s just that there seems to be a level of hostility that’s rather hard to ignore.’_

_Cullen_ _’s grip tightened fractionally around the hilt of his sword but other than that, he remained outwardly flawless. ‘Dorian enjoys riling people, attempting to foster a negative reaction. Is that what you refer to, Herald?’_

_Lavellan rolled her eyes. _ _‘May we speak plainly? We don’t know one another very well, but I care about you as I care for everyone within this… whatever it is.’_

_‘The Inquisition?’_

_‘I’m responsible for everyone,’ the young elf went on, no trace of weariness, no experience behind such a statement. What did she know of being _responsible _for people en masse? Cullen bore her no ill will but it was the typical kind of grandstanding he tended to associate with people of her youth. __‘And if there is any danger to anyone, I need to know about it in advance.’_

_‘Danger?’_

_‘I would not lend credence to rumours and idle gossip—’_

_‘Kirkwall.’_

_She sighed, rubbing her eyes. _ _‘Yes. I have to ask, are you a danger to Dorian? To mages?’_

_Cullen stared at her for a long moment before he took a breath to answer. __‘Your question is… deeply insulting, Herald. Forgive me, but I am not a _danger_ to anyone who does not pose danger to me in the first instance.__’_

_‘It is not my intention to insult you.’_

_He straightened, surveying her, glad for the distance between them then. _

_‘You had no choice about who serves as your Commander. The others, Dorian, Sera, the Iron Bull… you had a choice whether or not to make them a part of this. You did not select me personally.’_

_Ellana Lavellan stared down. _ _‘No, I did not.’_

_Cullen nodded to himself, a cold grip of fear tightening at the base of his spine. _ _‘You doubt my ability to command?’_

_‘No, not at all.’_

_‘Just my ability to restrain myself from indulging in wanton violence against mages?’_

_‘Sometimes,’ she sighed, meeting his gaze slowly. ‘You look at Dorian like you want to kill him. Others have seen it, others have commented.’_

_‘I do not like Dorian.’_

_‘That, if nothing else, is very clear.’_

Well, there was one good thing at the very least.

_‘And perhaps it would not be such a problem that you did not like him—'_

_‘Were I not so dangerous?’_

_‘I do not believe you are dangerous.’_

_Cullen shifted and tipped his chin. _ _‘You don’t know me.’_

_Lavellan blinked. __‘I would like to. It wouldn’t be an issue that you didn’t like him, as Vivienne does not like Sera for example, _except_ that Dorian can be__… provocative.’_

_For a moment, Cullen remained silent, somewhat stunned by the fact she had said such a thing about Dorian, a mage she was rapidly befriending as far as Cullen could see. _ _‘I pose no danger to anyone who does not first intend me danger themselves.’_

_‘Yes, so you’ve said, _however_, I think Dorian does pose you danger.__’_

_Fingers tightened, leather groaning beneath the grip. _ _‘Oh? How so?’_

_She levelled him with a steady gaze. _ _‘I think we both know how.’_

_Cullen bitterly resented the way the back of his neck turned impossibly hot, how all that heat threatened to flood his cheeks. _ _‘I have perfect control of myself, Herald. No matter what you may have heard, I personally assure you that those matters are firmly in the past and I pose Dorian Pavus no risk whatsoever.’_

_‘Very well. I suppose I can ask no more.’_

_‘Indeed,’ he said heavily, glancing away, somewhat ashamed of his attitude in the face of her evident disappointment. ‘If you have someone in mind better for the position of Commander, you need only say so. I would not dream of outstaying—’_

_‘No,’ she said quickly, somewhat alarmed. ‘Please do not mistake concern for doubt in your abilities. I should not have interfered, it is not my place at all and I regret giving you any cause to question your position here.’ She huffed out a laugh, mirthless and dry. ‘Creators know, this is _your_ Inquisition more than mine. You, Leliana, Cassandra and Josephine started it. I__’m the interloper, the one with the razzle dazzle,’ she added, waving her currently dormant hand. ‘And very little substance. You four are the core. I don’t know what I was even thinking, coming here in all this state.’_

_Oh, for Maker_ _’s sake, now he felt terrible. _

_‘Herald—’_

_‘Ellana.’_

_Cullen cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the blatant informality of such a request and decided to bypass it entirely. __‘I am admittedly the last person to come to for verbal reassurance. I can offer little in the way of such… encouragements the way others might, but please know that you are the beating heart that holds everything together. Without you, we would be strangers, wandering Thedas. You have united us, brought us together and you… you shoulder a great burden.’ He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze. ‘You are not wrong about my dislike of mages. I have experienced many things that have caused me, in the past, to treat them unfairly. To treat them as if they were less than human, all told, but I _want_ to put that behind me. I want to be different. To change. Your decision to side with them and offer a full alliance was difficult for me, but it was the right thing to do and I stand behind you, no matter what. For as long as you__’ll have me, I am _your_ Commander and I will do everything I can not to let you down.__’_

_When he finished, he chanced looking up. She had a rather fond smile in place, arms crossed. _ _‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘That means a great deal to me. Know that I am always here for you, Cullen, should you need a friend.’_

_A friend. He had friends. He had Leliana, sharp and omniscient, deeply caring but unable to comprehend much of what it was that made him _weak_._

_ Fenris, fierce and loyal and miles away; a letter now and then, but not lately. _

_Josephine was sweet and eminently friendly. She had personally overseen the making of his armour, ensuring it turned out far more splendid than his actual instructions to Harrit, which had been something along the lines of _Not Like a Templar, Please.

_ Cassandra was stern and kind in her own way, but she still looked at him sometimes the way she had that day in his temporary offices. _

_It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Lavellan that he didn_ _’t need any more friends, that he had plenty in fact and that was enough. _

_‘Thank you, I would be honoured to consider you a friend… Ellana.’_

_She smiled and he was glad for taking the chance. _

_‘As would I. Well, I’ll let you go. No doubt you’ve a dozen elements that require your attention and I certainly would like to sleep for at least an hour or two before we head to the summit tonight.’_

_As she turned to leave, Cullen found himself blurting out, _ _‘It is difficult with Dorian. There is always a level of mistrust with mages after what I… well, it’s been that way for many years now, but with Dorian, there is something else. You were not wrong to be concerned. I cannot explain it, but he brings out much of the worst in me.’_

_There was no judgement in her dark blue eyes. _ _‘Thank you for telling me. I appreciate your honesty. Appreciate everything about you, as a matter of fact. Get some rest, Commander. Tomorrow, we heal the sky.’_

_*_

The magic sped towards Cullen, a grating sensation present in the air as he felt it try to resist but simply… could _not_. He crossed his arms in front of his face, instinctual habit more than any true belief he could protect himself but as before, the magic ground to a halt.

Cullen had not closed his eyes, had not turned away so he saw it all. Felt the juddering resistance, the barely controlled energy made manifest and given shape. It was within his reach and he was overcome with the urge to touch it, take it into himself and _protect _it because it was _Dorian_, it was the last part of Dorian.

The magic expanded, it shimmered and then it dissipated. Turned to a glittering purple mist and Jassen called it to him, beckoning it easily as he got to his feet. It vanished inside him, like the emanation of steam in reverse.

‘Ooh,’ he said, pretending to shudder. ‘That’s ill fitting.’ He rolled his neck, bones cracking and popping. ‘I can feel how much it hates me. Amazing, really. So _alive_.’

‘Give it back.’

Jassen seemed surprised, mouth quirking. ‘Hmm, let me think about that for a moment.’

Cullen knew it was stupid, knew it was _puerile_ to even ask but he couldn’t bear the idea of it being inside Jassen, contained within such a man.

‘Give it back to me.’

‘No, I think I’ll hold onto it for now, lover. You really would have killed me again, wouldn’t you?’ he sighed and looked around, amusement fading. ‘I’ve made a mess. The same as last time; I’ve made you hate me. Don’t worry. I’ll do better next time. I promise you.’

The red ice water had long since drained down the stairs to the next level, leaving Dorian behind Cullen. He looked back, able to focus again, able to take in details like the fact that they were still _surrounded_ by freshly re-caged Magisters, that Halward was dangerously close to Jassen and that Cullen likely almost killed him at some point. Jassen walked slowly and purposefully towards Cullen.

He tried to breathe through the panic, through the insidious horror of the mere _idea_ that Jassen would take his memories. Dorian was behind him. Dorian was silent, inanimate and empty. Cullen swallowed, closing his eyes against a reality he couldn’t accept. He would bring him back, find a way, no matter what.

‘Jassen,’ he said, swallowing down the sickness. ‘Give me the magic so that I can try to bring him back. If you do that—’

Jassen was close, encroaching with deceptive speed. His eyes flashed. ‘You’ll _what_?’

‘I’ll do anything.’

Jassen tipped his head, frowning. ‘You’ll do that anyway, if I’m patient enough and I _am_ patient, Cullen. I’ll wait for you forever if it means getting it right. Your little _fight_ was so fun, but I’ve been using magic for years. I know things you never will. Your blood mage might have taken me down in a fair fight, but _you_ stand no chance. Besides, there’s nothing you can do for him.’

Cullen’s fists balled, knuckles bleaching. ‘Dorian is a necromancer. His magic—’

‘No magic can retrieve a specific spirit from the Fade. You could shove something _else _in his body if you really wanted to, but he is lost.’

‘I can’t accept that.’

Jassen stopped within reach of Cullen. ‘Try _harder_.’

Ignoring the way his skin crawled to be so near to Jassen, Cullen stood his ground. ‘He would do the same for me.’

‘He’d try and fail. Blood magic or no, you’ll just be calling random spirits and wisps into his body. Believe me, I’ve heard the best magical minds in the world discussing this. Mortalitasi from Nevarra claiming to have successfully raised the dead, but it’s never real. It’s always something _else_.’ Jassen glanced behind him. ‘Tell him, Daddy Pavus.’

Halward was staring at the ground, at the space behind Cullen which meant he was staring at his son and Cullen couldn’t bear to see the loss there, in eyes so familiar to his mage’s. Halward didn’t answer and irritation splintered through Jassen.

He waved his hand and yanked Halward to his feet, the chains dragging him over to them. Up close, it was clear that Halward had been _crying_.

Cullen tried not to think about what Dorian would have said, what kind of quip he’d have made, seeking to lighten the tension.

‘I _said_,’ Jassen intoned, loosening the chains enough that they retracted and formed a single thread around the Magister’s wrists and ankles. ‘Tell him it’s not possible.’

Halward blinked slowly, shaking himself. When his grey eyes met Cullen’s, there was no blame, no resentment; only a gaping, wide open space. The vacuum left behind by his son, Cullen supposed in an abstract, distant kind of way.

‘To walk in the Fade has long since been considered impossible,’ Halward rasped, his stare moving back to the floor. ‘And to have means of finding one soul amongst a countless ocean would be nothing less than hopeless.’

Jassen looked back at Cullen, vindicated. _‘There_.’

Cullen had expected as much, had known there was little hope to be had but hearing it crushed him all the same. His eyes burned, his whole body was fucking _razed_ by a desolation it knew not how to express and it had not even begun to sink in yet. Part of Cullen was still waiting for Dorian to come bursting in; bright and mouthy, saving the day and then haughtily accepting copious praise for it later.

He did everything he could to keep it from showing, but it was becoming too much. What was he meant to do? Maker guide him, Maker take him, how was he supposed to go on breathing?

Something hummed in the air. _You must_, he heard, distorted and unfamiliar in tone, but clear enough to cause him to flinch. Jassen either noted his flinch or heard it himself because he looked around wildly.

‘The fuck was that?’

_You must go on_, it said again, straining greatly to be heard. _You are worthy__… it is why… we chose you_.

The magic. The magic was speaking to him _from inside_ Jassen.

And Jassen was clearly not thrilled about such a thing.,

‘How is it doing that?’ he demanded, shaken and angry. ‘Make it stop!’

‘Let it back inside me,’ Cullen said. ‘It needs to be inside me or it will perish. You don’t want that.’

‘There’s no chance of bringing your mage back!’

‘It is our magic, not yours.’

‘Dorian is dead!’ Jassen’s voice rang throughout the chamber, echoing and mocking Cullen over and over, each faded declaration a knife to his gut. ‘You will never bring him back!’

But from behind Jassen, Halward looked up, his gaze sharp and emphatic. Very slightly, he shook his head.

There’d been times in Cullen’s life when a lack of reaction had meant the difference between life or death. This was one such time.

He exuded _nothing. _

Master of himself, master of his fate for once.

Jassen did not notice. Cullen focused on his former friend, gave him his fullest attention.

‘I told you,’ Jassen hissed. ‘He’s _gone_! The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be.’

Cullen’s upper lip curled. ‘I will _never_ accept it.’

‘You accepted that I was dead.’

‘I didn’t love you like I loved him.’

Jassen’s eyes widened, the air tightening as their magic, unwilling slave to Jassen, coiled and made ready to attack. Cullen knew where it would be aimed.

Halward tried to pull away but the chains were draining his ability to fight back, to muster effort to resist.

‘He’s not the one you want,’ Cullen said quickly. ‘I’m right here.’

‘Oh, you _care_ for him do you? The man who cursed his own son all those years ago? I think I’ll kill him, a fitting end to such a scene before I wipe you. Or perhaps you’d like to kill him yourself? It would likely be quicker, a better death than what I’ll offer.’

‘You’ve no need to kill him.’

‘He’s not leaving here.’

‘Jassen,’ Cullen said, moving forward. ‘If you let him live, I will do whatever you want.’

Jassen surveyed Cullen coldly, calculatingly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Each time you try this, you break my heart just a little more but you steel my resolve. Do not make me _hurt _you, Cullen. I don’t want to but I will.’

‘Hurt me, then.’

‘Tread carefully.’

Breath coming faster, determination pooling, Cullen invaded Jassen’s space. ‘You want me, come and take me.’

Jassen’s hand pressed into Cullen’s chest, holding him back. ‘You can’t play me,’ he said, eyes moving rapidly between Cullen’s. ‘You can’t trick me. You can’t _seduce_ me, you can’t do anything. I have you. I’ve _always_ had you. You and me, lover, we’re inevitable.’

Cullen didn’t lash out at Jassen, but it was a near thing. ‘I’m not tricking you. I’m offering you what you want in exchange for letting his Father live. Wipe his memory like you intend to with mine. That’s the least I can do for…’ the name caught hard, chest empty without the magic, the bond weak and cut loose, flailing in the wind. ‘For Dorian.’

Jassen shifted, facing Cullen fully, the chains pulling Halward back and then locking into the stone floor. ‘What _are_ you offering, precisely?’

Cullen took a deep breath. ‘Whatever you want.’

‘What if the thing I want most is for you to bind yourself to me through blood magic?’

An old fear, dark and dulled with time, gripped Cullen’s heart. ‘If you let him live, then yes.’

Jassen’s brow lifted. ‘Really? You’d allow me to enthrall you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What if I wanted more than that?’

‘_Jassen!__’_ Cullen snapped. ‘Whatever you want, I’ll do it, _if_—’

‘Yes, _if_. It’s tempting to lead you on, you know. To make promises with no intention of keeping them.’ He brushed against Cullen, one hand moving around his waist and Cullen swallowed, couldn’t help it. ‘You’d let me do anything, wouldn’t you?’

Stiffly, Cullen nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Jassen’s other hand caressed his face, palm rough with scars. ‘But we already played this game, lover. You offered me this _before_, while your pet slept in the cage. You offered me everything.’

‘This time I mean it.’

Long moments passed in which Cullen’s nerves tightened and coiled. Jassen was considering it, he could tell. Weighing it all up while Cullen waited, heart pounding. If there was a chance, even a distant fucking _possibility_ that he could save Dorian, that was worth anything.

Jassen whispered, ‘You love him so much, don’t you?’

It was a trap. Cullen trod carefully, stayed still as if facing down a wild creature, didn’t blink, didn’t react. ‘You have me, Jassen, like you said. Are you really going to ignore an advantage because it means changing your plan to accommodate a fraction of mercy? You _have_ me.’

With a curiously sad frown, Jassen said, ‘Do you think I _want_ to control you? That I revel in the fact that to have you be with me would require magic, likely blood magic and if not, then extreme coercion? Will it never be real between us, Cullen? Will it ever be anything other than rape?’

The desire to be honest, to give him the answer he deserved but would not _like_, was ever present in Cullen, but he knew Jassen. He knew how capable Jassen was of falsifying emotions, of pretending weakness and vulnerability. They were masks he wore and then easily discarded.

Everything with Jassen required the most careful of touches.

This close, he could feel the magic inside Jassen. It was crammed, it grated and ground like poorly assembled, rusty gears but it was crammed _tight_. Cullen could try to pull on it, to withdraw it and bring it home but if he did that and failed, all was lost. Jassen held all the cards, all the power.

‘You think his Father can save him,’ Jassen said very softly. ‘I can feel it inside you. _Hope_.’ He shook his head, seeming tired then. ‘Hope is a dangerous thing for you, Cullen. You’re better off without it.’

Cullen’s mouth twisted. ‘Like I was for ten years?’

‘Yes,’ Jassen answered easily. ‘Ten years of misery is better than ten years dead.’

‘It wasn’t for you to _decide, _to control me like you did!’

‘I never meant to bind you to me.’

‘You used magic!’

‘It was an accident!’

‘And you’ll use more magic to bind me again, to keep me with you, to make me _stay_.’

‘They put it inside me! They violated me over and over, forced it where it didn’t belong until it got stuck, until it began to _cling_ to my insides! I only wanted to keep you safe, Cullen! You were…’ Jassen’s breath gave out. ‘You were going to kill yourself. You’d lost track of time! Maker, you’d lost your fucking _mind_! I didn’t mean to do it, but it… it kept us both alive, didn’t it? You kept me alive and I did the same for you.’

‘You polluted me, turned me into _you! _All your hatred of mages—’

‘Was yours too! Do not pretend that I am culpable for every monstrosity you forced upon them in Kirkwall. You _enjoyed_ killing, you took pleasure in humiliating them and removing their freedom. You enjoyed it!’

‘Because of you!’

‘Because of what they _are_! Because you saw them for their true selves in this place! Look around! They spilled blood and it sank into the stones, brought it to life! Kinloch Hold is _alive_ because of what they did!’

Cullen had never wanted to kill someone more in his life.

‘You are a _monster_, Jassen and you deserve to die, but…’ Cullen closed his eyes, tempering the darkness, itching and raging for freedom. ‘I will bind myself to you if you let his Father leave because that is how much I love Dorian. Yes, I believe there is a chance his Father could save him because I _cannot_ suffer Dorian’s loss the way I suffered yours. I have to believe there is a chance. I know that hurts you.’ Jassen turned away then, but Cullen dared pursue him, took him by the hand, twin scars meeting, and pulled him back. ‘Let Halward and the others go, let him take Dorian. You can wipe his memory of you and I will _stay. _I will stay because I choose to. I _will_ bind myself to you voluntarily. I will pay that price willingly. It is the closest you will ever come to having me without _taking_ me.’

‘What if I take you anyway?’ Jassen sneered.

Cullen let go but held his ground. ‘Then you’ll never have me, not the way he did.’

Jassen grimaced deeply, eyes narrowing. ‘How far you’ve fallen, whoring yourself for a dead blood mage.’

It was easy to be honest. ‘There is nothing I would not do for him.’

_‘This_ is your offer, is it?’

‘Yes. Let them all go, let them leave here unharmed and I will stay with you for all time. You can wipe me, you can—can make me into whatever you want, knowing I chose it.’

Halward was positively _glaring_ at Cullen and the Commander had neither the time nor the energy to consider the reason behind it.

Jassen took a deep breath; it filled his chest, expanded his shoulders and then he exhaled. ‘No deal.’

*

_He__’d hurt him. Oh Maker, he’d hurt him so badly. He’d bitten and clawed, he’d fucking _hit_ him. Made him bleed on the ramparts. _

_Dorian__’s blood had tasted of honeysuckle and fresh lemons, something crackling beneath it, something _charged_. It had filled Cullen__’s mouth, jagged and sweet and addictive. More addictive than lyrium, more than the lethal lure of Kirkwall by night. _

_Back in his cold quarters, Cullen stood braced over his desk, staring down at nothing. He was washed and clean, scrubbed within an inch of his life. His skin stung everywhere but that was good. He couldn_ _’t bear to differentiate between the pain the mage had caused him in return, knew he would obsess and eventually press down where Dorian had hurt him and revel. _

_Cullen squeezed his eyes shut, tears running down his nose and dropping lightly onto the desk. How could something so__… _monstrous… _feel so good? _

_And Dorian__… Dorian had liked it. No, he’d loved it. Had fought Cullen every step of the way for the thing they both wanted and made if difficult, made Cullen _work_ for it. _

_What work it was. _

_He__’d made Dorian bleed while he fucked him. Made him cry out, but it was Dorian’s _choice_ and it was Cullen__’s too. His palm had not been split, there was no blood call, none beyond the sweet taste but that was not the drive behind it, no matter what Cullen had convinced himself of before. _

_He__’d _chosen_ Dorian and Dorian had chosen him and it was__… the best experience of his whole life. _

_Cullen smashed his fist down into the desk hard, already sore knuckles screaming in protest but the pain was good. Pain was an anchor. _

_The worst part was that he wanted to do it all again. Again and _again_, over and over, drive himself into the mage, fuck him deep enough to find the source of all that magic and spill himself into it. Let Dorian push his magic into him, feel that incredible sensation of _fullness_ and completion as it crackled painfully through him, as it cleansed and damned him all at once. _

_He wanted it so bad he could taste it. Part of him considered going to Dorian even then, before true dawn had lit the sky. The mage would likely be sleeping, but Cullen didn_ _’t care. Wanted to wake him by kissing him. How that would shock the mage, how Cullen would love to see that. _

_Shoving away from the desk, he made no effort at pretending he didn_ _’t hate himself. He let it consume him. How low had he sunk this time? Daydreaming of kissing a mage to wake him? _

_Fuck. _

_‘Commander,’ came a voice from outside. ‘The Inquisitor has returned, Ser. You said to be alerted as soon as she—’_

_‘Yes, yes,’ he dismissed roughly, clearing his throat and willing away all the desire pulsing within. ‘Thank you, Jim.’_

_Dorian had to leave. For his own safety, he had to leave. Cullen could not guarantee he would be able to keep away. The need to seek him out was already so strong it physically hurt to ignore. _

_He waited until he felt confident that his lust was not patent and then he went to Lavellan. _

_*_

Cullen saw it play out, saw the reasons behind Jassen’s refusal.

Confidence.

Jassen refused because he didn't feel the _need_ to bargain, he had Cullen already, he had all the power he needed and while tempting, Cullen’s consent or even the illusion of it did not truly matter to Jassen.

Cullen saw it play out in one, tiny moment. His memories gone, powerless, ignorant. Halward dead and Cullen never knowing, unable to recall that there had been a _chance_ to save Dorian.

Saving Dorian, even if it was not truly possible, was worth everything.

Just the merest chance was worth the very worst risk.

Cullen saw it all… and he snapped, the _fuck it_ kind of way.

He feinted left and when Jassen dodged, he slammed his fist into the dark haired man’s jaw as hard as he could. Something _crunched, _encouraging a dark need to _break_. Jassen went down, he actually _dropped_ to his knees and then gracelessly to the side.

There was no moment for victory, no time to waste. Cullen swung his booted foot into Jassen’s face, sending him rolling to the side, blood and spit spraying in a shallow arc. He kicked him in the ribs next, as hard as he could. Jassen let out a broken, pained yell and again, something definitely cracked.

Jassen scrambled to his knees, drawing his power forth but Cullen gave him no time. Swung a low punch, drove it deep into Jassen’s face and then brought his knee up as hard as he could. Jassen’s nose broke, blood simply _pouring_.

When it spilled onto the stones beneath him, the walls and surfaces of Kinloch Hold began to shudder and groan. A low, fearsome sound that rumbled in every hollow part of Cullen yet he still didn’t let it stop him. Jassen raised his hands, but Cullen punched him again. He’d caught him off-guard; a single moment of arrogance had made all the difference and Cullen would _not_ make the same mistake.

He pressed his advantage, gave no quarter. He shattered at least two knuckles with poorly aimed punches, but he didn’t want to give Jassen a chance to catch his breath.

The former Templar gurgled blood, choked and screamed through red teeth, dazed from the onslaught of blows Cullen rained down upon him.

Cullen sat on Jassen’s chest and hit him again.

And again.

And _again_.

His arm was tired, it was effort to even draw it back and he knew he couldn’t last much longer. With his other, he roughly yanked whatever he could find off of Jassen; tore his shirt, sought out a _source_ of control for those fucking chains. No necklace, no chain with a coin like Dorian had but on his right hand, he wore a jewelled ring on his thumb.

Cullen punched him hard, felt Jassen’s jaw break. Then he yanked the ring off and tossed it across the room. Better it be gone than within easy reach on Cullen’s own hand. He could not take his eyes off of Jassen, knew the second he did—

‘_Cullen_!’

Fenris’s voice shot through Cullen’s system and with enormous effort, he refrained from looking towards the source. The voice was distant, but he heard footsteps and the swift slap of feet on stone. ‘Fenris!’ he yelled back. ‘Up here!’

‘The chains are gone,’ Halward panted. Cullen saw him rush forward peripherally. ‘Commander, you—’

‘Take Dorian and get out of here!’

‘You don’t understand,’ Halward said in a breathless tumble, moving quickly towards his fallen son. ‘It needs to be _you_, I can’t…’

‘TAKE HIM AND GO!’

Halward said nothing else and Cullen kept his focus on subduing Jassen. Peripherally, he saw Magisters fleeing the Harrowing Chamber in a terrified flood.

Above and all around, something very much _else_ was happening to the walls. A horrible, penetrating _grinding_ filled the air and then, a rushing hiss of something softer than water and far more insidious.

Jassen’s eyes rolled all the way back into his head, arms splayed as he dragged in painful breaths with evident difficulty. He was weak, he was _fading_.

Cullen needed the magic back, this was his best chance. ‘Come on,’ he panted, reaching out to it, seeking it through the meat and bone prison that was Jassen. He placed a bloody hand to Jassen’s chest, trying to _pull_. ‘Inside me, quickly.’

The magic did not need to be told twice.

At first, it pushed and did not budge. Cullen panicked, wondered if he would have to risk killing Jassen while that magic he so loved remained inside him, but then there was a great burst of determination, proof positive that such power had every right to be just as arrogant as Dorian. It burst through Jassen’s weakening intent to imprison it and rushed back inside Cullen, back where it was made to fit.

It was broken and bloodied, _hurt_ despite not having a body. Cullen let out a dry sob because he loved that magic and could not stand it having been forced somewhere it did not belong after everything it had already suffered. It was theirs, they had made it and he hated Jassen even more for harming it.

This time, the magic dug in deep. Buried itself firmly into every part of Cullen, would not be taken again, no matter the cost. The two became one, bonded in the absence of their beloved, of their _world_.

Cullen had the magic back but the moment he’d dreaded came due. Jassen had seen an opportunity and as always, took it. Smashed a knee into Cullen’s back and threw him off. Cullen rolled, scrambling to be upright once more and that was when he realised what was happening.

The ceiling and top parts of the walls around the edges, the stones from high above were grinding together to make fucking _sand_.

Sand that moved like water. Sand that rushed towards him like a sentient wave, intent on dry drowning him. Cullen staggered back, magic swelling defensively, but before he could even raise his hands, the sand swirled around him, hard like stone, movements fluid and intuitive. It was tight and vicious, holding him in thick, rough ropes. Cullen fought and he struggled, but it knew to go for his hands. Treated him like a mage and bound him like one too.

When Fenris came skidding into the room, Cullen bellowed, ‘Help him get Dorian out!’ The elf looked around, eyes widening at the ceiling and the walls, at the ever increasing mounds of sand that sought to ruin them. ‘Fenris, _now_!’

His friend shook himself and ran to help Halward while Jassen slowly, carefully rolled onto his front, groaning low and loud. Blood dribbled from his mouth, head hanging as his arms trembled with the effort of pushing up. Fenris was strong, Cullen trusted him to get them both out even as the sand crushed tighter and _tighter_, scraping his skin and grinding his bones together, contained within his half of the chamber.

Halward, Dorian and Fenris were outside the doors when they started to close. They were huge, heavy things and so it was slow to build the momentum at first. Cullen watched, taut with dread. Fenris looked up, saw the approaching divide and green eyes met amber, wide and forbidding.

‘_NO_!’

But Fenris was too fast, Maker, he’d always been so damned _fast_. He phased through the doors as they slammed shut, just made it inside as the wood glowed faintly red and were sealed shut by magic. Halward and Dorian… Dorian’s _body_ were outside at least. Fenris began to wade through the sand, trying to get to Cullen but it was a mistake.

The liquid stones of the Circle Tower took hold of him too. He flashed brightly, markings flaring in a way that burned the back of Cullen’s eye sockets, but he could not phase through the sand and Cullen’s worry turned to full on panic. The sand wrapped around Fenris like a great, gruesome _blanket _and dragged him into the centre alongside Cullen, onto the platform of the Harrowing Chamber.

The pair stared at one another; Cullen glaring and shaking his head while Fenris had the audacity to _shrug,_ even as the sand formed a bodily prison, rising steadily. Before them, Jassen got to his feet and screamed.

*

_He fell hard and graceless in a way that absolutely could not be faked. Cullen watched, mouth open as his murderous rage simply evaporated. Dorian Pavus was in his bedroom, nosing around and touching his things and then__…Dorian Pavus had actually _fainted_. _

_Cullen stared at the place where Dorian fell in a heap, likely hurting his shoulder as it took the brunt of his weight upon landing. He stared for a long time, caught on the ladder, half up, half down, before he took action. _

_Action meant grabbing Dorian roughly under the arms and hauling him back, stretching him out. __‘Wake up,’ he demanded curtly from behind clenched teeth. ‘Wake _up!’

_For one, long and confusing moment, Cullen thought the mage might actually be dead, but when he laid his hand upon the leather-bound chest, he felt a deep rhythm, strong heart beating steadily beneath. _

_Knelt beside him, hand on his heart, Cullen felt immediately self-conscious. If Dorian awoke to see him in such a way, acting so_ _… no. It would not do. _

_But Dorian did not wake and after a few attempts, all Cullen_ _’s righteous indignation failed him completely and he gave up. _

_‘Maker’s balls,’ he hissed under his breath, looking around. Well, there was nothing for it. Dorian was heavier than he looked and pulling him up onto the bed was no easy task but Cullen managed it without causing either of them injury. _

_His bed was a pitiful thing. Sparse covers, achingly thin mattress. Cullen hated it; the room, the quarters, the furniture, all of it. The only thing he liked was that he could breathe in there. The air was cold and fresh, never stilted or stale. Snow routinely drifted in through the holes and there was no such thing as _warm_ for him in that room, but better being cold than unable to breathe. _

_And it helped with the nightmares too, whenever he was foolish enough to attempt sleep. Waking to cold, fresh air coursing through his lungs was the quickest way to remind himself he was not in that windowless place. _

_Cullen settled Dorian on the pillow, trying and failing to yank the mage__’s boots off. They were unreasonably complicated and no quick pull did the job, which had Cullen rolling his eyes. Maker forbid the man wear _anything_ simple. He undid the laces, creating slack enough to free each foot and then he wavered in comical fashion about how to proceed with the rest of the mage__’s equally complex clothing. _

_In the end, common decency won out in conjunction with the acknowledgement that the mage was used to a far warmer climate and might, in all seriousness, not _survive_ Cullen__’s bedroom if not fully clothed. _

_Cullen drew the covers up high, just beneath Dorian_ _’s chin and his fingertips brushed the mage’s jaw. Dorian did not stir, but something in Cullen did. When had he ever touched Dorian in such a way? With tenderness instead of… of violence. _

_Cullen scowled and tucked the mage in, wary of him flailing about in his sleep and falling off the side. He wedged the covers beneath the flimsy excuse for a mattress and then stood back to assess his work. _

_Dorian Pavus was asleep in his bed. _

_Fucking wonderful. _

_Cullen descended the ladder and went to work lightening the load of paperwork, of endless Maker damned bureaucratic bullshit. He missed the days of Kirkwall, where no one gave a flying fuck about a paper trail, only results. _

_He worked through the night, occasionally pausing to rotate his wrist and listen for any signs of discomfort from above. He tried very hard to ignore the feeling of excitement in the pit of his stomach that Dorian was upstairs in his bed. Fucking void, he__’d been on the verge of killing the mage before he went and passed out like that and now _this_?_

_Twice he went and checked on Dorian, irrationally concerned that the mage would stop breathing for unknown reasons, but he slept on, tucked in and safe, with Cullen keeping watch downstairs. _

_Cullen hated himself then. Saw the weakness for what it was. _

_It sat under his skin, burrowing and writhing, the knowledge that Dorian knew so much of the worst of him. That he__’d read his letter, he knew about Jassen, about what he did to the mages in the Tower. Dorian knew so much_, _but not all. Cullen had never, ever been able to put pen to paper about what he__’d… what had happened to Jassen. Most days, he struggled to even acknowledge it himself. There was a level of disconnect between what he’d done and what he allowed himself to _feel.

_Dorian was a direct threat to that. _

_He knew so much about Cullen now, had every reason to be disgusted with him, likely was, but_ _… but he was there, wasn’t he? He’d been in Cullen’s room, seeking him out. _

_Maybe he wasn_ _’t completely sickened. _

_Cullen worked through the night until dawn and then checked on Dorian, expecting the noise of the ladder to wake the mage but he slept on. Though it was wildly inappropriate, Cullen decided to allow it. Let him wake of his own accord later, when he was ready. _

_Cullen went through morning drills with that day_ _’s rotation and it was a barely contained clusterfuck. He was distracted, more irritable than usual which was certainly saying something. The ache inside was growing once more, a cavern within that demanded the sweet, strong succour of lyrium._

_It was more than that, though. Cullen didn__’t need to search himself to know that the reason for his irritability was in fact due to his _concern_ for the mage he__’d left unconscious in his bed. _

_At lunch, he returned and called Dorian__’s name up the ladder to absolutely no response. Gone then, he realised, scolding himself mercilessly for feeling _disappointed_. He went up the ladder and was astonished to see the mage__’s shape still occupying his bed, covers barely displaced at all. _

_Relief, traitorous fucking relief, was instantly replaced with additional concern because not only had the mage been asleep for an extremely long time now, he_ _’d hardly moved. Cullen knelt beside the bed and spoke his name a few more times, but Dorian didn’t stir. He felt his forehead, which was certainly not fevered. His breathing was deep and rhythmic, his eyes moved back and forth beneath lids and long, dark lashes. _

_The mage _was_ sleeping, of that Cullen was certain. _

_He must have been_ _… very tired, that was all. _

_Cullen left him and went about the rest of his day, his irritability lessening to be replaced with long spells of quiescence which annoyed Leliana no end. _

_‘I don’t even know why I bother scheming and plotting to save lives when the Commander of the Inquisition stares at my desk as though it sings to him,’ Leliana huffed, sitting back in her chair as Cullen shook himself and tried to give her the level of attention she deserved. _

_‘I’m sorry,’ he said, earnest and true. ‘I’m very tired.’_

_Leliana exhaled slowly and carefully instead of speaking; Cullen was often the cause of such an action and therefore, well versed in the meaning behind it. _

_‘And are you feeling better, having exhausted yourself in plain sight with a Tevinter mage?’_

_‘I’ll thank you to respect my—’_

_‘Privacy? Cullen, when you fuck atop a castle it is hardly deserving of—’_

_‘—wish to refrain from speaking of it at this time,’ he finished sternly. _

_She rolled her eyes, his friend from so long ago, the woman who had written to him without fail, who never tired of his atrocious replies or doom-laden attitude throughout his tenure in Kirkwall. _

_‘Yes, not speaking about things is precisely the right move at this time.’_

_Deciding against being openly facetious, he tried to move the subject along. _ _‘There have been a number of spikes in attacks made by Red Templars. I would like to—’_

_‘You know about his Mother?’_

_Cullen was brought up short. _ _‘Beg pardon?’_

_‘Dorian’s Mother died.’_

_Eyes fluttering with the effort of containing a skyward roll, he said, __‘_Yes,_ I read the letter, thank you.__’_

_‘Do you not think he should be given a little comfort?’_

Comfort_. What was comfort to a Tevinter mage? Satins and silks and finery. Expensive wine and ridiculous food that Cullen would shudder to try. Coin and excess and extravagance, no doubt. _

_Certainly not Cullen_ _’s threadbare blankets and his rickety bed, roof full of holes and mattress thin enough to question its existence. _

_‘He has friends here,’ Cullen said, frowning to himself. _

_‘Lavellan is gone, the Iron Bull is gone. They are his closest friends and with the exception of Sera, he is rather more alone than usual.’_

_Cullen__’s gaze darkened with something he denied was jealousy. ‘I didn’t realise he was also _friends_ with the Qunari.__’_

_Leliana_ _’s mouth quirked. ‘I am simply saying—’_

_‘I know what you’re saying.’_

_‘Do you?’_

_‘Yes. Consider me advised.’_

_The Spymaster sighed, shaking her head. _ _‘Would that I could, my friend. Would that I could.’_

_The sun was setting by the time he returned to his quarters and this time he was fully, solidly prepared to find Dorian at the very least _awake, _far more likely having absconded. _

_But when he ascended, Dorian was still there. Cullen stared at him for a long time, something swirling dangerously beneath his ribcage. To still be asleep after so long_ _…_

Comfort_, Leliana had said. _

_When was the last time Dorian had experienced _comfort_? What comfort had he to find in the South where he was despised on sight, where he was hated and reviled simply on the basis of his existence? Dorian had precious few creature comforts, Cullen knew, and he mostly tended to a woefully small library with determination that baffled the Commander. Most mages loved books, it was well known, but Tevinter mages were widely believed to be arrogant, conceited, uncaring for menial tasks. _

_Maker, but when had Dorian last slept?_

_Cullen rested his sword on the wall and sat on his clothes chest, allowing himself the luxury of watching the mage with uninterrupted intensity. _

_Did he have to be so fucking… beautiful? _

_The Commander had nowhere else to go. Work all caught up on, for the time being at least, no one to bother at this late hour unless he wanted Leliana to think him even more pathetic than he truly was. _

_So he sat and watched the mage breathe. It was surprisingly peaceful, surveying him in such a way. Though Cullen longed to touch him - he _always_ longed to touch Dorian - there was something impossibly pleasant about simply being near him, guarding him. _

_Cullen indulged. He fell still, his heartbeat was his only company beyond the gentle, rushing sighs of Dorian_ _’s inhales and exhales, and he waited for the mage to wake of his own accord. _

*

The grinding was never ending, the stones wearing away and then loosening new ones from the floor above, setting them about destroying one another in the same way, producing the same result.

Sand, endless fucking sand until Cullen tasted fresh air and a smattering of rain began to pour in right along with the grainy dust from the stones. Part of the roof was exposed, the east side deteriorating rapidly. The sand was up past their stomachs as the rain came heavier. Kinloch Hold was grinding itself down to weaponize against them and Cullen had never seen anything _like it_.

The part of Cullen that was _the Commander_ tried to take comfort in the fact that at least Dorian was with his father, that the two of them were on the other side of the doors, _not_ being buried alive by rain soaked sand of a malign nature.

Cullen’s friend was close by, struggling as the sand compacted and thickened.

‘Fenris,’ he panted. ‘Can you phase through it, even a little?’ His friend grunted and struggled, thus answering the question. Cullen closed his eyes and tried to think. His hands were flattened against his sides, powerless and contained, like a mage hit by a _Silence_. ‘Where’s Hawke?’

‘He ran,’ Fenris growled. ‘The _coward_. We got many out before the chains took hold of us again and then he fled. Is Dorian all right?’

Cullen didn’t know what to say to that.

Jassen spat blood and wiped his mouth, staggering dangerously to one side until the sand came for him, supported him like a friend. He leaned heavily on it, bloodshot eyes seeking Cullen.

‘Oh, _lover_,’ he gasped, shaking himself. ‘Nobody hurts me like you do.’

Cullen growled. ‘Nobody _wants_ to hurt you like I do.’

Grinning, though still dazed as if drunk, Jassen looked up. The rain was coming steadier, making the sand wet, causing it to fall in thick, wet slaps of sludge.

‘Shame,’ Jassen said. ‘Your mage loved a storm, didn’t he?’

Cullen tried to use magic then. It was heavily suppressed by the sand and his hands could not shape it as he wanted. The origin point was smothered. No force, no fire, no water, no ice. He managed, very weakly, to lift some of the sand and throw it towards Jassen by concentrating but it was like hurling un-pressed snow. Harmless and soft, the sand could not be weaponised against Jassen, no matter how hard Cullen threw it with magic and concentration.

He looked around, using what little magic he had to attempt to throw other things but the chamber was sparse. There were sconces in the lower walls, the parts not yet ground to sand, but they were affixed firmly into the stone.

‘You know, I wanted to do right by you,’ Jassen said. ‘I was going to let you remember him.’ He came closer to the ever-increasing mountain of sand, the malicious mass against Cullen’s collarbone, cold rain running down his face from above. ‘But _now__…_ I think I’m going to make you mine the only way that will ever truly work. I’ll wipe you of these years without me, take every single memory of your precious _blood mage_ and revert you to a boy in a man’s body, my boy. _My_ Cullen. I’ll wipe you clean and then I’ll make you kill your friend there. You won’t even recognise him. Then,’ he added quietly, smirking. ‘We’ll visit all your magical _children_ in Skyhold, _Little Dawn_ too.’

Cullen’s anger began to build inside him, stacking and climbing and _catching_ fire but with nowhere to go. ‘I never loved you,’ he snarled, the sand pressed against his throat. Soon it would be above his chin, then his mouth and then he would simply be buried alive in what remained of the Circle Tower, until Jassen pulled him out and reduced him to a twenty year old. Took away his life, killed this version of Cullen as surely as if he’d gutted him.

No struggle, no _life_ beyond that as a Templar and Jassen.

No Dorian.

‘Then I’ll have you hunt down poor, deluded Daddy Pavus and make you kill him too. I will relish that and then I will take you in my arms and you will _love me_ the way that I love you.’

The anger rang in Cullen’s ears. It was blinding fury, hatred so strong it thickened in his throat, seared his lungs. He looked up then, at the dark sky above, at the pouring rain. He could see a sliver of it, obscured by the downpour. There was energy, there was that _taste_. Familiar to him since childhood and even more since coming to know Dorian.

‘I will never love you,’ Cullen said. ‘No matter what you reduce me to.’

Jassen stepped forward, nearing the ever growing mound. ‘I’ll make it so, believe me. There is nothing in this world I cannot bend to my will, not anymore!’

‘You’re weak, using borrowed power to avoid breaking the rules set by _compassion_!’

Snarling, Jassen lifted his hands and the sand, if possible, tightened. Fenris let out a strangled, stuttered breath and Cullen couldn’t turn to see, he kept his gaze up whenever possible, fixed on the dark sky.

‘And what about you? That magic inside you would have disgusted the man I knew. Now you welcome it like a child into your arms. See what you’ve become!’

‘I never hated magic,’ Cullen said, breathing slow, seeking his centre. ‘I loved it always.’

‘_What_? No you d—’

‘When I was a child, I would stand in the rain beneath a storm and look up, never flinching. I watched the lightning form, felt it build and I longed to see it. I invited it, I _beckoned_ it.’

‘You _hated_ magic, the same way I did!’

He kept looking, didn’t blink even as the rain stung his eyes, even as the sands grew higher. ‘I was not worthy then and I’m not worthy now. I lost my way and I fell beneath pressure and weakness but I have _always_ loved magic.’

‘Cullen, what are you—?’

‘I will not look away,’ he swore to the sky. ‘I will never look away again. Please.’

‘Shut _up_!’

‘Please.’

Everything inside Cullen turned still, the world stopped turning and the storm, he was sure, stared down at him. It was right above him, hovering over the Circle Tower. Ancient and vast, heavy and all-seeing. Deciding. _Weighing_.

The sky stared down at Cullen and the world held its breath.

And then it tore.

It tore open and it reached down to gift a single bolt of beautiful, bright energy.

Lightning struck inside the tower, flash frying the air, stunning Cullen and rendering him night blind. The scent of melted metal and burning ozone _heat _was simply everywhere and somehow, it tasted of Dorian.

Thunder crescendoed a mere second later and the rains kept on coming.

Cullen looked at the sand in front of him, blinking hard to ease the floating imprint of colour. He saw the faintly lilac glowing spot where the lightning had struck. The sands around it were weakening, slipping away softly with an outward effect; a ripple of fading strength

Jassen slowly lowered his hands from his head, looked around and then let out a breath that turned into a shaky laugh.

‘You missed,’ he cackled, eyes feverish, brightly reflecting the remaining light from his jagged floating red flames nearby. ‘All that and you fucking _missed_? What a _pity_ your little mage wasn’t here, he could have—what’s that?’

Cullen focused harder than ever before in his life on the glowing spot atop six feet of sand, even as the grains of Kinloch began to fall away, began to loosen and weaken.

_Lift, _he commanded, magic straining and fighting against the diminishing sands, a glaring silence in the absence of grinding.

The glowing spot, no wider than an apple, began to rise up out of the sand. It was revealed to be long and jagged, white hot enough that the air around it _shimmered_.

‘What is that?’ Jassen repeated, something suddenly childlike in his tone as the glowing sword born of lightning withdrew from its loosely packed anvil and origin.

The tip was as sharp and jagged as raw lightning and Cullen focused so hard he felt blood trickle down over his lips. It required everything of him, entire body trembling with effort. He turned it horizontal in mid-air, made that cruel tip point right at Jassen and then let it _fly_.

The sand did not reach up to save Jassen, perhaps unable to differentiate between this version of itself and a true enemy.

The fresh made weapon plunged into Jassen even as he turned, trying to dodge. It went through him like he was butter, his body unable to offer much in the way of resistance. In his efforts to turn, the glowing greatsword missed his heart, piercing his upper pectoral. A place Jassen should have known better than to leave unguarded, through skin and bone and lung and out the other side. It lodged there, that beautiful, natural weapon. Sizzled flesh and burned what bones it touched.

The scream that tore out of him was nothing less than music to Cullen. He wanted more of it, _endless_ screams and apologies and tears mingling with blood. There was a ringing in Cullen’s ears as he waded forward, desperate to get to Jassen, to hurt him even more, to dig his fingers deep into flesh like he’d done in this place all those years ago.

Jassen would deserve it, he deserved _worse. _

The scream ended with a wet gurgle and Jassen dropped to his knees. He looked down, raindrops from above hissing as they landed upon the narrow surface of the smouldering object. His eyes were wide, blood pouring from the side of his mouth.

‘Wh-what… is… that…?’

The sands spilled away, unable to imprison Cullen and Fenris anymore. Cullen knew he should look back, check on Fenris but he trusted his friend to be all right and he couldn’t, _wouldn__’t_ take his gaze off of Jassen again.

With single-minded determination, he waded through the remaining sands towards the man on his knees. It had taken so much from Cullen, he was dizzy still. Bones throbbing, magic seething in agreement that yes, of course they should rip Jassen apart.

_But, _it warned. _Not now_. _We need him for Dorian_.

Cullen swallowed, physically faltering. The sensation of the magic speaking inside him was… a peculiar phenomenon. A shudder that resonated as words, a shivering, lovely thing like a whisper directly in his ear in a language he’d forgotten he spoke.

The way it said _his_ name, though. The pain of it struck through Cullen’s need to rent and rip and _shred_ skin until he found bones to crack. It made him weak, made him _wobble_.

‘Cullen, wait,’ Fenris was saying behind him.

Cullen did not want to wait. Jassen’s hands lifted to weakly hover around the still glowing bolt made solid by sentient sands. He was stunned, Cullen could tell from the slow, uneven way he blinked.

He knelt in front of him.

_‘That_,’ Cullen panted, shaking all over, looking Jassen straight to centre. ‘Is how you make glass.’

*

_There was no slow realisation. No gradual awareness of it because he_ _’d known right away. At this point, he was far beyond denial, far beyond the comfort of pretending it was mere attraction. _

_Cullen was in love with Dorian and there was nothing he could do to free himself from it. _

_It stirred violence and resentment from within. He _hated_ Dorian, despised him enough that a sour taste formed at the back of his throat, even while his stupid, disloyal heart thundered to be around him, to listen to whatever the mage had to say, to dare to touch him. _

_Cullen was in love with Dorian and it had him cleaved in two. The sides could not reconcile, would not meet in the middle and Cullen faintly despaired at being so torn, at the lack of cohesion in his regard for the mage. _

_But after the storm, he couldn_ _’t deny it anymore, to himself or to Dorian. It was too big to contain, too much living inside him to hide and control. He’d wanted Dorian to know, did not regret telling him. _

_And Dorian_ _… though he had not said it back, Dorian loved him in return. _

_It was enough, more than enough to set aside the part of himself that loathed the mage. He was sick of hatred. Sick and tired of hating such a significant percentage of the world on the basis that they knew magic. It was exhausting and it had cost him a decade, lost to darkness and brutality and obsession. _

_Dorian knew the terrible things of his past and he loved him anyway. _

_It was more than Cullen deserved, could ever have hoped for. _

_It made him want to be _better_. To one day forget the noises Merek__’s body had made as it had come apart. To one day sleep and not sink into nightmares that had his left palm throbbing, tears leaking from his eyes at the memory of unwanted, uncontrollable lust. _

_Dorian made him want to be more than that. The mage brought about a kind of ambition, to be the best version of himself, even if it was only _for_ himself. Dorian made the world brighter, made Cullen feel younger. _

_He didn_ _’t scold himself for feeling excited as he headed to Dorian’s room when the duties of the day came to an end. He embraced it, walked a little faster even. _

_Cullen had sorely missed Dorian and he loved him. He was beyond being able to deny either anymore. _

_*_

For a long moment, the two stared at one another, Jassen gored by resplendent, electric glass, Cullen drained by the effort of calling upon that oldest, most majestic magic.

‘Kill me then,’ Jassen breathed, throat sticking. ‘Finish it. You’ll never be free of me until you do. Kill me quick if you will.’

It was all Cullen wanted in the moment. To snap his neck, to crush his skull, to smash hands into his chest and find his heart, as Fenris could, and then _squeeze_. The loss was still vague to him, it didn’t truly register that Dorian was actually… _gone_. Something inside Cullen refused to believe it, refused to let it sink in.

But the anger, his thirst for sadistic retribution, that was very much real.

‘You deserve no such death.’

Incredibly, Jassen’s mouth curved into a smile. ‘Gimme the one I deserve then, lover.’

There was less blood than Cullen expected. He realised that the glass had cauterised the wound. Cullen resented the lack of blood. Wanted to empty Jassen, drain him of the fuel that pumped his worthless, poisonous heart. It was uncontrollable, the desire to _maim _and yet, Cullen hesitated, unsure of why.

Fenris crouched down on Cullen’s right. ‘Kill him.’

Cullen’s mouth tightened. Jassen’s eyes were rolling, he was fading. He _wanted_ to kill him, he was shaking with need, with fury born of grief.

But…

‘Kill him and we can leave.’

Jassen brought his dark eyes back to Cullen. ‘He can’t kill me,’ he rasped. ‘And he knows it.’

‘I _have_ killed you.’

‘Have you? I’m still here, lover.’

‘On borrowed time.’

Jassen laughed, choking on blood and swallowing hard to recover. ‘Ain’t that the truth. C’mon, beautiful. Kill me and be done. You beat me fair, good an’ proper. Take your revenge, make it _right_.’

Through ground teeth, Cullen uttered, ‘It will _never_ be right!’

‘So make it _better_,’ Jassen whispered cruelly. ‘Kill me. Own it.’

The hesitance became clear when that beautiful, glittering magic communed with Cullen.

_You cannot_, it told him. _Not yet. There is a final use and you must not waste him. _

Cullen closed his eyes as they burned. He didn’t even know if Halward was still alive, if he’d managed to get Dorian’s body out of the Tower.

Dorian’s _body_.

The urge to vomit hit him hard as the world swayed.

All he wanted was to kill Jassen. To see the light leave his eyes and know that some measure of justice was done. To whisper to Dorian, wherever he was now, that at least he’d been able to do that. Kill the man who’d brought his mage’s life to an end. Murderous desire pulsed through him, drowning out almost everything else. It was intoxicating and enthralling, like a drug, like _lyrium_, like when Uldred had split his palm.

_We chose you for a reason_, the magic whispered, encircling his heart and breaking through the need. _We knew this day would come, knew the demon in his blood would have victory. It was inevitable and we knew it. Dorian knew it too, in his deepest places. He knew it the moment he first fell in love with you. _

Cullen looked away from Jassen, tried to temper the feeling but it was swelling and rising, a riptide of loss and love with nowhere to go.

_And we knew you were worthy to save our Dorian. To hold us when he left, to keep us here that we might go in search of him. You and we are the only ones who can bring him back. You are worthy and we knew it always. _

Cullen shook his head. Keeping Jassen alive was dangerous.

_You cannot kill him. There will come a moment, an exchange. It has to be him. He is connected with you as is our Dorian. It is necessary. _

Fenris touched Cullen’s hand, but the Commander barely felt it.

‘Cullen?’

He shook his head, swallowing hard over a painful lump. ‘I can’t.’

‘Do you want me to—?’

‘No,’ Cullen said, slowly looking back at the man impaled upon lightning. ‘We need him.’ Jassen’s gaze, glassy and loose, tightened then. _Darkened_. Cullen’s voice trembled with hatred when he said, ‘We need him to bring Dorian back.’

Jassen opened his mouth to say something _awful_, Cullen knew it by the way his jaw trembled, but then the doors burst open and in stumbled the Inquisition.

*

_It was cold without him. Everything was cold without Dorian but the sickness was lodged deep. In his blood, branded into his bones. Dorian had lied. _

_Lied and lied and lied. _

_And it wasn__’t real. He didn’t love him, didn’t _know_ him. Had never read Jassen__’s letter until that fucking day. Had resorted to blood magic to bring it back. Didn’t he understand what it had _taken_ for Cullen to burn it? To set fire to the last part of Jassen, to something that had kept him alive for so long?_

_No. Of course he didn_ _’t. _

_On the fourth night he stopped to make camp, certain that his trail was sufficient in buying him time from Hawke. To draw this person out who was pursuing him, as Leliana had suggested, was the only thing Cullen had to look forward to anymore. _

_He hunted and killed a few rabbits, falling back on his skills as a boy from weeks spent ranging and hunting, always with Jassen. He ate sparingly, drank only when his mouth burned dryly and did everything he could not to sleep, but spending the day moving and running in wide, evasive circles tended to leave one exhausted so Cullen slept. He slept in trees or he slept on the ground, rarely resorting to his bedroll and never once inside a tent. _

_It was cold without Dorian in so many ways but his rage, self-sustaining and vindictive, gave him false warmth. _

_Bitterly, Cullen neglected himself. He kept moving, kept running but in truth, he was only circling Skyhold. Always close enough to return to Dorian should weakness and need overcome him. He wanted to go back and, equally, he wanted to leave Ferelden. It was torture, being there. Roaming lands he knew so well, always in such proximity to Lake Calenhad, the Circle Tower near enough to make out from a distance some days. It called to him then, a strange kind of siren song that invited him _home_. _

_Only it wasn__’t home. It would never be home for anyone anymore. It had fallen in earnest three years after he was reassigned to Kirkwall and no one ever gave a specific reason. It was simply no longer functional as a Circle and with all that had happened there, no one _really_ protested or so Cullen heard. Kirkwall had been far away enough to render the Tower a shadow in his memory; a backdrop of horror that might fade with enough adrenaline but there in the Frostbacks, it was close enough to make out, even from the ramparts. _

_Ruthlessly, spitefully, Cullen ignored his own shivering and the needs of his body. Such suffering was less than he deserved for being stupid enough to ever imagine he could escape from his past, any part of it. _

_*_

It was Bull who’d kicked down the door, perhaps not ready for it to give way so easily and as the Qunari spilled inside, catching the stumble before it got going, the others followed, weapons at the ready.

Fenris flared brightly, turning towards the possibility of trouble, but Cullen touched his arm, careful to avoid the markings where possible.

‘They’re with me.’

Leliana made her way past Bull, Sera, Rainier and Vivienne, Lavellan hanging back with Cassandra and Varric.

‘Cullen,’ the Spymaster said, taking in the scene. ‘Are you hurt?’

Slowly, somewhat dazed, Cullen shook his head. ‘How did you…?’

‘We’ve been outside for some time,’ she said and then Hawke, fucking _Hawke_ came rushing up behind them. ‘The Champion was attempting to get us inside.’

Jassen made a noise, a kind of low, weak growl. He lifted his right hand, seeking to cast and before chaos could erupt, Cullen looked to Vivienne and said, ‘Slow time around him!’

Masterful, professional, she didn’t even ask why. The Knight Enchanter wrought her specific brand of magic and wrapped it all around Jassen. It was thick, far more dense than what she tended to use in the field. Jassen slowed to the point of almost being _frozen_ in time.

‘Who’s the kebab?’ Sera asked, twirling her blades a few times, scanning the sand filled room as rain continued to pour and the few remaining candles on wall sconces began to gutter due to the winds of Vivienne’s magic.

Hawke walked inside and from behind him, Cole emerged.

‘It’s the _lake_,’ the boy uttered. ‘Once deep and treacherous, don’t swim too far or it’ll pull you down. I see him now, feel him. You were right, Leliana. You often are, the second time around when the ribbons are faded and easily break. His depths are draining and all the bones of things the water has eaten are visible in the shallows.’

Fenris shot Cullen a look and muttered, ‘Who the fuck is _that_?’

Cullen actually smiled, sort of _laughed_; a thing born of chattering teeth and rapidly leaving adrenaline and shock. So much shock and a loss he couldn’t even comprehend.

_Not loss, not yet. We must try. You must try, our Cullen. _

‘Are there others?’ Varric called out.

‘No, it’s just him, like I told you,’ Hawke said, nearing Fenris. ‘You all right?’

‘Yes,’ the elf answered simply, his focus on Cullen. ‘You found them, then?’

‘They were caught in a maze of illusions. Fucking impressive magic, I can’t deny, somehow tied to this place. When the lightning struck, it all went down.’

Cullen couldn’t make himself care that Hawke apparently _hadn__’t_ run like a coward because Hawke was the one who’d brought him there. Hawke had orchestrated so much of it. A late attempt to do something decent meant nothing to Cullen.

He forced himself to ask, ‘Where’s…’ _Dorian_. ‘Halward? Halward Pavus?’

Cullen looked over and fucking void, even in low light, the _faces_ on everyone… he couldn’t bear it. Lavellan came to the forefront of the ragtag group, too late to save the day for once. It was clear she’d been crying.

No, no, no, not this again. He couldn’t handle it from others too.

‘They’re outside,’ she told him as Cassandra, somehow back early from escorting the armies, fixed Cullen with a sorrowful stare he deeply resented. He tried to tell himself there was no _need_ for sorrow, that somehow, fucking _somehow_ he would bring Dorian back.

Because otherwise, he wasn’t going to leave this tower. If there was truly no hope, then that was the end of it.

Jassen was still moving ever so slowly and Cullen stared at him. So much hatred, so much _pain_.

‘Cullen, I’m sorry,’ Lavellan was saying and Fenris took his hand, held it tightly while Cullen struggled to keep his head above the surface of what threatened to drown him.

‘It’s not…’ he said but his voice gave out. He shook himself and tried again. ‘I’m going to bring him back.’

The silence that followed was deafening. There came a brief flash of white from above and a low rumble of thunder. Cullen couldn’t look at Jassen anymore. He had to go to him, to Dorian.

When he got to his feet, that seemed to rouse people to action.

‘You can’t bring him back, son,’ Rainier said, the first voice of a larger chorus to come, Cullen suspected. ‘You know you can’t.’

_Don__’t listen_, the magic bade, stroking him from inside. _They are not we. They do not understand what we are, what we have made with you and our Dorian. _

Cullen swayed dangerously. He was still drained, so fucking _weak_ from the effort of calling upon the storm and then lifting the lightning sword. He’d been through worse, though. Had _fought_ through worse and won.

‘They’re outside?’ he asked Hawke curtly and the Champion only nodded. ‘I need him alive,’ Cullen said, indicating to Jassen as Fenris steadied him, helping him walk. ‘Keep him alive no matter what and for Maker’s sake, don’t give him _any_ opportunity to get free.’

‘He will not get free,’ Cole said with trembling intensity. ‘Our binding is broken, the lightning has split it. I will contain him, Cullen. Do not fear. You can walk and swim and sink and I will be here with the mice, with the corners. Be sure to choose a good candle.’

Vivienne, Varric, Cole and Bull went to work, but Lavellan, Cassandra and Sera had questions, _opinions_. Hawke trailed behind, watching Fenris at all times. Cullen left the Harrowing Chamber, sand in his boots grinding with every step he took.

It was a long way down. Winding staircases and a path through the ruined Tower that was treacherous and difficult to navigate in near total darkness.

When he created a light, a hovering flame that went ahead of them, Fenris didn’t even flinch. Cullen was grateful for him. Had missed him so much.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come for you sooner,’ he told him quietly over the three women following him, over the choir of objections and demands that he listen to reason or at least, _explain_. Hawke was silent, the only evidence of his presence was those ridiculous, heavy boots on the stones.

Fenris looked at Cullen then, no hint of resentment when he said, ‘You would have if you could, I know that, my friend.’

Sera’s patience, if such a thing had ever existed, snapped.

‘_HELLO_? What friggin’ language are we speaking back here? Can we get filled in on the plan already?’

‘The _plan_,’ Cassandra said with extreme sternness ‘Is to return to Skyhold and from there, we will… make arrangements.’

Cullen’s lip curled. There would be no _arrangements. _

‘Cullen, Cullen _please_, you can’t bring him back,’ Lavellan said. ‘I’m not saying it to forbid you—’

‘Whereas _I_ am most definitely saying it to forbid you.’

‘—I wouldn’t do that, but it’s… it’s not possible!’

‘Might be possible, if we bloody well knew the _plan_! Is there even a plan? Is this like, winging it, necromancy style?’

‘Cullen, I am of Nevarra. I have family who are Mortalitasi! There is no such way to raise the dead, not in permanent fashion and not with the specific soul of the fallen. Not to _mention_ the effect it would have on you for even _attempting_—’

‘I can bring him back,’ Cullen grunted, legs spasming as they made it down the final step onto the first floor. He could hear the rain, the smell of it flooding his senses as it drenched wet stones and joined with the lake nearby.

‘There is no recorded instance of—’

‘There’s no recorded instance of a Templar using magic either!’ he snapped, wincing when he had to lean even more so upon his friend. ‘Fucking _Maker_, just give me a chance and I’ll explain…’

What would he explain, though? Sera was right, he had no actual _plan_, no outline of how to proceed beyond the vague notion of _Bringing Dorian Back. _His magic seemed to know a great deal more than he did, but it still wasn’t exactly a guide; a handy textbook filled with instructions.

The gaping entrance gave way to thick rain and he shivered to be once again doused in it, the cold air marking his breath in whirling clouds before him as he looked around. The way down was treacherous, he’d nearly fallen on the way up. Only Dorian had saved him.

‘There,’ Lavellan pointed out, to the left. ‘They’re near the shore.’

He tried to see through the rain, was certain he could make out a moving figure close to the lake as she’d said. ‘Fenris, we need to get down.’

‘That might be… precarious,’ the elf said, staring at the slippery, jagged rocks with extreme doubt.

‘Oh, friggin’ void, c’mere,’ Sera said, shoving past Cassandra. ‘How dull your life must be, not being able to do _this_.’

Sera wrapped her arm around Cullen and held him with alarming strength. She then flung a chain down towards the docks at the base of the edifice and the chain caught on something solid and then _retracted_.

Cullen was yanked forward, overtaken by a sensation of _falling_, only much faster than natural gravity could lay claim to. They landed with a solid bump, Sera shouldering much of the impact. Cullen’s shins flared with pain at the force of the landing, not quite as spry as Sera, but otherwise he was intact.

She released him carefully. ‘Not too shabby, eh?’ she said softly. ‘What you and Dorian did for Ellie… look, she’s gonna pitch a fit, but I’ll help you, right? You wanna brew some big old dark magic or whatever, I’ve got your back. No way we can just let him go without trying something fucking mental first. He’d like that,’ she added, attempting to smile as her voice cracked. ‘He’d love to see us breaking natural law and shit, smug bastard.’

The others were following, taking the path down the rocks like normal people. Cullen stared at Sera then, the pair of them dripping with rain, the lake stretched out behind them and only a hint of the twin moons in the dark, heavy skies above.

‘Thank you,’ he told her and meant it more than he could say.

‘Yeah,’ she said, patting his shoulder. ‘C’mon.’

As they made their way to the distant, rain-obscured blobs on the shore, Sera squinted to see. ‘Is that… no. Fucker _left_ didn’t he?’

Cullen looked ahead, unable to see who she was speaking of. He didn’t allow himself to even _consider_ that it might be Dorian because he could see the outline of something flat on the ground, but there _were_ two figures close by.

Fenris caught up. ‘Who’s the other?’ he asked warily.

‘It’s not…’ Cullen shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

When they were close enough to see, Cullen’s attention was drawn very much to the figure lying on the shingle of the shore. The one not moving or breathing.

Sera yelled, ‘Motherfriggin’ nug fucker, _where_ have you been?’

Cullen lifted his gaze to settle on the third figure.

Solas, with implacable calm, looked away from Halward Pavus and answered, ‘While I _did_ intend a period of introspection and retreat, it became clear I was needed here. Cole reached out to me, asked me to come and so, here I am, a final time.’

Cullen knelt beside Dorian and touched his hand. The mage was unbearably cold, skin soaked and icy to the touch.

_Do not despair_, the magic bade, even as sadness swirled through it then. _Be strong, our Cullen. Our worthy one. Be strong for us and for him. _

Something like a sob caught and shattered in Cullen’s throat, breath coming fast as warm tears spilled forth.

The world was _empty_ without him.

‘I need you to come back,’ he whispered then, taking Dorian’s hand in his own. ‘I can’t live without you, love.’

Halward bent down and took Dorian’s other hand, the moons showing Cullen only a little of the loss the mage’s father felt; it was there in the shadows, in the creases of his brow, in the shape of his downturned mouth. Cullen saw it abstractly, his own pain too great to empathise with that of others.

‘There may yet be a way,’ Halward croaked. ‘And I will help you all I can.’

‘As will I,’ Solas added. ‘_Despite_ my better judgement.’

‘An’ me, obviously.’

Fenris placed his hand on Cullen’s shoulder, voicing his support silently and without restriction. 

‘I’ll do what I can,’ Hawke offered gruffly.

Lavellan and Cassandra came late, but they’d clearly heard.

‘We’re already past the point of no return with you two anyway and I can’t imagine the world without him,’ Lavellan said in a hollow way. ‘Fuck it, I’ll help.’

‘Oh for…’ Cassandra grumbled, making a noise of disgust. ‘Yes, I know a lost cause when I see one. All right then.’

Cullen brought the back of Dorian’s hand to his lips, pressing it there and closing his eyes tightly.

_We will find him, bring him to the surface._

‘Thank you,’ he said, seeing only Dorian in the darkness. Seeing that smile, seeing those eyes flash. Hearing his voice, feeling his touch. Being with him, falling in love with him, arguing with him. Watching Dorian flourish, loving him beyond any and all previous capacity. Reading, bathing, eating, teasing, kissing, _knowing_. ‘Thank you all.’

_Where he goes you go. We are bound._

‘I know this is a lot to ask.’

_Beyond love. _

_‘_But I can do this.’

_Beyond marriage. _

_‘_I’m going to bring him back. I’m going to save him.’

_Beyond death. _

‘The way he saved me.’

_Breach and breathe_.

‘Well,’ Solas said coolly. ‘We had better get started, then.’

*


	29. The Watchful Ambler: Part I

_Once upon a time, there was a young man named Shay who moved through the land slow and intent, unremarkable in all ways but one._

_He walked a steady pace, passing through town after town, villages of the world becoming known to him and though he slowed to take in beauty where he found it, Shay never stopped walking, never stood still._

_Shay could not stop, could never tarry or rest, had not slept since his first steps. Shay walked the world unable to pause, unencumbered by the need to eat or drink anything. The world was his sustenance and it was enough. He closed his eyes when the skies were dark and permitted himself the sense memory of what it might have been to dream once. His legs had long since forgotten what it was to ache, adjusted to his path as they were. As other men could rest, take a seat and exhale, the world permitting them momentary pause, Shay could not. He walked always, he moved constantly, taking in all he saw, drinking in sights where possible and feeling everything that passed beneath his fingers_

_Shay was unremarkable in all ways but one._

_He was the watchful ambler_

*

The returning pace was purposefully slow to make it easier for Bull, who carried Dorian. As they rode, the vestiges of the night melting away, Leliana laid it all out for Cullen.

But while he heard her words, he couldn’t really _comprehend _anything she was saying. Nothing stuck, nothing _stayed. _His mind was with Dorian, on the horned figure ahead. Focus attached solely to a ritual that he didn’t understand yet, a process so vague it was simply an idea, driven by the will of their magic.

‘…way of finding functional Eluvians,’ Leliana was saying, riding beside him. ‘There are more than we realised, the one at the base of the Frostbacks made it possible for Cassandra and Samson to…’

_Look back at the other, we will need him still_, his magic whispered, drawing his attention.

Cullen turned, checking on Jassen. Cassandra had him, bound with cloth, unconscious and in a healing trance thanks to Solas. Another reason to ride slow.

He directed his gaze back to the path, nodding as if he’d heard any of what Leliana was saying. The magic was satisfied that Jassen was still alive, but it sickened Cullen. Inside him, there was a burning sense of _shame _that he despised himself for. Shame because all this was for _him_. Countless dead, countless lives ruined by Jassen… all to get him and everyone could see it.

The journey was painfully, unbearably slow but the white noise of Leliana’s explanations of things he didn’t care about - how she came to realise that it was Cole being used to spy on them, how Keenan and Saffy explained to her about Dorian and where he was headed, how she had delayed to be certain of who the spy was - made it easy not to let himself feel much.

There weren’t enough horses for everyone, not by a long shot. Fenris, Cole and a few others walked alongside the band of freed Magisters and Tevinter mages who insisted on following them to the closest source of security. They made up the third and most pressing reason for the slow pace through easing rains and weakening, dark skies towards the castle.

Leliana talked and Cullen nodded, lost inside the snare of a single, determined thought. _Bring him back, you can bring him back. _

It didn't actually hit him until they set foot in Skyhold.

*

For Cullen, it wasn’t the familiarity of the castle or the ebb of necessary adrenaline now they were in a safe place.

It was Nalari. It was her face as she approached, seeking out Dorian from among the grim crowd. Maker, it was _all_ of them, boisterous and happy. All those who Dorian had loved and cared for. They were excited to see him, to greet the mage they loved in turn.

It broke Cullen in half.

Their unaffected enthusiasm, the glow in Nalari’s eyes as she gently bounced little Dawn, smiling to catch sight of Cullen… and then her smile faded, replaced by a worried frown.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked when he took her aside, concern morphing into worry, into _fear_. ‘Oh… blessed Andraste, what is it? Where is he, Cullen?’

He had to tell her before she _saw _it, but the words wouldn’t come out; his stammer had him in a choke-hold. She was shaking her head, clutching Dawn, and staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Cullen failed to tell her in time, but comprehension gifted her that understanding anyway and when a rush of quiet swept across the courtyard, he didn't have to turn to see that Bull was there, carrying Dorian in his arms. Instead of screaming and crying, those noisy, rambunctious mages just fell shockingly, horribly _silent_.

It rang in his ears, cut him to the core.

Nalari wandered away from him or maybe he from her, it was hard to tell. He became aware of Leliana taking him firmly by the upper arm. Her grip was almost painful. She guided him around the back of the stables, his legs like jelly, body so disconnected from him that every sensation was a surprise.

‘Head down,’ she ordered, strong hand bending his spine and making him pitch forward just in time for an alarming wave of sickness to take aim at the grass below. Cullen hadn’t even realised he was about to be sick, couldn’t feel it coming. She must have seen it. ‘Get it out, get it all out.’

She rubbed his back as another wave rocked over him, causing his vision to dim slightly. His eyes flooded with tears, throat burning.

When it eased, Cullen wiped his mouth with a trembling hand and when she passed him her waterskin, he only hesitated for a moment before he took it. He swilled the first mouthful of water and spat it before he drank in earnest. He didn’t realise how thirsty he’d been.

Even though Jassen had not deprived _Cullen_ of water, only Dorian.

‘Steady,’ she said soothingly, catching him when the world swayed dangerously to the right. Hands on his upper arms, strength and sense, that was Leliana. ‘It’s all right, Cullen.’

The sun was rising and Dorian was still dead.

‘No,’ he rasped, staring into her green eyes. ‘No, it’s not.’

*

Dorian’s absence in Skyhold made it difficult to deny that he was actually _gone_. It was there in the people who loved him. Who relied upon him, who cared for him, respected him. Soldiers whose names the mage had taken pains to memorise, the workers of the castle who Dorian frequently helped and pestered in equal measure.

Everywhere Cullen went, Dorian’s loss was being felt by _someone_. The mage was… loved. He was a part of everything, big and small, and it was only really, truly apparent when he was no longer there. When only a space remained, previously filled by his beauty and kindness and fucking _brilliance_.

People were grieving and Cullen could not cope with it.

Whatever had been keeping him going on the way back, a sense of disconnected determination maybe, it was fading dangerously. In the place where so much had happened, where every corner, wall, room and tower held memories for Cullen that were as real as the breath in his lungs, he began to _feel_ things he didn’t want to feel.

Fenris stayed close by and when the elf was not there, Leliana was. The pair of them seemed to have taken silent vows to stay near to him at all times but he didn't resent it. They’d been there for him before when he’d been at his lowest, it made sense they would be now.

All around, there were things that required his attention. People who needed him, elements that the _Commander_ of the Inquisition should have been involved with.

He didn’t feel like the Commander, not anymore. There was a level of disconnect between the title and what remained of him then. Whatever it was inside of him that had once been able to push on through such pain, that was now fatally wounded, holding on by a thread.

Maker take him, Maker _give him strength_, if he let himself think too long upon it, he was lost. Inaction and silence made it glaringly obvious that this was how his life would be if he failed. Without Dorian, there was no reason to live. To have known happiness, colour, _joy_… and then to have it stripped away. No, there would be no point in living if he could not bring Dorian back.

He would go somewhere high and he would fall, the way he imagined a hundred times before, _before_ a persistent, reckless mage had followed him up there, of course.

Cullen pushed down everything that would not keep him going and closed the lid, locking it tight. Dorian would be _fine_, he would bring him back no matter what. He would not fail, not this time.

*

There were at least twenty Tevinter mages wandering warily around, malnourished and pale, huddling together and whispering. It only registered to Cullen on a basic level because such an observation might have been cause for alarm once.

Halward had asked permission to supervise them, make sure they didn’t cause any problems. Cullen nodded mutely, not really understanding, but content to let someone else worry about such things. Several of the Magisters had tried to approach Cullen personally, blabbering gratitude and praise and Cullen couldn’t bear that either. He shut it out, he shut out everything that wasn't related to bringing Dorian back because that was the only thing keeping him alive.

*

‘Just one bite and we’ll go,’ Leliana said, not looking at him. She was poring over texts, books about necromancy and Mortalitasi, waiting for him to eat.

Cullen stared down at the tray. A pie, some fruit, a small bowl of stew and some honeyed cakes. High sugar content. Good for people in shock, he knew. Maker, he’d utilised such a tactic himself more than once for traumatised soldiers, though a stiff drink worked better in a pinch.

It was more food than he’d _seen_ over the last few months. Months of ranging and living on rabbits, to then return and find food stores drastically low. He _hated_ that they’d given him extra food, hated that he knew the reason why.

He forced himself to eat a slice of apple, swallowing it down along with the sick, hot need to _punish_ himself however he could for the crime of inaction, even if that meant starving himself. There was something viciously furious inside him, a part of him that wanted to self-destruct, if only in small, spiteful ways.

But he needed to be strong for Dorian.

So he ate some more, as much as he could stomach without his body seeking to purge and he let Leliana and Fenris guide him.

*

Time was moving strangely. Cullen felt almost like he was dipping in and out of consciousness.

_You should rest_, he felt the magic suggest, soft and sad with no expectation of him actually listening. _We have far to go, still. _

‘Where is he?’

Everyone stopped speaking; Leliana, Lavellan, Halward and Solas. Fenris was beside him, but the elf had been silent. The others had been involved in a four-way conversation, more of a debate from what Cullen could tell.

Lavellan understood. ‘He’s in his room, on the bed. Vivienne is with him, slowing time around him to prevent….’

To prevent him from _rotting_.

Fenris looked at him, perhaps wondering if Cullen wanted to go there but no, he couldn’t. He couldn’t waste time grieving. He had to remove the _reason_ to grieve. Wipe it from the world and replace it with his love, with his beautiful Dorian, hale and whole once more.

Cullen cleared his throat which still burned from the bile. ‘Can we go over it again?’

Solas watched Cullen carefully. ‘The ritual comes first. Halward and myself will perform it but it must primarily be Halward who masters the ritual because, by technicality, _he_ is the one who ended Dorian’s life with the blood curse and as such, has a measure of control over all other magic to be performed with his son’s blood.’

Cullen nodded, wishing his fingertips would stop tingling. He didn’t know why it kept happening, but it was distracting. ‘Like with the lockdown. I killed the men that Hawke then used for purposes of blood magic and so I could control it.’

He could tell Solas wanted to correct him to some extent, that his Ferelden, _Templar_ understanding of such complex magics was rudimentary at best. ‘Essentially, yes. There _are_ further aspects which—’

‘The ritual will make Dorian’s body susceptible to possession,’ Halward cut across quickly, looking at Cullen. ‘If he was a fallen enemy, a variation of this spell would be used to reanimate him and have him fight for you.’

‘Only it wouldn’t _be_ Dorian, would it?’ Lavellan said, glancing between Solas and Halward. ‘It would be a random spirit from the Fade.’

‘Yes. The key problem with raising the dead,’ Halward said heavily. ‘Is that once a soul is disconnected from the body, it is impossible to retrieve. We are not even certain where the souls of the dead truly go. Once it was the Golden City, but now—’

‘It’s an ocean,’ Cullen spoke quietly, crossing his arms, looking down. ‘Or a body of water, at the very least.’

Solas seemed surprised, eyebrows lifting. ‘You refer to the Well of Souls?’

Lavellan looked between them. ‘What’s that?’

‘You might have seen it yourself in the Fade,’ Solas told her and when Cullen chanced looking up, the elf’s stare was intense to say the least. _‘Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls. From these emerald waters doth life begin anew. Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you. In my arms lies eternity.’_

‘Andraste fourteen eleven.’

‘Indeed.’

‘_That_ was the Well of Souls?’ the Inquisitor said, wrinkling her nose slightly. ‘All that shallow, green water we trudged through, the sea near the gravestones?’

‘I was not there, I can hardly confirm.’

‘We’ll need to speak to Hawke,’ Leliana said, pragmatic as ever. ‘He was the only other mage there in the Fade. His input might be valuable.’

Effortlessly, she moved her gaze to Fenris, who simply nodded. Cullen hadn’t the time or energy to marvel at their newfound ability to converse without so much as _words_, especially not when the tingling sensation from his fingertips had travelled up into his forearms.

‘How do you know of the Well?’ Solas asked Cullen.

‘I don’t. It’s the magic.’

Lavellan sighed. ‘I still can’t believe you have his magic living inside you.’

Solas inclined his head. ‘It is not _only_ Dorian’s magic, though.’

‘What else is it?’

‘Dorian came to me once, asking for my input about a magic he had not fully connected with. I make no claim to understanding much of what it is between them, but the magic I touched upon was deeply involved with the Commander, both physically and spiritually.’

Cullen tried flexing his hands in an attempt to return feeling to them.

‘Is this relevant?’ Leliana asked somewhat tersely. ‘There is a point at which Dorian’s body will no longer be capable of supporting functional life. Vivienne is buying us time, but we are still greatly pressed and the ritual takes hours to prepare, does it not?’

Solas said, ‘While the situation is undeniably time sensitive, to send Commander Cullen physically into the _Fade_ with no idea where to go or what to do would, in my humble opinion, be a slightly worse outcome, no?’

Halward Pavus looked down. ‘I sense my son’s magic within you,’ he said softly. ‘But the elf is right. There is… something else.’

‘That _something else_ is the only reason that any of this might have the slightest chance of working,’ Solas said primly. ‘The bond between them stretches between death.’

‘I can’t feel him, though,’ Cullen said without meaning to because it was dangerous to speak of the void he felt there now. Of how he’d become accustomed to, even relying upon, Dorian’s _presence_ within him. A second heartbeat, the essence of the mage in that magic that took hold of him and welded them together. Always a vague, distant touch and sense but now… _gone_.

‘Nor should you be able to in this plane of existence. Once you are in the Fade, your magic ought to be able to sense him, _although_,’ Solas admitted. ‘That is not guaranteed by any means. All of this is theoretical.’

‘So,’ Leliana said. _‘Theoretically_, if we can open Dorian’s body to the return of his soul with the ritual and _if_ Lavellan can open a Fade rift, then Cullen will journey inside to seek out Dorian’s soul?’

‘With his friend in tow,’ Solas added.

Fists tight enough to strain his broken knuckles, Cullen ground out. ‘He’s not my friend.’

‘A figure of speech, little else.’

‘Why does he need Jassen?’

‘For balance. Dorian’s death has displaced a spirit, as is the natural way. To remove him from the Fade, theoretically, there will need to be one left behind to replace him.’

‘Will he have to kill him _in_ the Fade?’

Solas seemed hesitant to answer. ‘There will be trials, yes.’

‘How can he use the magic to find Dorian?’

‘Because Dorian’s magic has remained on this plane of existence and because they are bound by blood, the magic technically acts as a kind of phylactery in this instance. Cullen should be able to find him by allowing the magic to guide him. He will then attach Dorian’s soul to the magic and bring him back here, where we can – all being well – put it back.’

Everyone fell silent for a while until Fenris stepped forward. ‘That sounds far too simple.’

Solas rolled his eyes. ‘There are _significant_ problems, both in theory and in practise. There is a reason no living soul has been brought back to life before from outright death.’

‘Tell us of the risks, then.’

‘Cullen will likely not return. He is inexperienced in matter such as these and as I said, there will be trials. To walk in the Fade physically is _sadly_ not an experience I can lay claim to, the Inquisitor and the Champion can better advise him of what to expect in terms of sensation and physical dangers.’

Lavellan frowned. ‘Well, obviously we’re going with him.’

‘No,’ Solas said. ‘You are not. No one but Jassen may go with him in this instance.’

‘Why not?’

‘Reasons are plentiful but chief among them to maintain respect for the balance. Displacing spirits is no trifling matter. To successfully return Dorian to his body, there must be minimal interference.’

Fenris asked, ‘What else?’

‘There are aspects that the Commander will likely not care to hear about.’

Cullen turned away, the numb feeling crawling up his neck as his jaw worked. ‘The political implications, yes, that means absolutely _fuck all _to me.’

‘Even so, if successful, this will make ripples across all of Thedas. The Qun will likely declare open war on the South for knowingly attempting to enter the Fade, the _Land of the Dead_, as they call it. Before when it was accidental, I believe the Iron Bull would have been able to look the other way. A purposeful attempt will be something else entirely. It will serve as the excuse the Qun have been waiting for.’

Cullen closed his eyes, facing out of the window from Lavellan’s quarters. He thought of the nearby wall, of how he’d crowded Dorian into it, that new, strong magic having lifted him high with intent to _bend_. It was young, then. It did not know Cullen the way it did now.

‘I don’t care,’ he said dully.

‘And then,’ Solas went on regardless. ‘You have the interest, kindly put, of the Imperium. Magisters have long sought a way to enter the Fade, to control life and death.’

Grimly, Lavellan agreed. ‘Dorian warned me of that himself, of _interest_ and people seeking to copy what happened in Adamant.’

‘I _don__’t care.’_

‘We can contain it,’ Halward argued.

‘There are spies everywhere,’ Solas said with a touch of disdain. ‘Believe me.’

‘I know of the spies you speak,’ Leliana said. ‘We permit them to remain—’

‘In place of better trained spies, yes. A stunningly naive concept for someone as purportedly intelligent as you, Sister Nightingale. The Inquisition is ripe for corruption and the reach of the Qun is beyond what even _you_ realise.’

‘The Inquisition is the only reason you are standing here now and not kneeling before Corypheus; a fact you seemed keen to forget when you fled to grieve for the loss of your orb.’

‘Perhaps I simply wanted to put distance between these lands and the inevitable return of the Circles. The day when an apostate is no longer considered an ally looms ever closer as a new Divine is spoken of in hushed whispers.’

‘This is highly irrelevant,’ Lavellan snapped. ‘And we have no time. Contain yourselves, _both_ of you!’

Cullen only stared out at the snow and the mountains. He could barely keep himself upright, whole body tingling and numb now.

The Inquisitor took a breath and asked, ‘Solas, what of these trials?’

‘I cannot say with specificity, only that there will be challenges to overcome. I know not how they will present. There is a balance to all things and as such, nothing in life or death is free. The simple exchange of one soul for another will not be sufficient. I would expect further sacrifice and at the very least, a test of dedication.’

The room was swaying, the mountains dancing before him. Cullen felt light and distant. ‘I don’t care,’ he said again, voice echoing strangely, musically. ‘Whatever it… is.. I’ll…’

‘Cullen?’

The world dissolved, light along with it and Cullen fell.

*

_Shay came upon a curved river where the rocks caused a wonderfully noisy froth of bubbles and ahead, lay a village. He turned into the village where everyone danced through the night, where they made perfectly salted bread and grew lavender and elderflowers in their gardens. He slowed his pace to take in the merriment, breathe in the fleeting happiness of the celebration, such effort and coin put towards a single night, a memory made to sustain through darker times to come. Firelight flickered in the eyes of those who smiled for lovers, joined by Maker and matrimony, twin rings and all the hope for a shapeless, unknown tomorrow about them. Shay wished them well but could not stop to dance with those who asked nor sit at their tables when offered._

_His path led onward and he followed it, taking what little happiness he could cling to as the music faded behind him. He was not yet removed of the glow from the village, the love song still in his ears, when another young man caught up to him._

*

When he woke, it hit him again. Harder, deeper, _worse. _He felt boneless, like everything inside of him had been crushed. Bones to dust and organs to sludge. The knowledge came right away, no sense of delay about the origin of the _hole_ inside him, but again, he crushed it down, locked it away. It was harder that time, it _fought_ him and he fought back, winning but only barely and thus regaining the ability to exist, to be Cullen and to remain in the world.

Cullen looked around at Leliana’s small, excessively neat bedchamber, hardly had time to take in how little it had changed since last he was there, before he sensed the presence of another.

He expected it to be Fenris, Leliana perhaps. Anyone but Halward Pavus.

‘The ritual is being prepared,’ the Magister said without preamble. Cullen stared at him, swallowing slightly over a lump because while he _sounded_ nothing like his son - the accent was much too heavy, tone raspy and absent of that rich, fine quality that Dorian possessed - there was no denying that they shared the exact same piercing stare.

‘How long was I out?’ Cullen asked, easing up to a sitting position and finding his body remarkably free of pain. Someone had healed him. He knew Hawke was a decent healer, but he hoped it was someone else, because Hawke certainly shouldn’t be wandering around _freely_.

Cullen winced, slowly acknowledging that Hawke was one of the things that required his attention, the attention of the _Commander_.

‘A few hours,’ Halward answered curtly. Cullen frowned at him, wondering at the tone. Was he angry? ‘The ritual must be timed precisely for sundown. The elf assures me that they have everything they need for now, ingredients and such.’

Cullen looked around. ‘Where’s—’

Halward had the good grace to speak softer then. ‘Fenris is outside. His mistrust of me is… palpable. Not that I blame him at all. Still, I wanted to speak with you privately and he kindly informed me you were waking.’

There was only so far that Cullen could breathe _in_. Anything more than a shallow inhale caused something like _panic_ to tighten at the base of his spine. He didn’t examine it, didn’t care.

Halward rose from Leliana’s single chair. ‘There are… things I want to say to you.’

Rubbing his face, Cullen sighed tiredly. ‘Fantastic. Get it all out then, while you have the chance. I’m the Southern barbarian who corrupted your son, who dragged him low and held him there with the seduction of common law marriage and a lifetime of mundanity.’

‘Very well said, Commander,’ Halward intoned, never once blinking. ‘This is undeniably true, all of it. I never thought I would live to see the day that my son… that Dorian would ever consider marriage.’

Cullen huffed the start of a bitter chuckle, about to say something cutting but he refrained at the last moment. He thought of Halward’s determination not to open his eyes, of his worry when something bad happened at that table in the Tower.

Of the fact that his son was dead.

It turned into a sigh and he nodded, too tired to offer anything but honesty. ‘I love your son more than life itself.’

‘Yes, I think that might be true as well.’

A bubble of awkward silence stretched on for a moment, both men mourning the loss of the one who connected them.

‘If I thought I had any chance of bringing him back myself, I would do it,’ Halward said, breaking the quiet, watching Cullen. ‘He would not want you to do this. I know you’re aware of that. Others are going to tell you the same. There was a girl, a pretty blonde thing who healed you, she said it multiple times when she overheard the plans. Many are going to beg you not to attempt this. They will say that Dorian would not wish you to risk yourself for him.’ Grey eyes held brown, unflinching in both directions. ‘But I feel that you will ignore all such pleas and I want you to know, that should the situation here become untenable for _any_ reason, I will provide you whatever assistance I can. Regardless of the… outcome.’

He spoke clearly, concise and to the point and yet Cullen remained unsure of what he’d actually _said_.

‘I’m…’ he cleared his throat. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that when the Qunari come for you, when the Southerners turn on you for knowing magic, you have a place in Tevinter, always. With my son by your side, ideally, but I know you would have died for him given the chance. I could see, even with my eyes closed, how much you love him.’ Something like _sadness_ came over Halward Pavus then; on a man such as him, it manifested like weakness. ‘You cannot know how I have wanted that for him. Someone who would care for him, love him for who he is and support all of his brilliance. I never once considered a _man_ capable of such things. I was wrong. I was wrong about so much.’ He smiled then, a far off thing. ‘Dorian was the most extraordinary child, you know. I’m sure he told you tales of his… _exuberance_, but he was always incredible, always so eager to prove me wrong. He would… well.’ Halward cleared his throat, the smile vanishing as he became solemn once more. ‘I am _pleased_ to be proven wrong this time.’

Cullen had no idea what to say, so he said, ‘Thank you.’

The moment shifted. ‘I’m certain you could care less about such matters, but many of my fellow Magisters are deeply taken with you in regard to your role in freeing them. They have offered their help unequivocally, for whatever you may need.’

‘Do they know—?’

‘They do not, and I will do all I can to keep it that way, but they saw Dorian die.’ The implication went unsaid. ‘I feel it my duty to warn you that when mages like these take an _interest_ in someone, it is rarely benign.’

Cullen raised his hand, not wanting to seem impolite but unable to let him continue any further. ‘I… appreciate your concern,’ he spoke slowly, uncertain of how to _address_ Halward then and deciding to negate the thing entirely by moving swiftly on. ‘But it’s the last thing on my mind.’

Halward nodded calmly, like he understood. ‘Well, anything you require of me, you’ve only to ask. I hope you know that.’

‘Thank you again.’

Halward rose gracefully but at the door he paused. ‘I would be proud to have you as my son in law, Cullen,’ he said quietly. ‘I hope that will be the case.’

*

Seven hours.

Seven hours to prepare. Seven hours before he crossed the threshold between worlds to seek out Dorian, to find him using the magic they’d made together… and bring him _back_. 

The first problem became sharply apparent when Cullen tried to stand and Fenris, freshly returned to his post of bodyguard now that Halward was gone, grabbed him before he fell in earnest.

Cullen clutched at his chest, an agonising _strain_ making itself known and Fenris called out for help, lowering him back onto the bed.

‘I’m—’ Cullen started to say, but Fenris gave him a look that plainly said he wouldn’t believe him if he tried to claim he was _fine. _

‘Perhaps you stood too fast,’ the elf suggested, deep voice soothing and gentle. ‘That’s all.’

It wasn’t all and they both knew it, but Cullen was so grateful then, just to be permitted the illusion of normality, even if only for a moment.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, a touch breathless. ‘Too fast.’

Fenris crouched before him, bringing them almost eye level on the ridiculously low bed. Dorian would have hated such a bed. ‘You should slow down. There’s no rush, Cullen.’

Nalari came hurrying inside, little Dawn not with her. ‘What is it?’ she asked, wasting no time in casting an airy, glittering wave of magic over Cullen, the assessing kind, the kind that _sought_.

‘He tried to stand,’ Fenris told her.

‘Are you in pain?’ she asked him and then winced and added, ‘_Physical_ pain?’

‘No, I think I just stood too fast.’

‘It’s… your magic,’ Nalari said with quiet surprise. She pressed her lips into a thin line, hand hovering over his heart. ‘It’s very weak.’

Alarm shot through Cullen, followed by a sucker-punch of absolute _fear_. The magic was the only chance he had at bringing Dorian back. Fuck.

‘What do I…?’ he asked, breath catching hard, everything tight inside him. ‘I need blood, don’t I? I need to use blood magic.’

Nalari shook her head. ‘I don’t _know_. I have no idea how it’s even inside you at this very moment. This is madness.’

‘I need to use blood magic,’ Cullen repeated, because it was as much a declaration of intent as it was a request for help. Dorian had known all the clever incantations to imbue spilt blood with power, but Cullen knew precisely zero. ‘To power it with blood.’

Someone peeked around the door. One of Dorian’s mages, but Cullen could not recall the name of the boy.

‘I know them!’ he offered in a loud whisper.

‘Finn!’ Nalari admonished sternly. ‘Get _out_!’

‘No,’ Cullen said, waving the boy inside. ‘I need to know them. Please, if you can help me—’

‘You shouldn’t do this,’ Nalari wasted no time in saying as Finn slipped inside. ‘He wouldn’t want you to do this for him, not when the risk was so high.’

Cullen tried moving again but the pain was worse, tighter somehow. Each one of his rib bones felt like they were splintering with the slightest movement, like there wasn’t enough blood in his veins.

‘I have to try.’

‘It’s insanity, there has never been any—’

‘Which words do you need?’

_‘Finn_!’

‘Whatever is the easiest to cast.’

Nalari placed both hands over Cullen’s, seeking to hold his gaze with wide, imploring eyes. ‘Maker, _please_ listen to me for a moment!’

‘I will,’ he said, guilt shivering down his spine because while he would listen, that did not mean he would _hear_ her. ‘First I need to…’

He trailed off, looking up at Fenris. How many blood mages had they tracked down together and killed? Fenris’s hatred for such was legendary, more than Cullen’s own in Kirkwall, perhaps.

The elf’s hand gave Cullen’s shoulder a brief squeeze. There was no reprimand there, no hint of disgust. Only understanding.

Finn knelt in front of Cullen when Nalari stood abruptly, clearly upset.

The younger mage looked at Fenris. ‘Got a knife?’

Fenris, of course, did.

‘Spill wherever is easier, left hand’s usually best,’ Finn said.

Cullen stiffened, an old fear choking him then. ‘Uh, no. Can I use the right?’

Finn shrugged, too excited to notice the small flare of anxiety in Cullen then. ‘It’ll still work, yeah. Cut deep enough to fill a bowl and when the blood comes out, say,_ avesangua borium donnarstis.__’_

Nalari helpfully shoved a bowl towards Cullen, not meeting his gaze. He tried echoing Finn a few times, making a mess of the graceful words more than once but the boy was patient and soon, Cullen had it.

He held the dagger awkwardly with his left hand and then pressed it to the right. Cullen wrapped his fingers around the blade and sharply yanked. The pain was nothing, not compared to the growing concavity in his chest. He held his hand over the bowl and then dutifully echoed the complex words as taught to him by Finn.

All at once, his body went _rigid_. The air turned warm, became downright _pleasant_. It felt like he was expanding but not in a bad way. Like he’d been collapsing in on himself and now, he was _righted_.

He could feel the magic growing stronger. Felt it uncoil and swirl experimentally a few times, sustained almost as it had been when inside Dorian.

The numbness from earlier was gone, the inability to breathe was gone.

Cullen felt strong, _capable_.

Mere seconds after having spoken the incantation, he cast. He chose ice, because that was the safest option and the one less likely to kill everyone in the room. It was a small spell, the barest, crudest lump of ice forming when he pointed, but it was enough to justify the use of the magic.

Fenris swore under his breath in Tevene and Cullen sighed, tremulously relieved despite himself. He got to his feet, not needing Fenris’s help, but accepting it anyway.

‘Thank you, Finn,’ he said to the boy whose eyes were simply _glowing _with what Cullen vaguely hoped was merely academic curiosity and interest, focusing then on Nalari. ‘Fenris, could we have a moment?’

Once the other two were outside, Cullen thought he might be about to receive a slap from the young mother. She was almost trembling with anger, the set of her jaw spelling all manner of fury, barely leashed.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said uselessly. ‘I don’t know what else I can say. I don’t…’ he trailed off, wishing he was better at things like this.

When Nalari blinked, tears rolled down her cheeks and her expression began to crumple slowly. Cullen started forward, but then caught himself. Part of him wanted to offer her comfort, to take her into his arms and hold her but it would be inappropriate in the extreme. She’d grown up in Circles with all manner of monsters posing in armour, pretenders dressed like protectors, Templars like Cullen had once been.

Cullen kept his distance and he thought maybe he’d made the right decision when she didn’t move towards him, didn’t seek him out for anything besides words exchanged.

‘I know you’re going to ignore everything I say,’ she said thickly, the anger still present in her tone as she wrapped her arms around herself, a gesture so reminiscent of Dorian that it hit Cullen like a slap. ‘I know I’m a child to you and—’

‘Nalari,’ he said firmly, daring to take a half step forward. ‘I don’t think of you as a child. You’re… I think very highly of you.’

She met his gaze at last, blue eyes swimming. ‘All I can think of is when he thought you were dying, when your lungs were infected. I could see then how much he loved you, Maker we all _knew_ he was taken with you, the months without you almost killed him, but seeing you like that… he would have given anything to keep you alive.’

Cullen’s memory of such a time was fragmented at best but he knew Dorian and the others, Nalari primarily, had worked hard to save him.

‘I can’t live without him,’ he said, barely above a whisper.

‘You _can_,’ she countered. ‘You just don’t want to, there’s a difference. Dorian didn’t _want_ to live when you left him here but he made himself go on every single day.’

‘Dorian is stronger than me, he always has been.’ He looked around, barely even _seeing_ the room, disconnected as he was. ‘I can't… be without him. I wouldn’t even know where to start.’

‘He would _never_ want you to risk your own life for his and you know it.’

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘You’re absolutely right. It’s not what he would want.’

She stared at him, lips pressed tightly together before she whispered, ‘But you’re doing it anyway.’

‘I have to _try_.’

‘What about the others that care for you? Do they mean nothing in his absence?’

Cullen blinked and then let himself absorb everything about Nalari he’d been steadily ignoring, unable to take in due to his state of mind. She was pale, always had been, but this was something far worse. She had cried, she was _grieving_ for Dorian, but she was taut with worry, with concern for him and for the first time since laying eyes on her, Cullen realised that there _were_ people who needed him. Other people besides himself who were lost without Dorian.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, aiming to sound genuine though it was difficult to make his body obey; there was a strange divide and consequential delay between what he _wanted_ to happen and what actually happened in regard to his movements and interactions. ‘I’m sorry.’

Resignation coloured her remaining anger, dulled it and drained it. ‘Maker, I don’t _blame_ you,’ she whispered miserably. ‘Of course you would try, it’s no slight on you and that’s not my concern. I…’ she sighed, it rattled around the edges. ‘I just worry about what will happen if you fail. If you get there and realise it can’t be done. Would you come back, without him?’

The question caused his throat to contract painfully. Of course it could be done. His magic was certain of it, the others agreed that in theory it was possible. He and Dorian were bound, they were meant to _be_.

‘Yes, I would,’ he told her, ashamed that there was most definitely a lie in there somewhere. ‘I would come back.’

‘I hope that’s true,’ she said softly, hollowly. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to prepare.’

‘Nalari, I promise—’

‘If I could ask one favour,’ she interrupted at the door, now determinedly avoiding looking at him.

‘Anything,’ he said, desperate to wipe the slate clean between them, even if only a little. ‘Anything.’

She rubbed her eyes, the misery from before increasing tenfold. ‘It’s Keenan.’

*

Keenan was in the chapel and he was on his knees. That he was praying, Cullen had no doubt. Spine taut and curved, arms aching and locked into position, knees protesting. Rigidly awaiting intervention. The Maker demanded a painful form of supplication in payment for silent audience. Cullen no longer prayed, but he remembered it well.

_Forehead to stones, anything, any kind of help_ _…_

He mastered the memory before it took him. Praying was not necessary this time. He would do it himself. Save Dorian _himself_ instead of rocking back and forth, crying until his voice gave, pleading until he lost consciousness and all for nothing, _nothing_.

The young mage scrambled to his feet as soon as he sensed Cullen’s approach, whipping around and Cullen saw it. The reason Nalari was concerned, the reason none of the others could get close to him.

Grief with nowhere to go, no outlet, no exhale.

‘Keenan.’ The boy glared viciously. He was shaking all over, wayward emotions wrecking him like a rudderless ship in the shallows.

‘You,’ Keenan uttered, voice trembling dangerously. ‘Why are _you_ here? Get out.’

‘Keenan, I—’

‘GET OUT! You haven’t done _enough_? Come to fuck me up, come to enact a little Templar style vengeance, have you?’ His mouth twisted in a mockery of a smile. Cullen had never seen Keenan smile, even when with Dorian but he knew this wasn’t it. ‘Yeah, why not? Blame the mage, that’s a fun _game_, isn’t it? Like all the games your _sharp one_ played in Kinloch while you stood watch! My Father told us about those, about all the times you looked the other way!’

It was dangerous to advance, but the boy was unstable. There were far worse outcomes than Cullen being harmed. He knew the feeling, a little of it at least; a hand gripping inside the chest, too hot to bear, no way to scream.

‘You have to calm down.’

‘But you won’t look away now, will you?’ Keenan went on in a rush of words, all of them jagged and uneven. He didn’t back away when Cullen stepped forward. ‘Come to punish the traitorous mage for letting Hawke out? For betraying everyone, even though I did _everything_ I could to save them? Even though I made sure no one died, when Hawke would have ripped through them instead!’ Ice was forming lightly on the tips of his fingers. ‘_GO AHEAD!__’_

It was louder than Cullen expected and the Chapel offered no echo, only amplification. He didn't flinch, stopping when they were barely six feet apart.

‘No one blames you.’

Keenan’s anger _skyrocketed_.

He advanced a few steps that he clearly couldn’t prevent. The boy was shorter than Cullen; mages raised in Circles often were, due to the lack of sunlight, though he was taller than Jassen. His dark hair was in disarray and his eyes betrayed him entirely. Red rimmed and swollen.

Dorian would have been heartbroken to see him in such a way.

‘Why are you here then?’ Keenan demanded, voice low and juddering. ‘Come to kick me out? Like I _want_ to be here anyway? This place, without—’ His voice caught painfully and his mouth twisted, fury spiralling by the second. ‘Or did _she_ send you? Worried about me, worried about what I’ll do?’

Cullen didn't know what to say to the boy without making him angrier, so he just nodded.

Keenan blanched, eyes darkening.

‘Well,’ he said, brittle enough to cut himself. ‘Now that you’re here, no reason you can’t indulge in a bit of nostalgia for the good old days, eh?’

He invaded Cullen’s space, his suffering thickly tangible in the air.

‘Keenan, you need to calm down.’

_‘Make_ me!’

‘You’re too vulnerable to possession, you have to—’

Keenan hit him. It was poorly aimed, the kind of punch that certainly hurt Keenan far more than Cullen.

‘C’mon, _Templar_,’ the boy whispered malevolently when Cullen made no move to do anything besides go on standing. ‘Make me _calm_! Subdue me, protect me from myself with a _Silence!__’_

Cullen wished he knew what to do. Dorian would have known, would have done the right thing because he _knew_ Keenan. Cullen’s knowledge of the boy was not… helpful in this way. He knew Keenan was a protector, he knew how he went out of his way to protect the younger ones in the Gallows. Troublemaker, some of the others called him. Cullen had always tried to avoid him, oft stricken by the resemblance to his father.

‘I can’t do that,’ Cullen said. ‘I would if I could, because it would protect you from possession, but I can't cast Templar abilities anymore.’

‘You’re a Templar!’ the boy hissed, shaking his head at the very _implication_ that Cullen was anything else. ‘You’ll _always_ be a Templar! Just because you have his magic, doesn’t make you—make you _worthy_ of it! You’re a filthy, murderous Templar! The Templar who killed my Father!’

There it was.

Cullen kept himself still even with Keenan close enough that he could feel the ice forming over his skin, magic pulsing dangerously. ‘Yes, I did.’

Something fractured behind Keenan’s expression. ‘You tore him apart, didn’t you?’

‘I did.’

‘With your hands.’

‘Yes.’

‘And then you came to Kirkwall,’ he breathed, jarringly uneven. ‘And you made our lives a misery there too.’

‘Yes.’

‘I saw you beat our people to death,’ Keenan whispered, like they were sharing a secret. ‘I watched you do it. You were good at it. Made it quick, not like the others. Did that make you feel _better_? A hero?’

Cullen wanted to ask what he needed, ask what he wanted and just _give_ it to him. Dorian loved Keenan, cared for him so much. Cullen had to keep him alive, keep him safe from possession.

The boy was breathing wildly, so much anger, so much _grief_ in him then that Cullen couldn’t help but empathise. The space between them was full of _Dorian _and the total lack of him. Absence carved deep, a chasm of _loss. _

Dorian had touched so many lives in so many ways and without him, it left the world colourless and dark.

‘No,’ Cullen said. ‘I know I’m not.’

‘You didn’t deserve him.’

‘You’re right.’

‘You _hurt him_!’

Cullen’s chest clenched hard then, but he did not falter. ‘Yes.’

‘You hurt him and you _left_ him and he nearly died, did you know that? We all thought he was just going to slip away in his sleep, never wake up. We would stay with him all night, keep him company while he…’ Keenan’s breath snagged and it pulled on his features, dragging them momentarily down into unbearable sadness rather than hatred. ‘While he read to us.’

‘Keenan, what can I—?’

‘Don’t keep saying my name like we’re anything other than what we are!’

‘If you don’t stop, I’ll have to knock you out.’

He smashed his palms into Cullen’s chest as hard as he could. Cullen stood like stone.

‘DO IT THEN!’

‘That’s not what I want, please stop.’

‘MAKE ME STOP! _MAKE ME STOP_!’

When Keenan went to hit him again, Cullen could have caught his wrists. It would be easy; the boy had rarely applied himself in physical training drills.

Cullen let him hit. Let him land sloppy, untrained blows wherever he wanted. It was all he could give, no clever words, no understanding the boy would not detest and resent.

He let Keenan hit him, over and over, the movement turning wild, hands loosening and slapping whatever he could of Cullen when he couldn’t keep his fists balled anymore.

‘YOU TOOK HIM FROM ME!’

‘I could never do that,’ Cullen said, wincing when Keenan hit his face. ‘He loves you, Keenan.’

‘STOP… TALKING ABOUT HIM… LIKE HE’S STILL… _HERE_!’

Keenan tried to push Cullen, tried to shove him and lost his own footing in the process. Cullen attempted to catch him, but Keenan was too wild and he dragged him down too, both men crashing painfully to their knees.

Cullen took his wrists then, held him in an iron grip. ‘I don’t know any other way to talk about him,’ Cullen said, slightly too loud and breathless with the honesty of such a thing. ‘There will never be a world for me without him.’

‘Why did you come for me at the Pass?’ Keenan panted, trying to free his hands. His wrists grew cold, Cullen’s palms burned to contain the mage but he didn’t let go. ‘Did you think that makes up for _anything_? All you did was get him _killed!__’_

He screamed the last as tears spilled freely and the anger finally breached. Cullen’s fingers were frozen, the air turning to powdered glass it was so cold. It was going to happen, Cullen had seen it enough times in Kirkwall to sense the rotting encroach of opportunistic evil.

‘Dorian never gave up on you,’ Cullen told him. ‘Even when everyone else thought you’d killed dozens with witchgrass, he refused to believe it. He was the one who figured it out, who kept us from burning the bodies. He loves you and you mean so much to him.’

‘He’s _dead_ and you let it happen!’

Cullen winced as the cold became nigh unbearable, his skin blistering and burning as ice formed deep enough to touch his bones. Cullen’s magic eased gently into his palms, applying a countering warmth, something soothing instead of combative. Melting enough of the frost to prevent permanent damage.

‘I should have done more,’ Cullen said, voice cracking at the end. ‘I know that.’

Weakness was creeping in, draining that anger of the strength it so often gifted in the moment and Cullen could see how much Keenan hated it. ‘You failed him!’ he gasped, insufficient breath to transform it into a scream like he clearly longed for. ‘You _betrayed_ him!’

In a bright, burst of painful comprehension, Cullen _understood_. It came to him as if Dorian himself had shown him, pointed silently and made him _see_.

Keenan wasn’t talking about Cullen anymore.

‘He trusted you and you… you fucking _betrayed him! _You let him down even when he… he gave you everything, more than you deserved! Y-you’re the reason he’s dead!’

The boy’s eyes were closed tight, great heaving paroxysms of grief and shuddering comprehension of loss that was, frankly, beyond what Cullen himself was capable of feeling. Cullen’s grief was very much _distanced, _trapped behind thick glass to keep him alive long enough to _save_ Dorian.

Keenan had no such distance. His grief was real and it was swallowing him whole.

Cullen’s magic bled warmly into Keenan, but the boy didn’t seem to notice. His anger was melting away, turning liquid and loose, reverting to the cause_. _

And he wanted to hold him then, bring him close and give comfort however he could because that… _that_ was what Dorian would have done. Cullen knew it, _felt_ it there in the magic that sought to reach Keenan and protect him, clamp that connection from the fickle Fade, from things that would slip inside and take advantage of the tempest within.

Dorian would have taken Keenan into his arms and held him through it all, held him until the worst had passed and if it didn’t pass, Dorian would have made it so.

Cullen was woefully, painfully _not_ Dorian. He had no right to do any such thing to the mage before him.

So instead, he said, ‘He was never one to hold a grudge.’

Keenan sobbed and when he couldn’t pull his hands free from Cullen, he dropped his head into them, unable to hold it up any longer. The frost was fading, cold leaking away as Keenan grieved, cried, curled tighter in on himself and Cullen didn’t let go because the moment he did, the boy would retreat where he could never pull him free again.

‘He’s gone,’ Keenan whispered, back heaving. ‘He’s _gone__…_ because of me.’

‘No,’ Cullen said, shaking his head even though Keenan couldn’t see him. ‘No, that’s not true.’

‘I caused all of this. He’s gone because of what I did.’

Steel overcame Cullen then, an iron born determination to rid Keenan of any such illusion. _‘_You chose to do the difficult, _decent_ thing instead of the easy alternative. You could have killed everyone, how much easier would it have been for you to do that than what you actually did?’

‘I should have told him.’

‘Hawke would have got out,’ Cullen said quickly, not allowing a single ounce of weakness into his tone. ‘Jassen would have gotten what he wanted, one way or the other. This was never about you.’

‘He was so kind to me and I—’

_‘You_ are the living, breathing monument to his innate fucking brilliance,’ Cullen insisted fiercely and Keenan tried not to listen then, tried to shake his head but Cullen dared pull him closer, grip on his wrists tightening slightly, the warmth of his magic seeping into the boy’s bones, countering the ice _within_ now, soothing wherever it could. ‘This, _none of this_, is your fault. _I__’m_ the one who let Dorian die, I was right there when it happened. He was in my arms when he died and I couldn’t… couldn’t keep him here. I’m the one who all of this is in aid of. Jassen wants _me_. Everything, all of this, is because of me. You’re blameless, you understand?’

Keenan’s back shuddered and slowly, Cullen released his wrists, trusting that the worst had passed. The younger man didn’t skitter away, didn’t lash out. He stayed where he was, head in his hands, lost and alone and Cullen couldn’t bear it.

‘He loves you, Keenan,’ Cullen told him, plain and honest. ‘He loves you so much and I’m going to try and bring him back.’

Keenan looked up ever so slightly then, blue eyes latching onto Cullen. Slowly, he began to rise from the floor.

‘I’ve taken so much from you,’ Cullen said to him in a rush, unable to temper it. ‘I took from you before I even knew you and I… can’t make up for that, I can never make it right but I will do _everything_ I can to bring Dorian back.’

It was difficult not to reach out and place his hand on Keenan’s shoulder. Such a strange, unfamiliar urge, to be _tactile_ with anyone who wasn’t known to him, who wasn’t his _friend_. Who wasn’t Dorian.

He thought the boy might even have accepted it, but it wasn’t worth the risk. They stared at one another, the silence stretching wide, becoming dense and packed with all the things unsaid, all the times they’d been in proximity in the past, blood on Cullen’s knuckles, defiance in Keenan’s eyes. A history written in Kirkwall, a span of time in which Cullen had done his best to ignore the boy.

The boy who wasn’t really a _boy_. Who was twenty, easily. Who Dorian treated like a child, sought to protect as if he were a child but really, Keenan was a man and had been for a long time.

It was Dorian between them, Dorian in all the negative space of what brought Templar and mage together in mutual grief.

And it was the closest Cullen had felt to Dorian since he’d lost him.

There was a strange look in the young man’s eyes when he said, ‘You’re going to…’

‘I’m—’ Cullen stumbled over the danger of making promises set in stone. ‘I’m going to _try. _I’ll do everything possible. There’s a ritual, it’s being prepared now. If I can find him, it might work.’

Keenan nodded and seemed to gather himself somewhat. He looked around and swallowed, gaze fixing on something to the left. ‘You can’t live without him.’

‘No,’ Cullen said hoarsely, truthfully. ‘I can’t.’

There was a long pause before Keenan nodded again, as if that made sense and when he looked back at Cullen, he saw strength there, determination building upon a shaky foundation of _hope_.

‘All right,’ Keenan said and it wasn’t forgiveness, would likely never be, but it was something new and Cullen, in true Dorian fashion, would take whatever he could get.

*

_There was beauty in movement, so Shay explained to his companion. Beauty in change, an endless road of pursuit and freedom. Freedom in all of it. When his companion asked if it was a curse that kept him moving always, Shay only smiled and slowed enough that they be side by side._

_They crossed borders and towns, learning of each other with stories and words, with varying gazes of the world and opinions that gave new colour to all things considered established. Shay had never had someone follow him in such a way for so long. His friend would sleep sometimes and Shay would walk on, accepting that their time had come to an end, but the next day, the young man would catch up, sometimes on the back of a beast, sometimes by running until his cheeks reddened, breath coming fast but always smiling, always laughing. Shay would smile brighter and they would walk together, sharing the path a little longer._

_The open road brought perils, and Shay never stopped to help. He did not become involved even when his companion did, straying to intervene. When Shay looked back and saw his companion fall, he regretted his onward momentum for the first time in his life. A moment of indecision plagued him, caught in the desire to turn and stop for someone, for his friend._

_But Shay kept his gaze on the clear path. He left his friend to die, regret carving a scar that no amount of ambling would ever erase._

*

After that, Cullen had no choice but to let himself become involved in what was happening outside of his own turmoil. It was no easy thing, looking around and seeing the effect Dorian’s absence had upon Skyhold. He tried not to let it sink in too deeply, after Keenan. There were aspects that required the attention of the _Commander_ and even though, one way or the other, Cullen was no longer such a man, he knew how to pretend.

The Commander, a facet built strongly from the best parts of a lyrium driven purpose, knew what to do when asked about the inbound arrival of the armies en masse. The Commander was skilled at presenting workable options for issues like bed shortages, like damage to the roof of the barracks, damage sustained from the Deep White. The Commander was in control, master of self and surroundings and all those in between.

Cullen played at being such a man for the last time and in the hours leading up to the ritual, he did what he could, wherever he could, Fenris by his side for the most part. Skyhold had always required a stunning amount of micromanagement. All the major issues of a Circle combined with those of a military encampment, not to mention the multitude of problems brought about from the successful running of a Maker damned _castle_.

He applied himself, slid into the role and did whatever he could to make people’s lives easier.

Checking in on Hawke was something Cullen had been dreading and rightfully so when he found the mage, _un_chained, _un_restrained, chatting quietly with Bull in a room above the Tavern.

‘Thought it best to keep him away from the _other_,’ the Qunari explained calmly, easily when Cullen’s glare locked with the Champion. The _other_ he referred to was likely Jassen, the last man on Thedas that Cullen wanted to see, buried beneath chains and magic in the furthest depths of Skyhold.

‘He’s more dangerous than you realise,’ Fenris intoned darkly and Hawke had the good graces to flush around the edges, dropping his gaze.

The Champion had picked up a couple of fresh cuts and bruises since arriving in Skyhold, or so the _Commander_ noticed.

‘Few people attacked him,’ Bull said with a shrug when he saw Cullen looking. ‘He’s not exactly well liked.’

Hawke was sat on a small table, feet on a chair.

‘So,’ he said, deep voice unusually subdued. ‘Which is it to be?’

The _Commander_ understood immediately while Cullen hated the fact that there was even a choice in the matter. ‘Information,’ he answered, deciding to be straightforward. The less time spent with him, the better. ‘It’s not for me to judge your crimes.’

Hawke looked as earnest and _tired_ as Cullen had ever seen him. He still hadn’t quite recovered from the sickly pallor brought about by Jassen’s poison. ‘What d’you want to know?’

‘You’ve been in the Fade before,’ Cullen answered shortly. ‘Your… input has been deemed valuable.’

Bull looked sharply at Cullen then, single eye narrowing. ‘Why is _that_ valuable?’

‘You know what I’m going to attempt.’

‘I know you’re gonna use some of Dorian’s hokey-pokey necro-magic to bring him back.’

‘It’s… not that simple.’

‘Are you going into the Fade, _willingly_?’

Bull was a man who rarely allowed anything to faze him. Cullen had a great deal of respect for him, even if only in military terms. He’d never seen the Qunari balk in such a way.

‘To bring Dorian back, yes.’

‘You _can__’t_,’ Bull said with a hint of force and _oh so_ subtly, Fenris shifted closer to Cullen. Bull caught it and paused, the atmosphere in the room turning somewhat tense_._ ‘You can’t _knowingly_ walk in the Fade while you’re alive. That’s… you can’t.’

‘The Inquisitor—’

‘Yeah, by fucking _accident!__’_

‘It’s the only chance I have to bring him back.’

‘Cullen,’ Bull said urgently, single eye flicking to Fenris and then back again. ‘You’re not _hearing me_. If word of this gets out, that you performed a ritual to enter the Fade to bring a Vint back to life… even if you fail, it’ll be a declaration of war against the Qun.’

Hawke looked back and forth between the three of them and then Fenris said, quite deadpan, ‘Well, it had better not get out then.’

Bull muttered something in Qunlat and dragged a massive hand across his face while Hawke hopped down from the table, his movements obvious so as not to cause alarm. ‘I’m sure time is of the essence, yeah?’ he said, unable to keep his focus from Fenris. ‘These things are always sensitive to sunset, or at least such is my memory of demonic blood rituals.’

Cullen glared dully. ‘It’s not a _demonic_ blood ritual.’

Hawke shrugged. ‘Two out of three.’

‘Does it make you feel better to pretend to be the Champion?’

‘I don’t know, does it make you feel better pretending to be the _Commander_?’

‘Carver,’ Fenris warned in a low voice and the effect was _instant. _Cullen couldn’t help but marvel. Hawke’s building hostility and reliance upon sarcasm just… evaporated. Fenris brought him to heel with a single, _inaccurate_ name and an unflinching stare.

Hawke exhaled and deflated entirely, shoulders dropping. ‘I did what I had to. I think maybe you _understand_ what that’s like.’

Cullen’s magic coiled hotly, his dislike manifesting as a physical itch beneath the surface of his skin. ‘Send a boy to slaughter dozens with poison… no, I don’t know what that’s like.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘Lucky _you, that_ he had a shred of decency.’

Hawke smiled entirely without humour, the bruised skin around his throat with the freshly mottled scar tightening as he swallowed. ‘Decent never really was my colour.’

The magic seized then, catching on something that Cullen didn't quite understand, but it wanted to _hurt_ him and so did Cullen. He thought of Keenan on his knees, praying for absolution for his role in what had happened, broken apart by his perceived betrayal towards Dorian when it had been Hawke. So much of it had been Hawke, whose strings were pulled by _another_, admittedly, but it didn’t matter much then.

The Champion seemed to sense the magic swirling angrily within Cullen; his eyes narrowed slightly, fingertips moving to draw magic down into them as they stared at one another, preparing to fight.

Cullen _wanted_ to hurt him. Fuck, it would feel so good to hurt someone, to take even a fraction of what was inside and _carve_ it into another.

Fenris reached out when Cullen started forward, palm pressed lightly against the centre of Cullen’s chest to stop him and, grounded by the contact, the moment passed. His magic grudgingly whispered to Cullen that Hawke was not worthy of wasting anything and he realised that Bull had been speaking, saying actual words that Cullen had missed completely.

‘He’s _fine_,’ Fenris told Bull, who’d obviously been _asking_.

Cullen nodded as if that proved anything, flexing his fingertips and letting the world take focus once more.

Ignoring the disapproving glare from Bull’s good eye, Cullen took command of himself, watching as Hawke almost mirrored the gesture. ‘Tell me about the Fade.’

*

_The watchful ambler saw a great many things on his way through the world. In passing, he saw babies taking their first breaths, he saw laughter and happiness. He saw the small, fleeting moments of triumph that sustained people during the relentless challenges that made up the rest of their lives. He smelled the wet, dewy scent of newly opened flowers in the first sunshine of spring. He heard music made by one who could wield the notes as a mage wields magic. He saw passion and love and the kind of fleeting anger born of worry, of a child wandering away and then returning to the frightened parent, blithe and unaware. He saw the nature of happy moments, smiled to see them and kept on walking._

_He saw the moments that broke people. He saw people die, over and over, in all different ways. As there were near infinite ways to make a man happy or sad, there were limitless ways for the same man to die. Shay saw many of them. He saw people fall from heights, he saw them die of illness. He saw them killed, holes driven deep where none were intended. He saw these things in passing, all in passing for he was the ambler and his journey would never be ended._

_Sometimes people would follow him for a while as did the first, his only friend who had fallen behind. They would ask where his legs were taking him, when he would stop, when it would be enough._

_Shay would smile, though he would not walk slower. He allowed for the company while the company was true, and whispered that there was meaning in movement, in forging a path ever onward towards something greater than himself, in never slowing for the decay of the world to touch him._

_Those who smiled back might walk beside him for a time, but most slowed and drifted as was their wont and they never caught up again. Shay ambled on, ever moving, ever feeling the scar cast by the first, ever alone._

*

‘Drink?’

Cullen sighed and allowed his eyes to close for a moment.

‘Fuck off, Raleigh.’

‘Y’know,’ the former red Templar said, setting the bottle down in front of Cullen where he sat at his desk. ‘You’d be surprised how often I get that.’

It was a piss poor vintage, the label dirty and scraped off around the edges. Something stolen from Lavellan’s _Not So Secret_ wine cellar unless Cullen was mistaken, which meant he’d probably been to see Jassen.

‘I tend to doubt it.’

To his great annoyance, Raleigh Samson plonked himself in the chair opposite Cullen, unable, as ever, to take a fucking hint.

‘So, doing some paperwork, are you?’

Cullen very deliberately did not reply and carried on writing.

‘Yeah,’ Samson commented, looking around. ‘This is the time for that, absolutely. About to go haul someone back beyond the veil? Let me just approve these reports first. The afterlife and the Fade are _challenging_ and all, but a backed up requisition request?’

‘Is there some reason you’re _not_ fucking off?’

Samson grinned, yellow teeth flashing. ‘Never really learned how.’

‘Hn,’ Cullen grunted, opting not to speak, focusing on the paper, on the quill tip carving letters and shaping words.

‘Surprised your pet elf isn’t hovering around somewhere,’ he went on conversationally, taking advantage of the silence. ‘Though I suppose he has to sleep sometime. Not everyone is taught to go a week without—’

‘What do you want?’ Cullen interrupted, making no comment of the fact that Fenris wasn’t _sleeping_ at all, he’d remained behind to speak with Hawke after Cullen’s patience had worn too thin to continue the questioning.

‘Maybe I just fancy a chat.’

Cullen laid down the quill. ‘You look like shit.’

Samson laughed. ‘Aww now, don’t go hurting my pretty little feelings.’

‘Maker, get to the fucking point.’

‘Just thought I’d check in on you.’

‘Really.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

Samson’s smile faded somewhat. ‘Curious.’

Cullen looked back down at the paper. ‘What was the final loss count for the Red Templars?’

‘Eighty percent,’ the other man answered, the teasing element gone in a flash. ‘Majority of survivors are those least affected.’

‘The Inquisition is grateful for your efforts.’

It was cold, even to Cullen’s own ears.

‘Yeah, the Inquisition really seems it.’

‘Fucking _void_, Raleigh. I’m not an idiot, just _ask, _will you?’

Samson sighed. ‘There’s a kid.’

‘Isn’t there always,’ Cullen muttered, gut tightening.

‘He was a runner, I brought him here with me through the mirror.’

‘You want me to remove his lyrium.’

After a beat, Samson said, ‘Yes.’

‘Because you don’t think I’ll make it back.’

Quieter than before, Samson said, ‘Cullen, you’re writing your goodbyes, mate. _You_ don’t think you’ll make it back.’

His hand froze, gripping the quill hard. The letter to Mia was already done, the longest one he’d ever written her by far, at least since the death of their parents. Branson had been easy - they’d always understood each other, but Rosalie, his baby sister, that was trickier.

Tightly, he said, ‘They deserve _something_, in case it goes wrong.’

Samson raised his hands. ‘I ain’t judging. I’m only asking what you and your mage promised, for _one_ kid.’

‘I don’t know if I can even do it without— on my own.’

‘Will you try?’

Cullen pinched the bridge of his nose.

‘I can’t waste my own blood,’ he said tiredly. ‘And yours is full of red lyrium.’

‘So use someone else’s,’ Samson said with a hint of edge. ‘He’s a good kid, I want him safe.’

Cullen frowned. ‘Is it the boy who delivered the message to me that night?’

‘Kid was absorbed into your unit, yeah.’

He remembered the way the boy had trembled from head to toe, pale and breathless, but reciting Dorian’s message anyway, dutifully informing Cullen - who must have seemed terrifying at the time - that he was an absolute fucking moron.

It was difficult not to smile, despite everything.

Dorian had the best sense of humour.

Cullen cleared his throat to warn away any attempt at curvature from his lips. It was highly, fucking _monstrously_ inappropriate and likely stemming from something steeped in exhaustion based hysteria. ‘It needs to be a mage’s blood.’

Samson’s brow lifted, expression calm. ‘Maybe you could ask the ones listening outside your door, there.’

After a disbelieving beat, Cullen rose swiftly from his chair and strode to the door, yanking it open to find that Samson had been infuriatingly correct. Saffy, Landon, _Finn_, as Cullen now knew, and another whose name still evaded him jumped back, but none of them seemed remotely guilty to have been caught.

‘We’re keeping an eye on you,’ Saffy informed him imperiously, so very like someone _else_ in both tone and confidence levels.

Landon nodded. ‘Nalari sent us.’

Saffy whacked his upper arm and the other two hissed at him.

‘Keeping an—what _for_?’

Cullen’s stern tone didn’t seem to affect any of them, except for Landon who cracked like an egg.

‘In case you jump off the side of the castle,’ he whispered, like the others couldn’t hear him. He received a round of additional whacks and seemed mystified as to what he’d done to earn them. _‘What_?’

Cullen stood back, holding the door open. _‘In_, the lot of you!’

The four mages trailed inside. Samson gave a cheery wave.

‘Fours plenty,’ he said, cocking his head, assessing.

‘Absolutely not!’ Cullen snapped, slamming the door shut with unnecessary force.

‘We can help,’ Finn insisted. ‘If you need blood for your… well, we didn’t really catch what it was _for_, but we can help!’

‘Is it for the ritual?’ Saffy asked intently. Her dark eyes shone with determination. ‘Because we’ll do anything to help bring him back, you know we will.’

‘Yeah,’ the other boy chimed in. ‘_Especially_ if it’s dangerous.’

Maker save him from risk addicted mages.

‘They’re all young and healthy, little bit of blood from each of them won’t hurt,’ Samson went on as if they were discussing the best way to carve up a spit-roasted druffalo.

‘We won’t tell anyone,’ Landon offered, winking unsubtly.

‘C’mon,’ Saffy wheedled right when Cullen was on the verge of throwing them all out. ‘Let us help. We _need_ to help, we can’t just sit around while the others are crying because they don’t know… they don’t think there’s a chance…’ She trailed off towards the end, strong voice turning soft, confidence ebbing slightly. ‘Please let us help.’

Cullen knew exactly what Dorian would say to that. He could vividly recall each and every time he’d stepped out of line and treated anyone that Dorian perceived as younger, and therefore _a child_ to the mage, as if they weren’t precious.

They were _all_ precious to Dorian, even Cole.

Dorian would forbid it and then probably smack Cullen around the head for even considering it.

Samson rose from the chair, indicating over his shoulder. ‘I’ll just go get him, shall I?’

Cullen’s glare was thunderous, or so he hoped. ‘I’m not using _children_—’

‘We’re not children!’

‘—for something like this!’

Samson blinked, wrinkling his nose. ‘Why not?’

‘Look,’ Saffy said, hands straight to hips and fucking Maker, but she could have been his _daughter, _so ingrained were his mannerisms. ‘Either let us help or we’ll go and tell Nalari you were teetering on the edge of the ramparts.’

‘Wouldn’t be the worst thing you did there,’ Samson snorted while Cullen scowled.

‘It’s blood magic,’ Cullen explained, staring at each of them, hoping that would be enough to put them off. ‘And,’ he added when none of them seemed remotely dissuaded. ‘It’s _not_ for… it’s not in aid of the ritual.’

‘Oh,’ Finn said, looking mildly disappointed at best. ‘What’s it for, then?’

Samson swept in, adopting what he likely thought was a friendly tone. ‘It’s to save a young boy, around your own age, who was forced to ingest red lyrium. Your Commander here can save him, but,’ he tutted, gesturing in a pained manner, ‘Maker damn it, he needs blood.’

Cullen shook his head, glare withering.

‘We’ll help!’ the other boy said, eyes wide, clearly taken in by Samson. ‘Come on, let us help, please? We’re going crazy with nothing to do and Vivienne hasn’t let us do any real magic for days!’

Weakly, Cullen insisted, ‘You’re not doing _blood magic!__’_

‘No, of course not,’ Saffy agreed sagely, like he was making a wise decision. _‘You_ are. We’ll just… assist.’

‘Contribute,’ Landon said, giving Cullen a thumbs up while Samson smirked happily.

‘And watch,’ Finn added quickly. ‘We can watch, right?’

Cullen knuckled his forehead, a migraine most definitely on the way. ‘There is no way, in this world or the next, that I am allowing _any_ of you to participate in a blood ritual, all right? That’s _final_!’

*

‘Ow!’

‘Shut up, Lan, it’s barely a prick.’

‘No one wants to hear your dirty talk, thanks.’

_‘Hey_!’

‘Bleed faster, Marcus.’

‘How can I bleed _faster_?’

‘Squeeze it around the edge so it comes out the tip.’

‘Ooh, now she’s flirting with old Tree Bark - watch out, Lan!’

‘Go fuck yourself, Finn, no one else will.’

‘Why does this hurt so much?’

‘The first three layers of skin always hurt the worst.’

‘Nalari’s gonna heal this for us, right?’

‘It’s a _cut_!’

‘Yeah, but it stings!’

Cullen’s migraine had arrived in full force. He liked to pretend the pain was from a well-earned slap Dorian had given him, though in reality Dorian would have probably _punched_ him for letting his mages anywhere near blood magic.

Who was he fooling, Dorian would have _killed_ him.

The runner, a skinny boy of sixteen who had not yet grown into himself, was evidently named Rob and he was terrified.

Samson had had him waiting nearby, apparently not satisfied to waste any remaining time, determined to steal one life back from the ever expanding reach of red lyrium.

Cullen tried to take comfort that this was the same boy who Dorian had permitted to live, _against_ Leliana’s suggestion, so the Spymaster had informed him. Dorian would want his life saved.

Just perhaps not… like this.

‘That should be enough,’ Cullen said, his own voice a stranger to him. ‘Rob, come here, son.’

The boy moved forward, looking at Samson for guidance and then back at Cullen.

‘Y-yes, Ser.’

‘There’s no need to be afraid,’ Cullen said in his most soothing tone while Samson hovered nearby, frowning intensely. ‘But this might be painful. How many philters were you given?’

Rob glanced at Samson again who nodded. ‘Three, Ser.’

‘And had you had any regular lyrium before that? Templar training?’

‘Six regular philters before that. Not… not much training, Ser.’

Cullen gave Samson a filthy look, hoping to make clear how much that disgusted him. Cullen and Samson had been men by the time they’d been given their philters. Even the Chantry didn’t force feed _children_.

Samson narrowed his eyes. ‘_I_ didn’t fucking give it to him,’ he said witheringly. ‘It was a Captain, _against_ my command.’

‘Three isn’t so bad,’ Cullen outright lied, hoping to reassure the young runner. ‘Now, I’m going to try something different than what I did with Samson. I’m going to push magic into you and it’s… it will hurt, but this shouldn’t damage you at least.’ He looked at the mages then. ‘Can anyone sense the lyrium inside him?’

They mostly seemed blank, shrugging and glancing at each other until Landon, still sucking his index finger, said, ‘I can.’

Cullen nodded. ‘Good. You can tell me if this works when we’re done.’

‘Ser?’ Rob asked quietly, sat in the chair that Samson had recently vacated. ‘Can I ask… I mean, Knight-Commander Raleigh explained it to me—’

‘Just _Samson_ now, Rob,’ the former Templar said quickly, sternly in a way that implied he’d said it before. ‘I’m not your Commander anymore, _he_ is.’

Rob’s cheeks flooded and he trembled visibly. ‘I… forgive me, Ser, I didn’t mean any…’

‘Don’t fret, son.’ A cursory glance out of the narrow window told him they still had hours yet but he wanted this over with. ‘Ask your questions.’

‘I j-just wondered what kind of magic you would. Um. Be using?’

‘Well,’ Cullen said. ‘I’m going to try healing magic.’

‘Oh,’ Rob said, visibly sagging in relief. No doubt he’d heard about the lightning involved with Samson’s demand for proof. ‘All right then.’

‘Yes?’ Cullen said, watching him carefully. ‘You’re happy for me to try?’

‘Yes, Ser. I… would like to get this out of me.’

Cullen sympathised.

‘Right, then. Raleigh, go stand watch,’ he ordered. The last thing they needed was to be interrupted.

Samson seemed reluctant, but he understood. ‘Be careful,’ he said to Cullen, clapping Rob’s shoulder as he left. ‘Brave face, kid. It’ll be over fast.’

‘Saffy,’ Cullen said. ‘Make a shield. A strong one to contain us both, with you four on the outside.’

The girl nodded and cast efficiently. Once within the shimmering dome, Rob exhaled shakily.

‘Sorry, Ser,’ he said, flushing, brow creasing in shame. ‘Magic always… frightened me a bit.’

‘There’s nothing shameful in it,’ Cullen told him quietly. ‘And there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m going to need to touch you to push the magic inside. I’ll try it this way first. We might need to…’ he paused, not liking the idea of feeding the boy his blood. ‘Though I doubt it. Let’s try it this way first and see. Is it all right to put my hand here?’

Rob nodded and undid the laces of his shirt. Cullen placed his scarred palm over the kid’s chest, heart hammering like a rabbit in a snare beneath his touch.

‘Forget the brave face,’ Cullen told him, drawing magic down into his left hand, dipping his right hand fingers into the bowl on the floor beside him. ‘If you want to shout or yell, do it. No one will know and I certainly wouldn’t think any less of you. Ready?’

The boy managed another nod and Cullen _pushed_.

The magic didn’t seem impressed to be used in such a way, but it did not resist either, taking the power of the mage blood and doing as implored. Cullen pushed it past skin and bone barrier, into the centre, a small, barely carved opening from recent lyrium use and bade the magic _heal_.

It did not really _know_ how to heal, was unused to such a command but it ran through the boy then, trying as best it could. It burned up the blue first, sticky and clinging, used it as fuel and healed the singed organs around where the substance had invaded his frail, human body, not meant for such otherworldly concoctions.

Cullen closed his eyes when the blue was gone and pursued _red. _

The red was insidious. It pretended to be blood, to be natural, but the magic was not fooled. It found every tiny droplet of it within the boy’s bloodstream, hiding there like melted sugar grains and it _burned. _

The bowl was fuel for the energy required and not a droplet in abundance. By the time the magic performed a final lap of Rob’s system, declaring it free and clean of stone song, red _or_ blue, Cullen’s fingertips were dry and burning against the wooden base of the bowl.

He pulled his hand back from the boy and called the magic into him once more where it circled and swirled, settling calmly in it’s new, albeit _temporary _home.

It was not tired, the magic, but Cullen most definitely was. A wave of fatigue hit him hard, made him feel… wobbly, _weak_.

With effort he steadied himself and focused on the boy. Rob was panting harshly, eyes screwed tight even when the magic had receded.

‘You all right?’

Rob cracked an eye. ‘I… think so?’

Cullen looked over at Landon and the others through the shield. They were watching, jaws slack, huddled together in awe.

Saffy dissolved the shield and Cullen tasted fresher air, instantly feeling a little better. Landon moved forward when Cullen waved him over.

‘It’s… yeah, I think it’s gone,’ he whispered, eyes wide as he stared at Rob, hands hovering over him to _sense_. ‘That was amazing. You know your magic is the same colour as Dorian’s? Like, exactly the same?’

Cullen chuckled a little breathlessly, slightly dizzy as Rob touched his chest, expression clean of everything except a fragile kind of _hope_. ‘That’s because, like every other good thing about me, it’s _his_.’

Landon smiled softly then and opened his mouth to say something, but the door burst open and despite Samson’s best efforts, Leliana slipped inside, evidently unstoppable and just a _tad_ displeased.

*

Cullen’s headache seemed to be contagious.

‘To be _exceedingly clear_,’ the Spymaster said, rubbing her temples. ‘You used blood magic on a child… fuelled by the blood of other children?’

‘It was…’ the words _an error in judgement_ were right there, on the tip of his tongue but the magic within shook it’s head and Cullen, tired and drained, was inclined to agree. ‘Not ideal, but I stand by it. When Samson pledged himself and his army to us, there were conditions. With the state of things currently, I think he wanted at least one life freed from the corruption of red lyrium. The boy is now free of it, that’s not _nothing_.’

Leliana looked around at the freshly vacated quarters; mages, Rob and Samson long gone. ‘You need to speak to Jassen.’

Cullen’s breath caught. With the mages there, bright and young and headache-inducing, it had almost been possible to convince himself that Dorian was merely _away_. Off roaming Orlais with Lavellan, wading through mud and mire, battling demons and dragons. The reminder of Jassen’s existence was a shock to any such peripheral pretence.

‘I know.’

‘And there are dozens of other issues we need to go over before you’re even remotely ready.’

‘I know that too.’

They stared at each other for a moment before she took a step forward. ‘Cullen, if this doesn’t work, swear to me you will return.’

He kept his mouth shut, searching for the right words. She _deserved_ the right words for once. So many years of his vitriol in paper, so much of his very worst.

‘I…’ he said but everything else became lodged, stuck tight because it would be a lie and he knew it. The only reason he was _alive_ was because he believed, heart and soul and magic within, that he could bring Dorian back. ‘I’ll try.’

‘No, that’s simply not good enough.’

‘I can’t offer any more than that.’

Rigidly, arms crossed she said, ‘What about Fenris? All the mages? Nalari and Dawn? Your _friends?_ They’re not worth coming back for?’ She didn’t include herself and she never would, but Cullen felt her name in the question anyway.

‘Leliana, I’m only _here_ because…’ His throat bobbed, jaw working and he looked away. ‘It doesn’t feel real, not truly. Like it won’t sink in because I know I can do this. I know I can find him and bring him back. Why else would I have his magic inside me? All of this,’ he said, gesturing around. ‘Everything between Dorian and me… it was for _this_. His magic always knew the blood curse would win, that it would kill him eventually. It _chose_ me to save him.’

_We love you also, our Cullen, do not forget that. Worthy and beautiful, counterpart to our Dorian, it was always you. You are the light, you are his and ours. Bound and bonded, breach and breathe. _

The sensation of the magic speaking within elicited an involuntary shudder from Cullen, his skin pebbling, the feeling of a phantom touch setting him briefly on edge.

Leliana was the mistress of non-reactions. ‘Cullen, no one is arguing with you and I think the fact that you’re about to attempt resurrection from the Fade _without_ anyone physically trying to stop you should be evidence of how well loved Dorian was.’

‘Is.’

‘_However_,’ she pressed on. ‘I am deeply concerned that you’re not allowing for the possibility of failure.’

_We will not fail. _

‘I will _not_ fail him.’

His determination seemed to rile her. ‘This is wholly unprecedented. We have no guidance beyond your interpretation of the will of the magic inside you and the shared knowledge of Solas - who saw fit to abandon us until called back by Cole - and a Tevinter Magister!’

‘How can you doubt Halward Pavus at such a time, truly?’

_‘Cullen_.’ It was a warning, a reminder not to treat her the way he might treat another. That she knew him and knew him _well_. ‘You are not the only one in this castle who is distancing their grief in the hope that Dorian will return. It is _dangerous_.’

He threw his hands wide and then let them slap loudly to his sides. ‘What would you have me do? Refuse? Lay down and cry?’

‘In some ways, yes. Our people look to you, more than you realise. Did you not see the mages? They follow _your_ lead. You believe he will return and by way of your example, so do they. They are not grieving, not the way they should and while in the short term, yes of course it’s better, but you are not permitting for the possibility that this might not _work_!’

Impatient and cornered, Cullen looked away. ‘Get to the _point_!’

‘My _point,__’ _she said, loud and clear. ‘Is that you had better come _back, _with or without Dorian! You cannot prop the world up with hope and then tear it down in your absence, do you understand? _You_ are just as vital as Dorian! Just as needed, just as…’ she sighed shaking her head. ‘Just as _loved_.’

‘That’s not true.’

Mouth curling angrily, Leliana hissed, ‘You’re lucky I know you well enough to see the true meaning beneath such a _ridiculously_ offensive statement. _Yes_, Dorian was well loved by many but so are you, would that you had stopped to notice it! If he cannot be brought back, you are _obligated_ to return here, do you hear me, Cullen? You are _obligated_ to come back. To live. There is no other option!’

But there was and they both knew it.

Silence reigned raw between them until Cullen broke it and asked, soft and genuine, ‘Why?’

Something fractured behind all Leliana’s steel. ‘Because we need you too.’

‘_Why_?’ he repeated. ‘Without him, I don’t even know what I am and I don’t want to find out. All of this, everything _good_ about me… it’s all Dorian,’ he told her like it was obvious. ‘Don’t you see? I don’t—_can__’t_ exist without him. It’s not hyperbole, it’s not a grand sweeping statement of my _regard _or-or some attempt to make you see how much I love him. I _don__’t know how to be _without Dorian. I wouldn’t even know where to start.’ Cullen closed his eyes, swallowing painfully. ‘I can’t even imagine it. I can’t… make myself _conceive _of life without him.’

She looked down. ‘I know, my friend, but I am _asking_ you to please come back and just let us _try_. Promise me you’ll come back from there. If you later decide you can’t live without him, then don’t. Just come _back_, that’s all I ask.’

Her request was an anchor around Cullen’s neck. To be the bearer of bad news to those who waited, to return _alone_ and see the disappointment in everyone’s eyes when it was just _him__… _but she was right, he owed them that much. He owed them closure if indeed he failed.

‘Very well,’ he agreed heavily. ‘I promise to return, regardless of… whatever happens.’

‘Thank you. I would ask no more of you than that.’

‘No more than I can bear,’ he said, thinking of their letters, of their soundless conversations throughout the years. ‘You’re a good friend, Leliana. A good person, too.’

At that, she smiled, something melancholy in it. ‘Half true, at best.’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘There have been moments, opportunities for you to lose yourself to darkness and you’ve always pulled back. Believe me, I know it when I see it. You’re a good person. A great Spymaster. Best friend anyone could ask for.’

‘Cullen, I’m a terrible friend,’ she said quietly, still smiling, but it had turned bitter now. ‘I gift-wrapped a Tevinter mage for you to pulverise as a means of distraction and I didn’t think twice about it. I recommended you be sent away while we dealt with the fallout from Hawke and you almost _died_. I… I treated Dorian poorly, especially in the beginning. I held off on coming for you and Dorian until we could be certain of who the spy was. If we’d come sooner, when Keenan took me aside and told me, this could all have been different. I plan and I _nudge_ and people die.’

And though the grief or suffering of another was unbearable to him then, Cullen went to her. Closed the distance between them and took her hand in both of his.

‘You did what you needed to, what was _expected_ of you. You’re sharp and discerning and you put it to the best use, you do things that others can’t stomach but those things are necessary and Leliana, you could have done so much worse, but each time, I see you pull back. Shoulder instead of heart. Potions instead of torture. I know what it’s like to be in the dark and to make your place there, to set up and _work_ and not know if the sun will ever rise, if it’ll ever be done. To not know if what you’re doing is as evil as what you’re trying to prevent. Hear me when I say that you’re a good person and I will come back, no matter what, for _you_.’

They held tightly then, hands clasped together hard enough to hurt, not looking at one another. It would be too painful, seeing sadness in her green eyes and he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep himself together if he looked and saw grief there as well.

Cullen heard her swallow, felt her take a shaky, controlled breath. Leliana brought his hands up and pressed a fierce, fleeting kiss there before letting go and stepping away, leaving without a word.

*

_About the ambler, there was an unimpeachable sense of calm throughout most of his journey. Unreachable, untouchable happiness and ease. In never stopping, in always moving onward, the worries of the world could not cling to him. They tried, they reached for him with guilt and longing, with the call of normality, with the call to honour. To stop and be among the people of the world, to take a well-earned rest._

_But they were traps, lures set in place by a world determined to take those who stood still long enough and Shay, unremarkable in all ways but one, was determined not to be such a man. He’d felt the heavy eye of death upon him, sizing and weighing, ever since birth and instead of waiting for his time, he knew to keep moving._

_Shay was a man free of woe and dread. He walked light, but he walked alone. The world was enough for him, the mountains and the clean air, the rivers that ran adjacent to his path. The animals he encountered who knew better than to follow one such as he and the people who did not._

_None of the curious men or women who sometimes walked beside him for a time ever carried such favour as the first, lost to honour and the weight of good intentions, but Shay only smiled and enjoyed what of their company he could. It was not love if one moved fast enough and he knew that love was yet another trap set by the oldest God, put in place by death._

_There was freedom in movement, so the ambler told himself and it was enough, for a while._

*

There were two places he was avoiding, the top and the very bottom of the castle. Cullen decided to leave the worst until last.

‘Jassen,’ he said, sitting before his first love on a chair. The man was chained within an inch of his life, an older mage standing nearby with at least eight guards. He was contained by a shimmering orange shield, collared tightly with the same dampening device used on mages.

Dark brown eyes lifted from the floor to meet Cullen’s. Jassen had been cleaned and healed, but the lightning sword had brought him close to death Cullen knew. Solas had pieced him back together, healed what he could, replenished blood and kept him alive but it was plain to see that he was in a bad way.

Not bad _enough_ for Cullen’s liking.

The corner of Jassen’s mouth curled, expression softening. ‘Hello, lover.’

Every breath was slow and laboured, seemed to cost Jassen something. Cullen, despite the shield and collar, could feel Jassen’s _power_, borrowed or otherwise, within him still. It was potent, dangerous.

‘I meant to kill you.’

‘I know you did,’ Jassen rasped, barely audible through the thick hum of the magic containing him. It was twofold, the reason for the shield. To _contain_ him, but also to prevent him from drawing borrowed magic into himself. ‘Made yourself a pretty sword and stuck it inside me.’ He laughed. ‘Uldred would be so _proud_ of his little pet.’

‘Has anyone told you why you’re still alive?’

The smile slid off his face. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘But I know all the same. You’re going to try to use me to bring him back.’

‘I am.’

‘It won’t work.’

‘It will.’

‘I’ll fight you every step of the way, _this_ time at least.’

Cullen closed his eyes, pain lancing straight to the centre of that terrible, dark place. The worst thing he’d ever done, his greatest shame and regret… was eclipsed entirely by the possibility of Dorian’s loss becoming permanent, becoming _real_.

‘I don’t care,’ Cullen said and meant it. ‘I know you’ll fight and do all you can to prevent it and I don’t care. All I care about is bringing him back and I know I can do it. I’m going to trade your life for his.’

For a moment, despite the sluggish manner of his expressions, Jassen seemed very clearly _hurt_. Cullen, well versed in Jassen’s propensity to falsify emotions, was not moved at all.

‘You can’t do that.’

‘I can and I will.’

‘I don’t want to die there, in the Fade.’

Jaw clenched hard, Cullen said, ‘You’re _going_ to.’

‘I never saw it play out like this.’

‘How _did_ you see it, Jassen?’

‘I saw… you. I only ever saw you, Cullen. I imagined making you happy. Wiping you clean of all the horror those mages inflicted on us. Making you smile and knowing it was real. I wanted it to be real.’ He looked up, blinking slowly. ‘Was it ever real?’

Cullen answered slowly. ‘Before Kinloch I think it was.’

Jassen’s eyes filled with moisture and Maker, Cullen hated how something old and ancient, something in the very bones of him, twisted painfully to see it. ‘Tell me you loved me then.’

Hesitation to answer was countered with the need for honesty. ‘I did love you once. It was everything to me then but it was also built on a lie. I pretended we were the same but we weren’t.’

‘How can you say that? Everyone who saw us fight thought we were brothers. We were the _same_, always together, never apart until they separated us.’

Cullen took a deep breath. ‘I let myself become like you, yes. I was weak for you, that’s undeniable. I loved you and so I stood by while terrible things happened and I looked the other way. I laughed when you and the others joked about monstrous things. I wanted to _be_ you, Jassen, but I never was, not truly. Even when you bound us, there was a part of me that railed against it. I was never once comfortable with you under my skin.’

Jassen’s mouth pressed in a thin line, breathing through his nose.

‘Because you loved magic?’

‘Because I was _more_ than I pretended to be, capable of more than I settled for. Even now, that’s hard to admit.’

Smiling and blinking through tears, he whispered, ‘You think you’re better than me.’

‘Maybe I was once, before I brought myself low for the thrill of acceptance and belonging_.__’_

_‘_Oh, but you didn’t _lower_ yourself for him, no?’

‘Dorian made me want to be more than I’d let myself become. He’s…’ Cullen shook his head when the words would not come but the truth sat between them, charged the air despite the dampener.

Jassen’s chains jangled gently as he adjusted his shoulders and the mage and guards around him stiffened, readying themselves.

‘I won’t let you trade me for him.’

Evenly, Cullen said, ‘You don’t need to let me.’

Dark eyes flashed. ‘I’ll fight you.’

‘I know.’

‘I’ll fight every step of the way.’

‘I expect nothing less, Jassen.’

The smile was back, cruel and twisted, tear tracks or no. ‘Then leash me up, lover, and lead the way.’

*

Just being _near_ to Jassen had left Cullen feeling dirty. A thin film of something greasy and sick all over him, something he wanted to _scrub _but knew would not come off. When he left the bowels of the castle, Jassen’s smile burned into his eyelids, he began to ascend, heading to the place he’d avoided until then.

Sunset was approaching. There wasn’t much time left.

Fenris found him along the way, no doubt by design.

‘All right?’ he asked, falling into step beside Cullen as they made their way through the hall, turning right by the fireplace.

‘Not really,’ Cullen said, giving his friend a wan smile.

The staircase was full of memories. Following Dorian up there in a trembling rage after discovering his book was gone, pursuing the mage to catch him off-guard for a forbidden, stolen kiss, traipsing up there fresh from the snow outside, heart beating hard enough to burst because… because Dorian had made him a window.

He stopped for a moment, leaning against the bricks as he clutched his chest.

‘What’s wrong?’ Fenris asked intently, touching his shoulder.

Cullen shook his head and willed the pain away. A sharp kind of _strain_, like swallowing a piece of broken glass in the lowest regions of his chest.

‘Nothing,’ he said, pushing onward as soon as it began to ease.

They walked up and up, a path that Cullen would know blindfolded. All the way up into Dorian’s tower, the mage dorm close by and outside the door, a place where Cullen had stood more than once, debating entry, Sera and Cole sat, backs against the wood, shoulder to shoulder.

‘Hey, you,’ Sera greeted, devoid of her usual spark. Cole looked up from beneath the rim of his hat. ‘We’re just—’

‘We are guarding him,’ Cole said as Cullen and Fenris neared. ‘Sera said it was important and that we should be away from all the feet.’

‘Out from _under_ everyone’s feet, but close enough,’ the elf muttered with a faded grin. She got up, groaning slightly from the doubtlessly painful position and Cole did the same, copying her facial expression. ‘You’ve come to see him, then? It’s not… time yet, is it?’

‘Not yet,’ Cullen told her. ‘Thank you for staying close by.’

‘Of course,’ Sera said, patting him awkwardly and then deciding to throw propriety to the winds, wrapping her arms around him and plastering herself against him. ‘Didn’t want him to be lonely,’ she said, voice trembling. Cullen encircled her as best he could, not especially _good_ at giving hugs to people smaller than him.

‘We’ve been talking to him,’ Cole informed Cullen as they parted, Sera wiping her nose on Cullen’s cape. ‘We told jokes at first but he didn’t think they were funny, so then we told stories. He found mine funny, even though they were meant to be serious.’

Cullen and Sera’s gaze met; his questioning, hers an answering eye-roll paired with a shrug. ‘I dunno,’ she muttered. ‘He’s… y’know.’

‘It’s dark in the castle and two of nine corners are moving now, did you know?’ Cole said, addressing the door. ‘They are shifting, making walls and doors and the floor could drop away at any moment. The wolf was never a corner, he was the sky and you cannot corner the sky, even if you like him which… I do. The other pretends to be grey, but he was never true grey. Clever, quiet and strong, but not grey, only black and white combined, awaiting a red verdict from the mice who sing.’

‘It’s all right, Cole,’ Cullen said. The boy sounded a little manic, speaking faster than usual. ‘It’ll be all right.’

‘You doubt it,’ Cole said, looking at Cullen then. ‘No, don’t worry. Doubt is good. Dorian _likes_ doubt, he told her so. He’s in a memory, a nice one. You’re laughing in it. Jassen took my memories, made me forget things. I will never do that again, not to anyone. It was not kindness or compassion, it was theft. Our memories are _us _and that time stolen is self… lost.’

‘Cole,’ Sera warned thinly. ‘Maybe… don’t?’

Cullen managed to smile, thinking of how Dorian would often let Cole ramble for hours and when the boy _hadn__’t_ been able to do so for a while, he would sometimes become nervous and agitated. ‘It’s fine.’

Fenris was watching Cole warily, a measure of mistrust about him. ‘You’re the spirit, aren’t you?’

‘Well,’ Cole said, glancing back at the door as if it were a living thing, a friend. ‘I’m _more_ human now. Ellana should have bound me like I said, though. I warned her I was a door, a window left open in the night and privacy is hard to come by when it’s cold outside and warm within, isn’t it? I’ve closed it now. Dread can close things tight shut and open them too, but I told Leliana the handwriting doesn’t match and that’s because the ink _isn__’t_ grey.’ Cole sighed and shook his head, face screwing tight for a moment. ‘I miss Dorian.’

It brought an unexpected lump to Cullen’s throat, such a plain, unadorned proclamation.

‘Yes,’ he managed, looking at the door, fear curling in his gut. ‘So do I.’

‘Ripples and waves, a droplet felt all the way to Seheron and back again where black stones shudder and change comes on a tidal wave, but always at a price. You have a part of him,’ Cole whispered to Cullen. ‘Be sure to say I love you before you say goodbye.’

‘Right, c’mon,’ Sera said firmly, pulling Cole aside. ‘They wanna go in and we’re in the way.’

Cullen’s hand shook when he reached for the door and Fenris muttered under his breath, ‘I _really_ do not like him.’

Cullen managed something like a smile. 'He grows on you.'

Inside the room, the sensation of magic became immediately obvious. It shimmered in the air, a swirling circle around the bed. Vivienne sat nearby, looking up at them as they entered and there, lying on the bed…

‘Dorian.’

*

_When winter came, the ambler pushed on through softly crunching snows, through blizzards that burned his face, through rains that soaked him to the bone. When illness beckoned, Shay walked harder and faster, never slowing enough to let the hooks of humanity sink deep enough to pull him down._

_One day, Shay closed his eyes to know the world by smell. He dragged his fingers over the rough bark of a tree that had been but a seedling when last he scented the river that curved, the rocks that caused a bubbling froth. He tasted the perfectly salted bread in the air, the scent of lavender and elderflowers and realised he had walked a full circle to a place his feet and heart knew well._

_The village was thriving still, newer buildings crafted around the edges, boundaries pushed to make room for the expanding population of the once small place. Shay walked through the town, cobbled stones beneath his feet and remembered all the things his friend had told him of that place, his hometown. _

_As he walked, he saw an older man ahead selling fruits and vegetables, shaking the earth from the fine roots of thick, vibrant carrots. Though changed with age and time, the man was instantly familiar to the ambler. His friend who he’d thought long lost to murder. He was alive and still beautiful, though weathered by time in a way that Shay was not._

_As he walked past the stall, the man did not look up from his attentions to his wares and Shay did not speak to cause it. He watched until he passed and then he looked away, heart fit to burst._

_Shay left the village and swore to never return, to never again see what might have been. He walked onward, turning left instead of right and took a new path, one that led towards the ocean._

*

It came out without meaning to, name passing his lips like every other time he’d greeted the mage upon entry into the room that he loved. The place he knew _Dorian_ would love the first time he clapped eyes on it, Leliana wondering aloud if they should use it as an upgraded potions room and Cullen had said no, knew of a far better use instead.

‘Commander,’ Vivienne greeted somewhat tiredly. ‘I suppose it’s too much to ask that you brought me any refreshments at all?’

Cullen shook himself and looked back, but Fenris was already taking care of it, leaning around the door to speak to Sera. Vivienne came to stand by Cullen’s side and though she wasn’t actively casting with her hands, he could feel the magic emanating from her, the scent of bottled ozone in the air.

‘How is—’ he stopped abruptly, having been about to ask how Dorian _was_, as if he was only sick or tired. It just wouldn’t register, not in any way.

Even then, eyes closed, unmoving, he was so, _so_ beautiful.

‘Barely more than half an hour has passed for him,’ she told Cullen. ‘But I can only keep him removed from time for so long. The ritual is at sundown, yes?’

Cullen nodded, moving forward despite himself. As he neared the bed, massive, plush and well made, he felt the deep, vibrating hum of her magic, ever moving.

‘I can keep it going until then, but only just.’

He couldn’t look away, though he _wanted_ to.

No pretending, no make believe when he was right there, chest not rising and falling, so fucking _still_ and… empty.

He moved forward until the edge of the magic hummed in warning. Dorian was distorted but only a little. Someone had changed his clothes. Someone had _cleaned_ him.

Cullen wondered if he was going to be sick, but his body was apparently too numb to even manage it.

Dorian was dead and it was right there in front of him, undeniable.

_We will bring him back_, the magic swore, seeking to offer comfort by sharing, _halving_ the agony within. _We will bring him back, our Cullen. You will see, he will return, bright and beautiful as ever. _

He nodded to himself, fingernails digging painfully into his palms, body rigid. It took everything he had to keep himself there, make himself witness the enormity of it but _still_, even when presented with his love’s lifeless body, he could not comprehend it.

Cullen would bring him back and everything bad, all this horror and loss would be a distant memory.

He found himself longing for the ritual then, just _desperate _to get on with it, to dive headlong into action and forward momentum, sickened by standing around in such a way.

He tore his gaze from Dorian and tried not to focus too long on anything else in the room, all the memories, all the times they’d shared.

‘Where is the ritual taking place?’ he heard Vivienne ask Fenris.

‘It has to be in the open air, as close to the sky as possible.’

Cullen closed his eyes and almost wanted to laugh.

Of course.

*

‘I want to go with you.’

‘I know you do, but you can’t. Solas said—’

‘He’s not trustworthy,’ Fenris declared hotly, leaning with his arms crossed outside the mage dorm. Cullen had barely made it out after checking on them before Fenris started speaking.

Cullen sighed and leant against the opposite wall, glad for the momentary pause. Vivienne, Solas and Halward were with Dorian in their room, _preparing_. They’d assured him he wouldn’t want to be there for that part and he’d taken them at their word.

‘You find very few people trustworthy,’ Cullen pointed out.

Fenris scoffed. ‘That’s because precious few _are_.’

‘You can’t come with me.’

‘I don’t see why I couldn’t just—’

‘No,’ Cullen said sternly. ‘Please, I need you here, all right? I need you to make sure everyone is safe while I’m gone.’

‘Of course I will, you don’t have to ask. I can see what these people mean to you and you to them.’

Quietly, Cullen said, ‘I missed you, you know.’

‘And I you. Before I was snatched by a deranged ex-Templar, I was making quite a name for myself in Tevinter.’ He smiled, looking down. ‘You’d like it there, I think, despite the state of things. Plenty of adventure. Plenty of action.’

Cullen tried to imagine it, but there was no land, no map, no _world_ without Dorian. ‘Have you spoken with Jassen?’

Fenris sneered. ‘I’ve nothing left to say to him.’

‘What about Hawke?’

The sneer faltered somewhat. ‘That’s… more complicated.’

Cullen leaned back against the wall, letting his eyes fall shut. Maker, but he was tired. ‘Do you still love him?’ he asked.

And because they’d always been honest with one another, always been open, Fenris didn’t hesitate to reply. ‘I don’t know. It’s strange, seeing him again when he’s so devoid of motive. He’s a prick, always has been, but I did love him once. I don’t know. It hardly matters anyway, he’s certain you’re going to snick his head off his shoulders the second you get Dorian back.’

Cullen snorted then, basking in the blissful darkness before his eyes, mind resting but not able to wander while he was speaking with Fenris, while he was safe with his friend. ‘Should I return with Dorian, there will be no snicking of heads, not from my sword at least. Whoever takes over as Commander might do so. Lavellan herself might judge him for his crimes, but I seriously doubt it. He’s still the Champion of Kirkwall. Much as I hate the fucker, he’s likely to walk.’

‘So, you’re leaving then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Giving all this up? Command of the largest army in Thedas?’

‘I can’t do it anymore,’ he told Fenris, utterly without inflection. ‘I just can’t.’

‘You might feel differently if you return with Dorian.’

‘We always said that after this threat, after things were settled, we would leave together. I know he wanted… _wants_ to go home, to Tevinter.’

‘And you would go with him?’

Cullen sighed. ‘For Dorian, I’d go anywhere.’

*

When the time came, delicate runes drawn over Dorian’s bare skin, Cullen didn’t let anyone else carry his mage out onto the ramparts, to the highest part near the mage tower, overlooking the gardens. He lifted him and ignored the strange screaming sensation in the pit of his stomach, ignored the sudden, agonising wave of dizziness that hit him. Cullen carried Dorian, who was not especially _easy_ to carry being a full grown man and all, out into the cold, fresh air of the setting sun, an entourage behind him.

Cullen only stumbled after he’d set Dorian down on the blanket someone had thoughtfully spread out. Fenris caught him, righting him with ease.

‘Steady my friend,’ the elf intoned quietly while Cullen stared down at Dorian and tried to shake common sense into himself.

Leaving it until the last minute to renew the magic inside him was certainly the smartest choice, but it was not without downsides. Cullen hoped that once he reinvigorated it, he would remember everything he was meant to.

A glance around revealed Leliana, Solas, Halward, two mages he barely recognised from the Circle Tower, Lavellan and Hawke. ‘Where is he?’

Leliana glanced over her shoulder and he followed her gaze. A second entourage made their way out into the diminishing light, Jassen in the very centre of their huddle. Cullen watched their approach, gut tightening. Jassen seemed… subdued, eyes downcast.

_I__’ll fight you every step of the way_, he’d said and Cullen believed it.

Solas and Halward were speaking, words back and forth but all Cullen saw was Jassen and all he _felt_ was Dorian. The scar on his right hand palm seemed to burn, mouth dry and thoughts jarringly disconnected.

‘…hear me? Cullen?’

He shook himself, turning towards the source of the sound. ‘What?’

It was Lavellan, grim and pale, standing right in front of him. ‘I said, when I open the rift, go into it right away, before anything nasty drops out.’

‘Yes,’ he said, nodding, speaking perfunctorily. ‘Like we discussed.’

‘Exactly. Are you… fucking Maker, I wish we could come with you.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Solas reminded them coolly, drawing a very neat, very _precise_ rune with charcoal on the stones around where Dorian lay. ‘The balance has been disrupted enough and it will be disrupted further still, to add any _possibility _of additional—’

‘Yes, I did say, _wish_,’ Lavellan said, rolling her eyes in a way Cullen knew Dorian would have liked. This was where the pair of them, best friends and thick as thieves, would have nudged one another, grinning and whispering like children. ‘Just remember everything we told you and you’ll be fine.’

Remembering _anything_ seemed like a tall order but Cullen adopted his best _yes, Inquisitor _expression and simply hoped for the best.

The guards brought Jassen close by and stopped, maintaining the shield wall of their bodies, keeping him almost entirely obscured. He was chained by the wrists, but not the feet. He had to be able to walk, after all.

Cullen was fully armoured, sword strapped to his waist, the reassuring weight pulling at one side of his hip but he felt naked, felt _stripped_. Dull, throbbing terror had him right in it’s jaws, mouth wide and waiting. It was the waiting that made him feel so exposed, every moment of _nothing_ led to an opportunity for Jassen’s sabotage, for something to go wrong.

Halward was chanting, drawing magic between his fingers. It was cobalt blue and very bright. Cullen wondered if Dorian’s mother’s magic had been red and that was how the purple was born, but then wanted to hit himself for even thinking something so childish. Maker, he needed to wake the fuck _up. _

Hawke was saying something then, something he’d already told Cullen about the Black City, about attempting to _navigate_. He nodded, expression grim, pretending he understood. It was like they were speaking a foreign language.

Halward was kneeling over Dorian, his blue light illuminating the mage’s face, no longer slowed by time. It just looked like he was sleeping. How many times had Cullen watched him sleep? Countless occasions when he’d woken first and to calm himself, had just stared at Dorian, the mage bathed in the faintly glowing light from the hourglass nearby, sand drifting downwards softly and Dorian would sleep on, breathing deeply, beautiful features unburdened by the worries of that day.

Sometimes Cullen had stroked his hair back, times when it was getting longer and it fell into the mage’s eyes. Sometimes he just let himself watch, drank his fill of the man he loved and tried to believe that he _deserved_ to be so close to someone so incredible. That he was worthy of Dorian in any way, shape or form.

Nightmares had come for Dorian many times, especially after Adamant. Cullen would hold him through the worst of it, wanting to make him feel safe and secure. Sometimes it worked, sometimes Dorian would wake instead. Storm grey eyes slamming open, irises wide and dark, looking for the source of whatever horror had plagued him and Cullen would just be there, waiting and watching and loving him, hoping it was enough, always secretly believing it never would be.

And every single time, Dorian would close his eyes and sigh, smiling shakily, reaching for Cullen, like that was all he needed.

‘_Sorry_,’ he might mumble, pressing his face into Cullen then, like he had anything to be embarrassed about or ashamed of. Like it wasn’t Cullen’s greatest fucking _honour_ to be there for him, to be there when he awoke, to be a source of comfort.

To be _enough_.

Cullen would have given anything for Dorian to wake then. To open his eyes and look around, frowning and confused but of course, managing to make a perfectly witty comment about the people all around him.

_‘Did we decide to throw a rooftop party in my honour?’_ Cullen imagined him asking, using humour to deflect from those early moments before he knew what was happening. Looking at his father, the frown intensifying, looking at the gobsmacked faces of the others until he would look at Cullen and then everything… _everything_ would finally be all right again. The world as it should be. Able to breathe, able to go on and Cullen wouldn’t be dying inside anymore.

He shook himself hard then. It was a dangerous fantasy to fall into, but he told himself over and over that it would be real, he would _make_ it real, no matter the cost.

Dorian would wake and he would look around and then he would be in Cullen’s arms again, safe and alive, heart beating and blood pumping, all the brilliance and kindness and fucking inexplicable elements that made Dorian Pavus who he was, the man Cullen loved more than his own life. It would all come back.

It had to.

The sun was almost entirely set, a thin sliver of burnt orange remaining on the horizon.

‘Cullen, are you ready?’ Solas asked. Cullen wasn’t, not really, but he told the elf he was. ‘Good. Fuel your magic.’

When Cullen didn't move because he didn’t understand, fucking _void_ it was so hard to understand, Fenris took Cullen’s right palm and sliced it open. Hawke came to stand in front of him, maintaining eye contact while reciting words that felt vaguely familiar to him.

‘Avesangua borium donnarstis,’ Hawke said, gesturing encouragingly, nodding for Cullen to repeat it which he did, like a child learning the chant of light.

It hit hard and fast, shocking through his dulled system, lighting up every part of him that had been slow and sluggish. His head tipped back, energy seizing and not letting go, embracing him completely, restarting his heart, flooding his brain with liquid ability and understanding and oh, what had even been _happening_ to him before? By comparison to the fresh life in his veins now, it felt like slow, grey death.

A _Silence, _he realised. That must be how it felt for a mage when hit with a _Silence_.

The magic was alive and pulsing once more and everything made sense.

Jassen was shoved forward, his chains pushed roughly into Cullen’s still bleeding hands. There was just enough slack to keep them a few feet apart and Cullen knew that once inside the Fade, Jassen would find a way out of them but for now, that wasn’t his concern.

‘Ready?’ Lavellan said, stepping back. With Dorian behind him, Jassen beside him, Cullen watched as Ellana Lavellan lifted her hand and split the air, rent apart the fabric of their world and tore it for him.

Green light exploded, crackled and hissed, the weight of the anchor groaned and the rift tore wide.

‘Go, now!’ she yelled over the din it wrought. The sun was setting, this was it.

‘Remember what I said,’ came Cole’s voice from directly beside him even though the boy was not there. ‘And don’t look down.’

Cullen walked into the Fade, pulling Jassen along with him in chains. The green light was surprisingly _cold_, almost damp, like mist made flesh. He shuddered to pass through it, crackling energy shocking over his skin and jolting his hands unpleasantly where he had hold of Jassen’s chains.

No falling sensation came, though, no dip in terrain or sudden painful landing elsewhere.

_Fuck_.

He looked around as the green light sputtered and then faded completely. They were still on the ramparts, they hadn’t gone anywhere. Lavellan was frowning, looking down at her hand while Solas and Halward worked their magic, two other Tevinter mages chanting and adding their magic to the ritual over Dorian.

‘What is it?’ Hawke demanded of Lavellan. ‘They can’t be back already!’

She shook her head, frantically trying to cast it again but something was stalling. Fenris and Leliana watched helplessly. Lavellan and Hawke yelled at one another but she couldn’t make another rift and the other had fizzled into nothingness.

‘Ellana,’ Cullen said, stricken. ‘Please.’

‘I’m _trying_, Maker knows I’m trying!’ she cried, throwing her hand and wiggling her fingers. Halward looked up from his son’s body, worry turning to pure dread.

‘Is there any other way?’ he asked Solas in a strangled voice and the elf shook his head, seemingly at a loss.

Jassen began to laugh.

The sun had almost fully set, only a faint red glow remaining above the horizon. Cullen couldn’t feel his body.

Solas turned to Lavellan and yelled at her to hurry, that the ritual would _not_ be viable unless Cullen was inside the Fade before the sun set but she was crying, fucking _sobbing_.

It was no use.

It wasn’t going to _work. _

The sun set and darkness flooded the world and Cullen’s opportunity slipped through his fingers like sand, like _water. _

Everyone fell silent, Lavellan sobbing quietly as she fell to her knees, staring at Dorian.

Stillness overcame Cullen, then. Frozen solid by unnamed things inside, horrors that would put demons to shame.

So this was it. The end of his life.

With crystalline certainty, Cullen knew he was going to die. There was no world without Dorian, he’d known that all along and now… now that it had _failed_ before they had even begun, he knew what was next.

At least they were already somewhere high.

Fenris was fast, but Cullen, blood pumping hot with now useless magic, was just about faster. He used force to keep Fenris back, used it on them all. He released Jassen’s chains, unable to _care_ about anything beyond the terrible, fucking _monstrous_ things happening beneath his rib cage, leaking out into his whole body.

Soul tearing itself apart, lost and alone and… left behind.

Failed. He had _failed _Dorian. Let him die, let him fall prey to a blood curse and not even stopped to shed tears because he was so fucking arrogant, thinking he could bring him back.

Of course he hadn’t been able to do it. When had he _ever_ been quick enough, clever enough, fucking _strong enough_ to save anyone?

Dorian deserved better.

It was easy to climb up into the gap between the stones, darkness and distance stretched out before him. It would be easier still to simply _drop_. To fall and fall and then _crack_. Gone. Nothing.

He wanted it, he _longed_ for it. His magic kept his friends back, kept them all away. Cullen didn’t turn, didn’t listen to their pleas, couldn’t even if he wanted to because someone was screaming and it was a terrible sound, drowning out all else.

He only realised it was _him_ when his throat gave out. He stood tall, letting go of the stones he’d used to stand, wobbling slightly, arms out for balance. Cullen was _dizzyingly_ high, but it was good, it was what he wanted. Needed.

Dorian was never coming back. There was no world for Cullen without the mage, a dark, empty chasm filled with absence, filled with _loss_. How was he meant to live, to endure losing one such as Dorian? What was he supposed to do?

No. There was no way to live, and worse, no reason to.

_Reasons_. That was almost funny. It had come full circle, bringing him back to an earlier point in his life, but he was much changed this time around.

Dorian Pavus was indeed a reason to die. The only one that mattered, in the end.

He thought of him then, his mage. His beautiful, wonderful Dorian who he loved so much it _hurt. _Evoked a deep, agonising wrench in the cavity of his chest just to _think_ of that slow smile, of his voice. Grey eyes and body language and all the things he loved. How he cared for Cullen, how he _knew_ him. Little things, big things, bad things. Kindness and _love_. Love in every part of that man, love for each and every moment spent together because teetering on the ramparts as Saffy had teased earlier, it was so fucking _clear_ to Cullen then.

Every moment had been a gift. Every single moment with Dorian, good or bad, had been a gift from the Maker.

And now it was all _gone_.

Irretrievable.

Just… gone. No more Dorian. The world _without. _

Cullen could not be a part of such a world.

_You swore. _

No. No, there was nothing left. He closed his eyes, balancing.

_You swore you would come back_.

All he needed to do was _fall_. Pitch forward and he would tumble into darkness and gravity and then it would be over.

_You are more than this. _

‘This is all I’ve ever been!’

_Our Dorian knows you are more, knows you to be worthy. Hold fast, do not fall, for his sake. Just hold on. _

‘I can’t… please… don’t make me.’

_You swore. _

‘I want to be with him.’

_Be true to your oath, to your promise. It was not for nothing. _

The moment slowed, all the world seemed to _still_ then. Jassen’s laughter, Lavellan’s sobs, Fenris’ yelling… it melted away. There wasn’t a single breath of wind to incline Cullen’s decision, back or forth. To fall was inevitable, but in which direction?

Dorian had been his whole world.

_There are others who love you_.

He had never loved anything like him, would never again.

_You swore you would come back, you cannot leave, our Cullen. _

Dorian was his whole world and he was… dead.

Dorian was dead.

No saving him, no ritual, no way to cheat the Maker and bend the rules just this once because Cullen was the same as every other creature in Thedas. No exceptions would be made for him when death came calling for the one he loved.

He screamed then, but it did nothing to exorcise the yawning void inside him. Dorian was lost. Grey eyes would never open, lovely mouth would never smile. Clever hands would not cast and beautiful mind would not read, form thoughts and speech, _exist_ and simply be who he was, be the man that Cullen loved, the man who sought to make everyone happier, safer because that was really all Dorian had ever wanted. To be _happy_, to be _safe_.

Cullen had made him happy but he had not kept him safe.

It was pure darkness, eating him alive from the inside. Not grief, not _loss_, nothing so simple or knowable.

Cullen was _dying, _just not quick enough.

It was an easy choice. There was barely any choice at all.

And as he shifted his weight, preparing to fall forwards, it was that thought that gave him pause.

The easy path had so rarely led to anything _good_. It had been easy to laugh with Jassen about genocide. It would have been _easy_ to enact brutality upon the mages of Kinloch. Easy to kill himself, easy to lose himself to violence. It was easy, instilling terror. It was easy, denying himself the most basic of necessities because hurting himself was addictive and if addiction was slavery, than Cullen had been born in chains.

Addicted to mastering himself, addicted to lyrium, addicted to control. Addicted to revenge, addicted to _sadness_. Writing to a man he thought long dead, a crutch to fall back on whenever reality became too much. Addicted to hatred and the simplicity it offered, a clear cut line of division. Hating himself and the world entire. Becoming the worst version of himself because it was also the most efficient. It was all so _easy_.

Nothing about Dorian had ever been easy.

Loving him took everything from Cullen. Every bit of energy he had, all his strength, determination. It demanded everything but it was never a struggle. He’d been happy to _work_ for it, to earn the right to be by Dorian’s side, to earn a genuine smile from the mage and know it was because of _him_, brought about by Cullen. There had been nothing _easy_ about earning Dorian’s trust. It was hard fucking won and Cullen had cherished it right from the first. Working to make him happy, working to keep him _there_ when panic threatened to take him. Working to make more of himself than he really was, to fulfil Dorian’s expectations which were basic, but still hard to meet; to be a good man for Dorian because that was how the mage had always seen him.

It was work. Endless work that had been entirely, completely worth it because it had meant being with Dorian, every step up a high hill, taking him closer to the sun, to the light.

_Easy_ was the journey down that hill with something dark waiting at the bottom, something _bad. _

It would have been easy to die, would have been easy so many times in his life, but… it was not the _right_ thing to do.

The right thing to do was stopping Meredith.

The right thing to do was trying to send Dorian away.

It was putting aside the burning need to hurt him, to counter it with kindness, no matter how the mage always balked at it in the earlier days, made him _work_ for that too. It was effort and it was time spent in pursuit of something better than a quick fix, a slip-slide of _easiness_.

The pain crashing through him was not easy to bear, it was _impossible_ to bear but Dorian… Maker forgive him, Dorian would not want him to die. Nalari was right. He wouldn’t have wanted it, would consider it betrayal. Dorian _loved him_ and that wasn’t nothing. It was everything. He was _blessed_ to have been given such a gift, honoured to have been the one Dorian loved above all else.

It was a gift and he could not, _would not_, throw it away, no matter how much relief it would have brought to take the easy road, the _selfish_ road down into gravity and nothingness.

Body heaving, contorted by a pain that transcended his previous understanding of the word, Cullen stepped _back_ and dropped down in a graceless, boneless heap onto the safety of the ramparts.

For a long time, there was only the sound of his own breathing, harsh and uneven. He kept his eyes closed, his self very much centred and rooted in the pain of his existence, unable to comprehend anything else. He thought of Dorian and only Dorian. Buried himself in memories, in moments, trying to keep himself alive.

Dorian was worth living for, was worth the pain.

‘Cullen.’

A woman’s voice came through the memories and with a violent jolt, there was something instantly _familiar_ about the voice. It shocked him enough to bring him out of the cocoon of memories, of the childish safety within, making him realise there was light behind his eyelids.

Warily, through tear stained eyes, he began to look around.

The ramparts were gone.

Skyhold was gone.

Everything was greeny grey, no taste, no _smell_ but the sensation of something thick and cloying and _alive_ was simply all over him.

Cullen scrambled to his feet, pushed up too fast and paid for it when he staggered, head bloodless and body unable to compensate but he didn’t fall, he would _never_ fall because this… this was the _Fade_.

‘Maker,’ he breathed. ‘Maker preserve me.’

Jassen was nearby, on his knees, still in chains. He was pale, clearly disturbed by their surroundings but to Cullen, the barren wasteland was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

And before them stood a woman Cullen had never clapped eyes on in all his life, but it was impossible _not_ to recognise her when she spoke again.

‘You did rather well,’ she commented, tilting her head, tapping her lips with heavily jewelled fingers. ‘Better than I expected for a Southern barbarian, though I see that my son’s taste for beautiful things has not waned in the slightest.’

‘Aquinea Pavus,’ he muttered through numb lips.

‘Ah, not _especially_ dumb, either, how surprising. Yes, Cullen Rutherford. Welcome to the Fade and congratulations on passing your first trial.’ She smiled at him then and Cullen felt _seen _all the way down to his insides. ‘Well, time _is_ wasting, even in this place. Shall we?’

*


	30. The Watchful Ambler: Part II

_The ambler moved across the lands walking an unfamiliar path, never stopping or slowing as was his way, but no longer able to take in the beauty he saw in passing. His journey was fraught, his path waylaid with something that Shay had never felt before. Regret was a rope around his neck, tightening and pulling with every step he took away from the village with the perfectly salted bread and the lavender and elderflower gardens. _

_Shay_ _’s heart was not light as it had always been. It was heavy. It sat like a stone in his chest and he grieved the lost sensation of freedom, of once being lightweight. _

_His path to the ocean was fraught with dangers as it often was. The world was perilous and predatory, especially when night fell. Shay walked around the dangers, walked soft and quiet and so they avoided him. No creature had ever attacked him, no bear or wolf had mistaken him for easy prey but the ambler began to wonder what it would be like to be attacked, to _fear_. To have blood thundering through him, to fight to survive. To stop._

_The beasts of the world paid him no mind and no dangers presented themselves beyond the curling sense of pained curiosity in his chest and the stab of regret with each beat of his heart._

_When he tasted the ocean, salt and brine in the air, sharp and fresh, Shay walked faster. _

_*_

Jassen got to his feet slowly, looking all around. Though such movement required Cullen’s attention, it was difficult for him to wrench his focus away from Dorian’s mother who stood imperious and tall, managing to appear _insolently _bored in such a place. He stared at her, at the woman who had made the man he loved and tried to master himself.

‘I’m…’ he said, but the rest became caught in his throat.

‘Yes,’ she said, glancing around. ‘Quite.’

When standing, Jassen stared at Aquinea and asked, ‘Is it really you, or just a demon wearing her body?’

Aquinea Pavus smirked. Fucking _void, _Cullen took it back, he took it all back about Halward resembling Dorian. She _moved_ like him, she smiled like him. Mannerisms, the way she held herself. It was jarring to say the very least.

‘What do you think, little Templar?’

Cullen glanced at Jassen then and their gazes met. Fear flashed dully in dark brown eyes and Cullen, whose mind was fairly mired in disbelief and still shaken horribly by the phantom experience of having failed Dorian, fought to recall that this was the woman who’d been poisoned at Jassen’s command.

‘I think you’re a demon,’ Jassen told her, watching her through lowered lids, his chained hands before him balling tightly, the dampening collar around his throat just a little too tight for comfort. ‘This place is full of them.’

‘My, my, so astute!’ she uttered dryly. ‘Your academic comprehension of magic is simply _breath-taking_. We do have places to be, however, so unless you’d like to become trapped here for all eternity, I suggest we apply a little haste.’

Cullen shook himself hard. ‘One moment.’ He cleared his throat, removing potential obstacles ahead of time. ‘I’m—I’m sorry for what happened to you.’

Aquinea Pavus’s gaze locked onto him then and he felt rather _pinned_ by it. ‘Was it you who poisoned me?’

He flinched at that. ‘It was my fault.’

‘That’s interesting,’ she said, precisely the way Dorian would have. ‘Because I feel confident you were not the man who slipped me poison, nor the man _controlling_ that man either.’

_‘_Jassen did it because of me, because I—’

‘You must love him a great deal, to protect him so,’ she said quietly, _sharply_.

Cullen’s eyes flew open. ‘What? No, that’s _not_—’

‘Do you make a habit of assuming the blame for people you despise, then?’

She let that hang, expecting an answer. ‘No,’ he said, feeling thoroughly chastised and not really understanding how it had come about.

‘Then believe me when I say that you played no part in my death and though there _are_ several apologies you could make to me, this is not one of them. I cannot _imagine_ how Dorian endures ones such as you.’

Cullen winced, couldn’t help it. ‘I… I know I’m not worthy of him.’

‘_No one_ is worthy of my son,’ Aquinea said, looking him straight in the eye. ‘He is a gift unto the world, the light that shatters the dark. My son is resplendent and perfect, powerful and _brilliant_. No one will _ever_ be worthy of him.’

It was _impossibly_ strange to hear her speak such things in a way that so resembled Dorian and yet also his magic. From within, said magic observed her curiously, neutrally. No threat, no tangible cause for involvement. There was perhaps… a small twang of sadness about it when it moved, coiling and curling within Cullen, but aside from that, it rested and waited, preparing for greater challenges to come. It was a source of comfort to Cullen, undeniably so.

‘You have, however, come a long way to find him,’ she added in a tone that wasn’t softer, but maybe just a little less terrifying. ‘And so while you are _obviously_ not worthy of my darling boy, I respect your quest. I was simply musing aloud how it must frustrate him, being with someone so self-sacrificing.’ She sniffed. ‘So _tormented_.’

Cullen almost laughed then, a self-conscious huff that had his cheeks reddening and hand twitching with the urge to rub the back of his neck because it was true, Dorian _hated_ that about Cullen.

He could only imagine the fallout between them, should his quest be successful.

Aquinea went on, ‘And as I said, if you will apologise to me, do so for something in which you actually had a hand. Perhaps when you abandoned my son to grief and solitude after a simple misunderstanding.’

_A simple misunderstanding?_ He almost echoed indignantly, but knew better.

The corner of her mouth curled, like she knew exactly what he’d been about to say.

‘We must away. Time passes differently here, but you still have less than you need. The trials will be taxing for you both,’ she said, freeing him of her stare, glancing distastefully at Jassen. ‘I was led to believe Southerners are not quite so mentally challenged that they _are_ capable of walking and talking simultaneously. Shall we test that theory?’

Cullen’s instincts were strangely heightened and as such, he _felt_ more than saw Jassen gearing up. He could sense when the former Templar took in his surroundings, weighed it all up. Pros, cons, outcomes.

Jassen did what Cullen would have done were their situations reversed and seemed to play along.

When Cullen picked up the end of his chains, Jassen didn't try to snatch them back. It was no victory, no sense of relief came with pulling Jassen along because any obedience from him was a trap. He would bide his time, _wait,_ like he had for years.

Jassen, he knew, was nothing if not patient.

‘Where are we going?’ Cullen asked, somewhat alarmed to see Aquinea moving faster than expected, crossing through the otherworldly sludge of the Fade as if strolling through a paved street.

‘You’d best keep up,’ she called back, striding onward.

Jassen looked at Cullen then, a mere glance indicating nothing special. Blank behind the eyes, expression wiped.

Cullen knew he would get free as soon as possible.

He just had to be ready for it. Ready for _anything_.

*

_As Shay moved across unfamiliar lands, he began to feel a sense of change, of growth. An impetus born of anger, of acidic regret and wondering about how things could have been different. Shay began to question himself, he questioned his entire life and why he had spent it walking when others could stop, could sit and sleep. Fall in love and be happy where they stood. _

_There was beauty in movement, honour and strength in it too and Shay had always known that, but much of the supposed beauty came from seeing a world that was still. In passing through and never lingering long enough to watch anything fade or decay, Shay saw the world as if it was a painting. _

_It had been enough once, it had been more than enough but love had sent a fracture through it, love or something like it had tainted that perfect peace and replaced it with a need to _know_. _

_He walked until he heard the waves crashing, thick and eternal. Shay slowed and, for the first time, he _stopped_ on the shore of the ocean, all the water of the world spread out before him. _

_*_

The Fade was a landscape of green mire and muddied waters, everything damp and dripping, everything _grim _yet glittering. It was a world where Cullen could _feel_ the overwhelming strength of mana in the air, the kind his own magic could not absorb or be powered by.

Aquinea moved ahead of them at all times, walking faster than she had any right to in _heels_. Cullen hurried to catch up with her, occasionally yanking on Jassen’s chains much to the other man’s silent displeasure. Cullen tried to ignore the unbidden pang it caused him when he pulled on Jassen’s restraints. Despite everything, it felt deeply _wrong. _

Jassen didn’t complain and Cullen would have been shocked if he had. Jassen was smarter than that.

Cullen’s attempts to question Aquinea Pavus along the way were fruitless as she remained silent the entire time they navigated a predestined path through the otherworldly place.

Finally, Jassen huffed and shook his head after Cullen’s latest failed attempt and said, ‘She won’t answer until we get wherever we’re going.’

Cullen tensed, not liking the _friendly,_ helpful way those words were spoken. Being _aware_ of Jassen’s penchant for manipulation and being immune to it were separate things, especially in his current state of mind.

With hindsight, over the course of so many years _without_ Jassen, Cullen had been able to piece things together. His first obsession was _time_. He needed to know how much time had passed, when it had passed and how. It fucking _plagued_ him, that feeling of their imprisonment being years. In the end, he’d had to physically map it out, see the days and quantify them into what he’d been certain was close on a decade. It was a measure of control, the only one he had over anything to do with the Circle Tower. Piecing together what day he’d first been subject to blood magic, on what day Jassen had _supposedly_ died, how long after Jassen’s death they’d been rescued.

It had taken a long time, but Cullen had put a measure of logic back into a span of madness and in doing so, regained a small piece of control.

After that, with what little logic he had to extend, he’d begun to think of Jassen and his behaviour in the cold light of day. Not his treatment of mages, no. That, Cullen had believed for years, was fully justified. His attention turned to Jassen’s treatment of _him_.

It took him many years to realise that Jassen had been quite controlling. Had often extended an invisible measure of control over Cullen, perhaps even unknowingly. There were tiny moments, little things he remembered of their time together, when Jassen had intervened and stopped something, corrected Cullen’s course and brought it back towards himself.

It took close on a _decade_ to piece together all the times Jassen had stopped him making other friends in the encampment, when Jassen had gotten angry if Cullen would speak to others. The mere _memory_ of Jassen’s cold, quiet anger made Cullen squirm even then, even in the Fade, a fully grown man whose heart wholly belonged to another.

Cullen had been under Jassen’s spell for a third of his life, metaphorically and literally.

Even then, holding his chains like a master, dragging him ever closer to inevitable death in exchange for the one he loved, Cullen felt every inch of Jassen’s existence, was hyper aware of his moods, anticipating every angle of what the other man might attempt.

‘What are you thinking?’ Jassen asked calmly, almost like he was bored. ‘Wanna play _Not That_?’

Cullen walked a little faster. ‘No.’

‘C’mon, you always liked that game.’

‘I never liked any of your games,’ he lied, swallowing before smoothing his expression into one of restraint and neutrality because it was a _subtle_ attempt to get under his skin, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t effective.

Jassen sighed and walked faster behind Cullen. ‘I’ll play on my own then.’

‘Unless you want to attract every demon in this place, you’ll keep your mouth shut!’

‘Maybe I want that. Maybe a good fight is just what I need.’

Cullen scoffed, keeping his gaze fixed on Aquinea, who was always just ahead, always within view.

‘All right then,’ Jassen said, casting his gaze around. ‘The weird upside down rocks.’

He waited. Cullen remained silent.

‘Hmm, you’re right,’ Jassen uttered thoughtfully, as if Cullen had said anything in reply to their stupid, made up little game. ‘You wouldn’t be scared of those. Your blood mage was, y’know. After the falling masonry in Adamant, he was terrified of big rocks.’

‘Don’t you _dare_ talk about him.’

‘Well, seeing as how you’re dragging me off to swap my life for his, I think I’ll say my fill, actually. I wasn’t being insulting,’ he added, perfectly reasonable. ‘I was just pointing out that if he was here, _he__’d_ be afraid of the rocks.’

Cullen fixed his gaze upwards, at the great chunks of land that were indeed upside down and admitted to himself that Jassen was right. Dorian often had nightmares about falling rocks crushing people.

Fucking Jassen.

They walked onward, Jassen playing by himself, selecting things that he thought Cullen might be afraid of and then answering himself, saying _‘Not that,’_ and following up with a reason why he knew Cullen _wasn__’t_ afraid of whatever he’d purposefully selected.

There were demons around, Cullen could tell. He caught sight of them in the distance, still and watchful, observing him and Jassen but never rushing towards them, never attacking. It was deeply unsettling.

When he stared too long at a pair of desire demons in the canyon above, Jassen followed his gaze.

‘Ah. The demons who watch but don’t attack.’

Cullen said nothing but Jassen seemed to sense he’d hit pay-dirt. Cullen may as well have said, ‘_That_,’ and be done with it.

‘Yeah,’ Jassen agreed wholeheartedly. ‘Me too. I’d much _rather_ they attacked. It’s creepy when they do that, isn’t it? I don’t sleep anymore, but when I did years ago, I would dream about rows and rows of mages, an amphitheatre of them all standing around watching me and you get married while I drained your blood and they threw coins.’

Cullen stopped abruptly, so much so that Jassen nearly crashed into him. He spun around, free hand raised in front of him, fingers clawing uselessly at the air. _‘Shut up_, will you? Just shut the fuck up, _please_? I don’t want to hear about your _dreams_ or your fucking nightmares! _I don__’t care _and I’m _never_ going to care what you went through so just… _stop_!’

Jassen’s eyes widened, looking up at Cullen; the very picture of innocence. ‘Am I getting to you, lover?’ Cullen turned away, snarling through bared teeth, but Jassen reached for his hand quickly, drawing him back. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding more like himself, like the version Cullen had once known and sought out above all else. ‘I’m sorry, all right? I’m just… this place sickens me to my core and I’m trying to front it by doing what I always do.’

‘By hurting me?’

Jassen’s mouth fell open then. ‘What? No! I… _no_. I’m just rambling. I’m nervous, that’s all.’ He released Cullen’s hand and stepped back, gifting him room to breathe. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll shut up.’

Cullen stared at him, slowly shaking his head. ‘Do you think that will work on me?’

‘It’s not a ploy, Cullen.’

‘_Everything_ is a ploy with you.’

‘Not everything.’

‘Yes, _everything_.’ Cullen stepped forward then, unable to help himself. ‘Why didn’t you just come to me, Jas? When you got out of Tevinter, why didn’t you just _come to me?__’_

He hadn’t been expecting that, Cullen could tell. ‘What do you mean?’

‘When you were free,’ Cullen explained quietly, tightly. ‘Why all this charade? You could have come to me. Did you not trust me enough to be _happy_ that you’d returned?’

Jassen paled. ‘Cullen.’

‘You could have come to me and I would have fucking _cherished _you, do you realise that? Before all this, before Dorian… you would have been my miracle. Tell me why you didn’t just come to me?’

Jassen moved back then and for a moment, Cullen was certain he saw something move behind that _mask. _The mask that had been years in the making, a thing put in place no doubt to keep him alive while enduring slavery; unknowable torture and agony.

‘I couldn’t…’ he said slowly. ‘You… the Inquisition chose the mages, I couldn’t—’

‘That meant _nothing_ and you know it! You could have come to me and all this, fucking _everything_ would have been different. Tell me why you didn’t.’

‘Cullen, I _wanted_ to, believe me, I just—’

‘Because you wanted me friendless and alone, didn’t you?’ Cullen said, advancing, the links of the chains making soft music between them. ‘You wanted _me_ to come to _you_, crawling over broken glass, distraught and regretting every moment of my life without you. Abandoned by the Inquisition, cut loose by people I thought were friends.’

‘I wanted us to be the same.’

‘You wanted to punish me for living on in your absence.’

‘No, I wanted us to be the _same _so you wouldn’t hate me for knowing magic!’

‘That’s a lie. You’re not stupid, far from it. You’ve always known I loved magic.’

Stricken, Jassen shook his head. ‘I knew you were interested in it, I knew you were _curious_, but… no, _no_, we were the same then and we’re the same now.’

‘You wanted to _make me sorry_.’

Jassen swallowed. ‘I just—’

‘Make me sorry I dared have a life without you.’

‘You—’

‘Make me _sorry_, the way I tried to make you.’ Verging on insanity, Cullen took that bloodless face in his hands, the way he’d done a dozen times before in another life. ‘You wanted to _punish me_, just admit it. Admit you wanted to control me, like you always did. Wanted me broken, begging for whatever scraps of love you would be good enough to give me when my life was in tatters. _Admit_ that you only ever loved me when I was in _chains_ for you.’

They were very close, dangerously close. He could feel Jassen’s breath mingling with his own, beneath his fingertips the man’s pulse was _pounding_. It was a moment removed from time, suspended by sheer madness.

Eyes moving rapidly between Cullen’s, Jassen whispered, ‘I wanted to make you mine again. I wanted you to _be_ mine again, the way you were before.’

‘And you would have broken me to do it.’

‘I would have _remade_ you,’ Jassen swore, lifting chained hands to touch Cullen’s face in return, pads of his fingers ghosting over the scar he’d gifted him once, taking Cullen’s memory along with it. ‘I would have rebuilt you every step of the way, no matter how long it took, would have let you take all that anger out on me however you wanted because… because we are the _same_, Cullen. We’ve always been the same, you can’t deny it.’

For a long moment, Cullen just stared at him, the pair sharing a single breath back and forth. He felt it building in the air, a spiralling intensity that could have tipped either way. Burst into anger, into passion of something that had once been _almost_ love, not quite with the benefit of hindsight, with the benefit of now knowing what real love was.

‘You were the reason the sun rose once,’ Cullen told Jassen, voice low. ‘You were what I saw in the mirror, everything I wanted to be.’

Jassen moved closer, leaning up very slightly on his tiptoes.

But Cullen held his balance. Fell neither way, stayed upright and instead slowly removed his hands from Jassen, pushing him away instead.

‘But that is not who I am now. We are not the same now,’ he said with lethal calm. ‘I don’t love you anymore and I won’t be twisted by you, no matter how hard you try. So talk all you want, hurt me all you like. Make me remember how it felt, make me remember all of it. I am not _yours_, Jassen. I will never be yours no matter what, and do you know why?’

Slowly, something dark and ugly came over Jassen. ‘Because of your blood mage.’

‘No,’ Cullen said, hand pressed lightly against Jassen’s chest, the same place he’d pressed before when they were bloody and tangled and dying slowly. ‘It was _you_. You _chose_ to try and break me, to destroy me. To bring me to you in chains, on my knees. You _chose_ this, when I would have come willingly, once. Remember that, if nothing else.’

He moved his hand from where there had once been a burned imprint and stepped away.

‘You really were going to jump, weren’t you?’ Jassen blurted out.

Cullen didn't turn, kept his back to Jassen. ‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

For a moment, Cullen stared unseeingly at the landscape of decay, of beautiful, monstrous green and grey, a world very much in repose, dripping with excess magic and the taint of _too much_ with no clean moving air to intersperse. The Fade was a lake; still and stagnant and disconnected from the sea, left alone to grow green and slimy, creatures within unchecked by the flow of nature.

‘Dorian is the greatest reason I ever had to die,’ Cullen said then, sounding so unlike himself that it was almost shocking. ‘But more than anyone, more than anything else in this world, he makes me _want_ _to_ _live_.’

Dorian’s mother was waiting at the top of a hill up ahead. Cullen took a steadying breath and gripped Jassen’s chains tighter, making himself move.

*

The ground beneath him was wet and slippery, the occasional sharp stone or chunk of grit grinding against the sole, making walking a fairly treacherous excursion. Cullen took care with each step, hyper aware of Jassen just off to his side and a little behind.

‘You walk slow,’ Aquinea Pavus pointed out when she finally stopped long enough for them to catch up with her atop the hill. ‘There is much yet to accomplish should you wish to have any hope of bringing my son back.’

At the top of the hill, Cullen caught his breath. Stretching out into the distance on his right was a vast expanse of _water_. Greeny grey like much else in the Fade, it seemed to go on forever.

‘Is this it?’ he breathed, staring out across the darkening skies extending over the water, a deeper shade of green, something leaning closer to grey. ‘The Well of Souls?’

Aquinea gave him a painfully familiar look; a steady kind of _up and down_ as if questioning his very existence based on apparent lack of intelligence.

‘No,’ she answered at length. ‘This is the next trial. I will await you on the other side, should either of you make it.’

‘Other side? What does that mean? There _is_ no other side, not that I can see and Jassen is chained. He’ll drown.’

‘Indeed,’ she agreed, glancing slowly in Jassen’s direction. ‘I can offer you no words of advice here, except to say that what you seek _is_ on the other side.’ She stepped away, fixing her gaze upon Cullen once more. ‘I hope to see you there.’

And then she _vanished_.

‘That was helpful,’ Jassen commented lightly. ‘So, you just swim for eternity while I drown in about three seconds flat. Nothing to it.’

Cullen began to manoeuvre down the hill, careful not to slip. The horizon of the water seemed chillingly infinite; no islands in the distance, no shapes. As they moved closer, there were no waves, no sounds to indicate it was anything other than a massive puddle, a lake indeed.

For the first time since landing there in that place, Cullen turned his focus inward_. _

_She speaks true_, the magic told him, communicating with him in a vibrating shiver. _The other side is where our Dorian sleeps, we are sure. Breach and breathe, he will be there. _

Cullen swallowed, trying and failing to steel himself. Jassen came to stand beside him, gazing out at the water.

‘You can’t swim,’ he said quietly. It wasn’t a question.

Cullen’s jaw tightened. ‘No, I can’t.’

‘You’ve never been in the sea.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Jassen stared at him measuredly. ‘Tell me why.’

Cullen’s focus was on the floating rocks, great jagged gluts of _land _that sat upside down. ‘Because I know what she means by the other side.’

Jassen nodded. ‘I’m not going to like it, I guess?’

‘Nor will I, trust me.’

‘Well,’ the other man said after a beat. ‘Let’s go then. Can’t stand around here all day, can we?’

It was difficult not to chance looking at Jassen then but Cullen managed it. He began to walk out into the waters, Jassen following. He clutched the chain tightly as the water sloshed and made walking difficult until he was wading, until the lukewarm water was around his thighs and panic was creeping up his spine to tighten around his lungs.

‘You should take your amour off,’ Jassen warned, his tone fractured with something that might have been concern.

‘No,’ Cullen said, wading further, forcing himself to breathe slow. ‘It’ll help me to drown.’

Jassen swore violently.

When the water was up to his chest, Cullen’s fear had become a palpitation, a physical strangulation at the base of his throat. To reach this depth they’d had to walk far, much further than he would have liked.

‘Jassen?’ he called, looking back. The shorter man was there, hands raised in front of him. ‘All right?’

Pale and tight lipped, he gave a jerky nod and Cullen didn’t ask more than that. The shore seemed somewhat terrifyingly distant.

It was horribly _silent, _save for the gentle slushing sounds as he made his way through the water, muddy and unclear when he dared look down.

‘Wait,’ Jassen called sharply and Cullen froze, looking up, all around.

‘What?’ he asked, heart pounding. ‘What is it?’

‘There’s—I saw something moving.’

‘Where?’

‘Ahead.’

‘Are you sure?’

But then Cullen saw it too. Maybe thirty feet ahead, a kind of moving _ripple_, the effect displayed by all the dull green light from above, light which was definitely _fading_.

‘What _the fuck i_s that?’

‘It’s—’ Cullen’s heart snagged in his throat as he caught sight of another streaming ripple, dragged along the surface by something _beneath_. ‘We have to carry on.’

‘Carry on towards being _eaten_?’

Another deep breath. This was a test. All a test.

One that Cullen would _pass_.

‘Yes. Come on.’

He gave Jassen’s chains a yank, urging him onward and the movement caused the ripples to vanish, whatever it was swimming around, diving _lower_. Cullen walked carefully, eyes on the surface. One step and then another, the water steadily rising.

It was at his neck when the next step he took met _nothing _and he stumbled, falling forwards into the water, plunging beneath. The water flooded his mouth, went up his nose, stung his eyes and he _flailed_, unable to right himself, find his footing when there was no more _ground_. The chains were heavy, _he_ was heavy and though this was the plan, he wasn’t ready, hadn’t taken a breath.

The chain he gripped pulled _hard_, not giving way. Jassen was hauling him back. Cullen clung on hard, not daring to let go in case he lost the grip.

When he broke the surface, Jassen was there, close enough to reach for him.

‘You’re all right,’ the other man was saying, sounding deeply shaken. ‘You’re all right, I’ve got you.’

Cullen took great, heaving breaths, spluttering because the water had gone _everywhere_. He could taste it, he was breathing it.

The panic and shock of suddenly being submerged without any warning had his heart simply _smashing_ against his ribs.

‘’Th—there’s an edge,’ he managed to say as Jassen held him steady, made an aborted movement as if about to cup his face, but thinking better of it. ‘A k-kind of drop.’

‘Yeah, I thought as much when you vanished,’ Jassen said hoarsely.

Cullen looked back at the water, at the surface that, for Jassen, was right beneath his bottom lip. ‘This has to be it,’ he said, shivering all over, caught in the throes of primal fear. ‘We have to go _down_.’

‘Drown, you mean.’

‘Not… not necessarily. Maybe it’s not very far.’

‘The second we step off the side, we’re not coming back up. You’re armoured to the gills and I’m chained.’ Jassen was all tight control, the way that let Cullen know he was terrified. ‘There’s no going back.’

‘I know.’

‘Is this it, you think?’ Jassen asked, trying to lighten his tone. ‘Is this where I die? You drown me and get Dorian back.’

Cullen ignored the sickness welling in his stomach. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Drowning’s a shit way to go.’

‘I know of a few worse.’

‘Yeah, I suppose you do.’ He heard Jassen take a breath. ‘Let’s go then.’

‘Just like that?’

The set of Jassen’s jaw was steely, a faint tremor rolling over him that likely had little to do with the water. He stared grimly at the ocean around them.

‘Yeah.’

‘Jassen, I—’

The other man cut him off by moving forward. ‘If I’m going to die, I’d rather not wait around, thanks.’

Cullen felt his way back to the edge, toeing carefully. When he found it, he stopped, keeping Jassen back too, the both of them on the precipice. The water was practically eye level, an endless expanse of dull, lifeless green.

‘This is it,’ he told Jassen and then didn’t know what else to say. Maybe there _was_ nothing else to say.

‘Go together?’ Jassen asked, teeth chattering slightly. Cullen remembered the onset of his panic attacks from when they’d first been stationed in Kinloch, how his teeth would chatter first and Cullen would know to get him away somewhere, sit him down and make him breathe.

‘Together,’ he said thickly, closing his eyes and thinking only of Dorian then; cleansing his mind and supplying himself with the image of his love as surely as he took a final, deep breath.

And then he stepped off the side.

*

_When he stopped, Shay felt a sudden bout of strange sickness hit him. A kind of creeping nausea that filled him to the brim and sent him staggering forward. The residual momentum of a lifetime spent moving. _

_The ambler stood on the shores of the world he had moved through, the place he_ _’d always known to avoid because it would be the end of him, the ocean. _

_He took a breath and stared out at it. _ _‘Why is this my life?’ he cried. ‘Why am I cursed in such a way?’_

_The ocean rolled and heaved, fixing it_ _’s great eternal gaze upon him benignly. The waters crashed and frothed and spoke to Shay as clear as every other language he knew. _

_‘It is no curse, Ambler. You are fated to walk and to carve, to run always and see the world in passing. It is a gift.’_

_‘Why?’ Shay demanded. ‘Tell me why!’_

_The ocean smiled. _ _‘Because you, my child,’ it told him. ‘Are fated to become a river.’_

_*_

The lurching fall was significant and instant. His armour made him heavy, caused him to sink like a fucking stone. Down and down he went, his eyes closed tightly, darkness and silence all around, the only sensation available to him was _movement_. Water moving over his skin as he descended.

His downward trajectory made him turn, made him twirl and the urge to breathe became painful, a primal form of panic rearing its head when holding it started to see worse than the idea of exhaling and having _nothing_ to inhale.

Further down, meeting nothing, no resistance.

Despair began to cripple him, began to leak into every part of him as surely as the water. This was a mistake, this wasn’t what Aquinea had _meant_. He would die there, in the darkness, in the bowels of the Fade for nothing, _nothing_.

He would never see Dorian again.

When the terror took form as a physical kind of _heaving_, his back convulsing, lungs screaming and throbbing to do what they did best, the chain slipped from his hands.

Cullen opened his eyes as the soured breath he’d been holding punched out of him, great billowing bubbles that he couldn’t see because even with his eyes open, stinging painfully against the water, there was only darkness.

Now the urge to breathe was nothing less than pure agony. His entire body was spasming, stupidly insisting he _inhale_ even if what he inhaled would kill him.

But when it became too much, he did just that.

The _wrongness_ was jarring; like drinking broken glass. It was agony, every inch of the way down _hurt_ and he knew he was dying as filthy water flooded his lungs.

_Push it out_.

He couldn’t push it out, what a stupid thing to even think when he was moments from death, from failure.

_Push it out!_

Cullen forced a broken mockery of an exhale and then, helplessly, _in_ again. This time the pain was less, far less. It felt… almost nice. Colder than the water above, fresher somehow.

_Again, breathe, our Cullen. In and out, your body knows how_. _This is where you were made. _

Despite the pain of doing so, Cullen obeyed his magic. Pushed the water out and dragged it in, body crawling with the wrongness of the sensation but somehow… fucking _somehow _the screaming urge for air was fading. Had he not been quite so terrified, he might have found it fascinating.

He was _breathing water. _

Cullen began to feel _lighter_, more at ease. The water was cold now, chilling through his skin and touching every part of him. When he breathed it in, it was undeniably a part of him. When he moved his hands over himself, he couldn’t feel the metal anymore. His armour and weapons were _gone_. Only his clothes remained.

He looked down, blinking against the water and saw _light_ beneath him. There was nothing to weigh him down anymore and he’d lost the chain a while ago. Was he… floating _upwards_, towards the light?

He took a deep pull of the water and began to kick and try to move himself towards the light. Immediately, it felt as if he’d righted himself somehow. Cullen had never once swum in the sea and though he’d often stared at Lake Calenhad, there had never been time to go near it. He moved his arms in front of him, trying to get to the light faster, breathing in the water that sustained him.

It was bright, the shimmering glow now _above_ him. He pushed himself harder, kicking so that his legs screamed in protest but he didn’t care. The water was clear, the light was streaming; white and faintly _blue, _it had to be close.

Another final deep inhale of water and Cullen broke the surface with a sudden and powerful splash, bursting free. When he exhaled the water, it came out in a stream followed by an immediate choking fit as the next time he tried to breathe, there was only _air_. His lungs panicked, confused and still water-logged.

Cullen fought to stay atop the surface, but he kept dipping below it, making it even harder to breathe. Someone was calling his name, yelling out for him and then rough hands were grabbing him, pulling him up and keeping him there.

It was Jassen.

The other man dragged him, kept his head up and managed to get them both to the edge of the water, near to the thick, high circle of trees all around them in the massive pool in which Cullen had breached the surface.

‘Come on, walk!’ Jassen yelled, hauling him back up when his legs threatened to give out completely. There were stones beneath his bare feet; small smooth pebbles that made it difficult to stand but not impossible. Jassen kept right on dragging Cullen ever closer to solid land, but without the water halving his weight, Cullen had to help.

Finally, they collapsed on the pebbly shore, panting harshly. Jassen lay flat on his back, arm thrown over his eyes as Cullen leaned forward and retched. There was still liquid in his lungs and his body, while apparently fine with breathing _water_, could not tolerate both. He heaved and coughed harshly, spitting what remained onto the rounded stones of the shore.

Cullen dragged a shaking hand over his mouth.

It was a great, enormous circle of water and right in the very centre, a large, sharp peak like a mountain, only it was a building. A kind of glass castle with a high turret, shrouded in greenery, in abundant growth, darkly vivid. It spanned _wide_, rimmed neatly with emerald forest and pebbly shore all around. Cullen saw what remained of a stone walkway, some areas having crumbled over time but it was obviously intended to permit a dry path to the centre. The water was moving and churning lightly, waves lapping despite it being contained in a perfect circle.

_A well,_ he realised.

He looked back at Jassen, who was breathing heavily. His chains were gone, dampening collar and even his boots too. Only his clothes remained as did Cullen’s.

‘Thank you,’ he forced himself to utter.

Jassen just nodded.

Cullen was about to say something else when he noticed the streaming _red_ beneath Jassen’s shirt; a scarlet blossom near the place where Cullen had gouged him with a sword wrought of lightning.

‘Jassen,’ he said, moving hesitantly forward. ‘You’re—’

‘Bleeding? Yeah, I tore some stitches.’

Cullen’s focus was on the red, gushing stream of blood coming from Jassen’s shoulder, from a wound of his creation. ‘Let me see it.’

Jassen’s arm drew back from his eyes and he frowned. ‘Why?’

It was right there on the tip of Cullen’s tongue to snap something at Jassen and simply pull up the material without answering, see how bad it really was because that much blood rarely indicated small, shallow cuts but Jassen’s question brought him up short.

_Why?_

Why when Jassen was going to die soon anyway? Why did Cullen even _care, _was the question Jassen was really asking. He didn’t care, not when he searched himself. Jassen had killed Dorian in all but practise, had orchestrated it completely, would have wiped Cullen’s memories given the chance, had threatened Nalari and the others, even little Dawn.

As he thought of each reason why he shouldn’t (didn’t) care, he and Jassen stared at one another and the other man seemed to know exactly what he was thinking.

‘Yeah,’ Jassen said with a deeply superficial smile. ‘Thought so.’

It irked Cullen, sat in his system like an itch he couldn’t reach. ‘I need you alive for now,’ he said through gritted teeth, crawling towards him. ‘I don’t know when… when I’ll need you to die.’

Jassen chuckled softly as Cullen knelt over him. No longer chained, Jassen was a threat, injured or not and Cullen knew it. The magic inside of him, somewhat quietened by the journey through the water, glared resentfully in Jassen’s direction. ‘Fatten your pig for slaughter, yeah?’

‘Shut it.’

Cullen pushed the soaking cotton up and over Jassen’s chest, revealing the ugly wound. The bruising around it was incredible, spanning the width of a dinner plate and the wound in the centre… it was amazing Solas had been able to do _anything_. It looked to Cullen like a _mouth, _lips all torn and bleeding and the hole was steadily pulsing blood.

‘Fucking _void.__’_

‘Your weapons are all gone,’ Jassen pointed out unhelpfully. ‘Your kit too.’

‘I noticed.’

‘You could bind it, but shoulder wounds are hard to—’

‘I fucking _know_, Jassen!’

The other man fell silent, features softening. ‘Are you gonna use magic on me, lover?’

Cullen shot him a look that made no effort to contain his contempt. ‘Yes.’

_No. _

‘Yes,’ he reiterated a little more forcefully. ‘I am.’

_No you are not. We will not be used on one such as him. He took our Dorian, he violated us, held us down in the dark and tried to make us fit. No. Use leaves and other mortal elements. We will not help._

** _We need to exchange him for Dorian. _ **

_He is not yet dying. Patch him up and let us move. We will not touch him unless it is to hurt. He is clever, he is waiting, like Dorian_ _’s curse. Be careful, our Cullen. Be on your guard. _

Jassen _smirked_, despite laying on the shore of a world very much _other_, bleeding out. ‘Having trouble getting it up?’

And though it made Cullen want to murder him, made his hands positively shake with the need to just snap his fucking neck and be done, he saw the thin tremor beneath it. Nerves, pain, trauma. Jassen must have drowned the same as Cullen and he still made it to the surface, helping Cullen when he did. He had no guarantee they would survive the drop into the water from the other side and he’d gone without argument.

_Fuck_.

Cullen cast around, fretful and resentful. There were leaves everywhere, forest _everywhere. _He was no elf, but he knew his herbs and he knew what would help. ‘Stay here,’ he growled, pushing up onto his bare feet, smooth stones grinding pleasantly beneath his soles, legs slightly shaky.

‘Yeah, I’ll try,’ Jassen said softly and Cullen hated that word, hated how natural it was to use it. How many times had he said it to Dorian, _stay with me_, _stay here with me_. It had become something else entirely, a kind of sub-language and to use it, even accidentally with Jassen, felt like nothing less than a betrayal.

He left the shore and ventured inward, casting around for the tell-tale curve of elfroot leaves, looking at the bases of the great, sprawling trees that provided shade from the glorious white sunshine above him. It was warm, perfectly temperate with a delicate breeze blowing now and then. The waves lapped against the shore behind him and the scent of fresh mint and lavender played upon the wind.

It would have been the most beautiful place Cullen had ever visited, had the company been different. Had it been Dorian with him instead of Jassen.

The abundant growth provided a wealth of herbs, elfroot and even some prophet’s laurel. Cullen gathered what he could, including a few thick, wide leaves from a poplar tree and made his way back. Jassen was right where he’d left him, the wet stones beneath him stained thinly with blood.

‘Right,’ Cullen said, kneeling beside his chest, carefully placing down what he’d gathered. ‘This is going to hurt.’

Jassen opened his eyes slowly, seeming woozy. ‘Hmmm,’ he said, nodding. ‘Fair enough.’

Cullen stared down, swallowing. Jassen seemed so much _younger_ this way, dazed from blood loss, helpless and unable to wield much of his manipulative nature. He looked so similar to when Cullen had first met him.

The moment passed. Cullen went about crafting a highly makeshift poultice from what little he had to work with, stripping the leaves of the elfroot and then squeezing the stem for all the juice he could manage to smear over the torn skin.

While he worked, he said, ‘Can I ask you something?’

The man beneath his ministrations blinked and tried to focus. ‘Yes,’ he said, a little warily.

‘You’re not going to like it.’

Jassen huffed. ‘What else is new? Go on.’

Cullen pulled apart the flowers of the laurel. ‘What’s your middle and last name?’

As he worked, waiting for an answer, he began to think that Jassen had passed out because he was silent for so long. Eventually, Cullen glanced at him, despite not really wanting to. Jassen was staring up at him with an inscrutable expression.

_‘What_?’ Cullen asked, refusing to be cowed.

‘You don’t remember my middle name?’

‘No. I know you have one, obviously,’ he said, returning his attention to the grisly wound, torn flesh and sticky, drying blood. ‘I know we used to joke about it. I just… can’t remember what it was, your last name too.’

Jassen swallowed and looked away. ‘That’s probably for the best.’

‘Just tell me, will you?’

‘I can’t believe you don’t remember.’

‘It’s the _lyrium,__’ _Cullen snapped, hating how defensive he felt. ‘It’s not like… Maker’s breath, just _tell me!__’_

_‘_No.’

‘Oh, fuck you then.’

He half expected a salacious comment, a mockery of his outburst made to hit low and remind him of so many things between them, mostly bad but it never came. Jassen stared off to the side and Cullen felt strangely… _panicked_ by Jassen’s quiet sense of betrayal, by his anger. It was a wholly familiar feeling, he knew it well and equally familiar was the urge to rectify whatever he’d done wrong. A compulsion, rotting and decayed within him, but not weakened by time.

‘I remember everything else,’ he went on, carefully laying poplar leaves over what he’d managed to get from the herbs. ‘I remember _everything_, I just… I don’t know why I can’t remember that.’

‘Why are you even asking?’

‘Because I want to know.’

_‘Why_? So you can have a stone made for me when you get back? Put it in the sad little graveyard of the Circle Tower, by the lake? Near all the others?’

Cullen’s movements halted as he realised that was essentially true, but that it wasn’t the_ only_ reason he wanted to know.

‘Forget it.’

‘Yeah, you’re making good progress there at least.’

‘It’s been eleven years, Jas,’ Cullen found himself snapping, fingers trembling. ‘I didn't see your name anywhere but on that letter, no one talked about you, I just—’

‘You forgot me.’

Cullen scowled. ‘I _never_ forgot you.’

‘But you wanted to.’ Jassen winced as Cullen packed the leaves harder against the wound than was strictly necessary. ‘When you met _him_, you wanted to forget me, didn’t you? More than you already had, anyway.’

Cullen sat back and closed his eyes, willing _control_ over himself. He could see it happening, could _see it_ as if he were third party to his own actions and feelings but that didn’t make it any less impossible to avoid. Jassen always had sway over him, one way or another.

‘Yes, I did,’ he answered, purposefully harsh. ‘I wanted to forget you and that place and every terrible thing I did.’

‘So you burned my letter.’

‘Yes.’

‘You all but destroyed our connection then, did you know that?’

‘I didn’t even know we were connected at the time but it was no coincidence that once I _did _burn it, I began to feel better_.__’_

Jassen frowned again. ‘Better how?’

‘Like I could fucking breathe,’ Cullen said, voice trembling as he tore a length of material from the bottom of his own shirt. ‘Like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.’

Jassen’s blood had mostly stopped running from the wound, reduced to a weak trickle. Cullen reached beneath his back to guide the binding, to hold the leaves in place. ‘Is that when your bond with _him_ began to form?’

‘Don’t talk about Dorian.’

‘Was it?’

Cullen didn't have to think to know the answer, but he also knew what Jassen would say if _given _an answer, how he would twist it.

‘My bond with Dorian was nothing to do with you.’

‘You don’t think it’s strange that you destroy one bond and another forms immediately?’

‘I don’t care,’ Cullen said, yanking the material and tying it viciously. ‘I don’t _care_ what it was that drew me to Dorian or bound us. I don’t care if it was magic or a curse or the fucking thrall of his blood, I _love him. _I love him and nothing else matters. Not the cause, not the origin, only… only him. He is _all_ that matters to me, nothing else, do you understand?’

Jassen lifted his dark brown eyes to Cullen. ‘I understand.’

Cullen sneered, finishing the knot and then moving away, his work done. ‘No you don’t.’

‘I do, actually.’

‘Don’t you _dare_—’

‘Because you’re all that matters to me,’ Jassen said quickly. ‘You’re _my_ everything.’

Cullen rested his forearms on his raised knees and took comfort in the lapping sounds of the crystal clear waves. ‘You’re a liar.’

Jassen made a noise of disgust. ‘Just because I don’t love you the way you love him, doesn’t negate the fact that I _do_ love you, Cullen. I’ve always loved you. I never stopped loving you even when I felt you fall for him. When I realised you were _happier_ with him than with me. That you had a better life in my absence, that you were becoming who you were meant to. Commander Cullen.’ He sighed. ‘Yes, I wanted to make you sorry for it. I wanted to punish you and strip you of it all, bring you to me in supplication. I _wanted_ it so bad I could taste it. I wanted to crack you open and show you how it _feels_ to be alone, to be worthless because that’s how I felt every day without you.’ Cullen felt more than heard him moving closer. ‘Without you, without my Cullen, my _sun_, my true north, I became this. A monster, no better than the mages you and Fenris hunted in Kirkwall. I’ve become everything I despised while you…’ he laughed and Cullen closed his eyes. ‘You’ve become the best version of yourself. Strong and beautiful, _powerful_. Do you think it was easy for me to watch you fall in love with him? To _feel_ you love him and realise how different it was to what we had?’

‘I didn’t _know! _Maker damn it, Jassen, I didn’t even know you were alive!’

‘Well I was!’ he yelled, voice cracking as it echoed faintly around the circular arena. ‘I was alive and sold into _slavery; _tortured and raped and collared like a… like a fucking—’

‘Like a _mage_?’

‘Like I was _nothing_,’ Jassen spat. ‘You were all I had to hold onto, little glimpses here and there, flashes of feelings. I watched you write my name around the edge of my letter but I wasn’t enough reason for you to kill yourself. A new reason every few months and still not enough. Then you meet him and he’s all the reason you need.’ Jassen scoffed with trembling disdain. ‘You were going to jump for _him_. He’s reason enough, more than all the others, myself included, combined. You’ll forgive me for being _bitter_.’

‘No,’ Cullen said. ‘I don’t think I will.’

Silence fell between them then, Cullen’s heart beating hard for all the wrong reasons. He stared out at the beautiful emerald waters, glistening and clean, and then gathered himself as best he could.

‘Can you walk?’ he asked tersely.

Jassen sounded tired when he answered, ‘I suppose we’ll find out.’

*

_‘A river?’_

_‘You are the newest river of this world, soon to be born unto these wild lands. You will flow, clean and perfect, moving always and living forever. You will nourish the land but never stay long enough to stagnate. You were born to become a river, Shay. Not all come to realise it. Some reject it, some follow the path and accept it. Rivers cannot stop, cannot tarry. Should you accept your fate, you will move across the world and pour into me, who birthed all things.’_

_Shay stared out at the ocean. _ _‘What if I don’t want to be a river?’_

_The ocean sighed, waves heaving and crashing, but the sense of kindness never once waned. It was patient, eternal. _

_‘You will see the world and make your choice, as is the way of all things everlasting. Immortality cannot be forced. You are the watchful ambler, Shay, but you can choose to be otherwise. You have been able to choose all your life.’_

_‘That is a lie!’ Shay declared. ‘I have never been able to stop.’_

_The ocean was unswayed. _ _‘You are stopped now, are you not? There is power in movement. You could feel how close it brought you to immortality.’_

_The beating of his heart became wild. _

_‘You lie.’_

_‘The ocean cannot lie, Ambler. This you know also.’_

_‘I would have stopped for my friend if I could.’_

_‘You chose.’_

_‘I was never given a choice!’_

_‘You felt the draw of your destiny but you are the master of it. You could have stopped any time as you are now. If you slow and linger long enough, you will lose your choice. That chord will be forever cut, your fate lost to you. You will never become what you were meant to.’ When Shay’s anger stole his voice, the ocean whispered, ‘You were born to be a river, but as with all beautiful things of the world, you must choose it.’_

_Shay turned away from the water and wept. _

*

The walkway had crumbled but some parts remained still. The stone was deeply black, some kind of roughened marble, similar to the jet stone he’d often seen mined and sold in Kirkwall. They walked a quarter way around the edge of the well until they came to a more structurally sound part of the walkway, heading cautiously towards the centre of the Well and the enormous glass building, shrouded with growth. Cullen kept his eyes peeled for any signs of movement, any indication of what to do next, hoping Aquinea Pavus would mysteriously _appear_ just as she’d vanished earlier.

There didn’t seem to be any sign of her, though.

From above, making their way carefully across the stone path, Cullen stared down at the water that had allowed him to breathe. It was a rich, deep green, emerald and shimmering, beautifully clear but with no visible bottom. The sun glistened over its gently moving surface.

Cullen turned back to check on Jassen. The other man was deathly pale but walking straight, likely aware of the danger of pitching over the side.

As they neared the middle, Cullen became aware that the water was rushing faster, a small mist in a circle around the base of the edifice. When he was close enough to taste the mist on his tongue, fresh and clean with a hint of something unknowable, he saw that around the base of the building was a waterfall, the waters of the well tumbling down and spilling over the side in a perfect circle; a moat of motion, the only way _in_ to follow the jet stone path.

As they walked over the waterfall, close enough to see a set of tall glass doors stretching ahead of them, Cullen looked directly down and he shuddered because the waterfall simply went on _forever_. There was no base, no water crashing at the bottom… only distance down, down, _down. _Heights had never bothered him, but such a sight struck him to the core.

Behind him, Jassen swore quietly and Cullen moved on.

At the doors, the rush of the endless waterfall behind them, Cullen peered inside. The glass was smeared and dirty, obscuring much of the interior, but Cullen could just about make out light coming from somewhere inside.

‘What’s in there?’

‘I can’t tell.’ Cullen stepped away, assessing the tall doors, searching for a handle but there wasn’t one that he could make out. It seemed inherently _wrong_ to simply smash the doors and force entry into what was ostensibly the centre point of the Well of Souls.

Jassen moved closer, squinting through the glass. ‘Shall we knock, or—?’

Without warning, the doors cracked open - a loud, echoing crank caused Cullen to flinch, but he stayed where he was. From within, a rush of humid air poured out, tasting of vegetation and musk, not altogether unpleasant but certainly strong. The doors creaked open enough for Cullen to slip inside.

‘You first,’ he said to Jassen, eyeing the man warily.

Jassen sighed. ‘Oh please. Because my options are so plentiful? Drown and return to the Fade or fall off the edge of the world? Yeah, I think I’ll take my chances inside, thanks.’

He slipped in through the gap and Cullen followed.

The sounds of the outside world faded dramatically, a gentle grey light bathing the space within. Cullen narrowed his eyes, scanning the area for potential threats but everything was still and quiet.

A kind of enormous, high ceilinged ballroom, something that had evidently once been dazzling but was now barren and dusty, the greenery from outside growing through the inevitable cracks and holes, around the edges of windowpanes, slowly creeping inside.

Jassen stood in the near centre, looking around. ‘What is this place?’

Aquinea Pavus’s voice rang out calmly through the hall, _so_ very similar to Dorian’s. ‘It is the heart of the Well,’ she said, stepping out from the shadows. ‘Once thriving and beating, a place for the old Gods of the world to visit and be close to the creation of new souls, should they so desire. Now, it is deserted and lost to time. Very few new souls are made these days, most are reused and reincarnated. It is why you have less time than you believe.’

His breath caught. ‘Dorian is here, in the Well?’

‘Yes, but he might not remain there for long.’

‘What does that mean?’ Jassen asked, running his fingers over a thick layer of dust atop a once grand and ornate dining table beneath a set of stained glass windows, coloured green and blue. Further into the room there was all manner of beautiful furniture, now covered with dust and boldly encroaching foliage.

‘It means his spirit, his very soul, may be called upon to be reborn into a new body.’ Aquinea stood before Cullen. ‘The third trial awaits you in the Tower.’

‘How many trials are there?’ Cullen asked her.

‘There is no predetermined number,’ she told him. ‘As many are required to ascertain what the Well would know of you.’

‘Which is?’

She gestured vaguely. ‘How does infinity quantify worthiness? You are asking the wrong woman,’ Aquinea said with something that might have been a smile. ‘All I know is that I am to guide you to each trial, to oversee.’

Despite himself, Cullen moved closer. ‘Why you?’

‘The guide is usually familiar and it can only be a mage. Humans have no connection to the Fade and thus they cannot be recalled to be utilised in such a way. This is what remains of me, my soul twined with my magic. I am a construct, this small piece of myself immortalised forever.’ She smiled then, a very Dorian smile; all confidence and brightness, but it wasn’t quite genuine, he thought and didn’t blame her for it. ‘I was chosen and as such, here I am.’

Cullen wanted to tell her that he was glad it was her, that despite how difficult it was to hear her voice and be so painfully reminded of Dorian, he was glad for her company as their guide even if she did very little actual _guiding. _

Instead, he simply nodded.

‘You did well,’ she told him quietly, watching him. ‘You are brave, there is no doubt of that.’

Cullen shook his head. ‘I just… want it to be enough.’

‘For Dorian.’

The mere use of that name, spoken in such a way, had his throat swelling reflexively, a swallow helplessly chasing it and he nodded again, not quite trusting himself to speak. It was difficult with Jassen nearby, gazing around the room with interest but still clearly _listening_.

‘Enough to simply bring him back or is it more than that?’

He closed his eyes for a moment, seeking comfort in the darkness. Something treacherous inside of him wanted to spill his guts, let loose all the pain, all the writhing certainty that he had _failed_ Dorian, that he wasn’t good enough, would never be good enough for him or for _anyone_ because look what he’d let happen. He was weak and slow and useless, so fucking _useless_. He wanted to spill it all to her because she would agree, he was sure of that. She would offer no pity or assurances, only coldly agree that yes indeed, he was certainly not enough for her son and something rotting in Cullen _wanted _it then.

When he opened his eyes, prepared to swallow the urge down as he so often did, Aquinea had moved far closer than before, causing him a moment of alarm when she put her hand on his face, lifting his chin. She was a tall woman, much like Cullen’s own mother. Tall women always bore taller sons, he knew. She held him there, studying him intently and he froze beneath it.

‘Strange,’ she said lightly, but her eyes told a different story. ‘You don’t even recognise it anymore, do you? I suppose after a decade, it would be difficult to.’

‘Recognise w-what?’

‘All the worst of you,’ she said quietly, intently, touching her fingertips to his heart. ‘Is not _here. _It’s standing over there.’

Cullen’s lips parted with something like surprise and Aquinea released him, the steely look in her gaze not softening even slightly. She moved away and regained everything about herself that was imperious and haughty, oh so very Dorian, at least when Cullen had first known him. All dazzling smiles and shielded eyes, confidence and swagger. Maker, but he’d fallen hard for him then. It caused his heart to skip a beat, the mere _memory_ of him in those early days.

‘I will accompany you to the tower,’ Aquinea said, glancing at Jassen as she waited at the base of the spiral staircase. ‘We wouldn’t want you getting lost, now, would we?’

*

_He walked for a length of time unknown to him, arms wrapped tight around himself, alone in the world with his truth and the grief of that truth. A sense of inevitability followed him, stalked every step of what had once been a lightweight and meaningful journey. _

_To see it now in all it_ _’s dark glory, his future pre-written. _

_To become a river. To become one with the ocean and never stop, never cease. Shay was born to become a river and that knowledge drove deeper into him with every step he took away from the ocean. _

_And when his tears dried and his heart calmed, he began to truly look around at the world he_ _’d walked through but never truly seen. _

_Everywhere, there was something _happening_. Something new and interesting and the start of such a thing was always the best part, Shay knew that. The beginning of a thing showed it at it__s best, finest. He had always loved seeing the perfection, the untainted commencement. Shay never saw a single thing slowly decay with time. Oh, he saw decay and he saw collapse, but never from the same thing he’d once seen that was perfect._

_His world had always been in passing, portraits and images burned there, impressions. _

_He walked for a length of time unknown and then he began to slow, to tarry. He kicked at the road and he looked around, listening. _

_He heard screaming in the distance and instead of walking on, he turned towards it for the first time in his life. _

*

The heart of the Well, so Aquinea had called it, was impossibly huge. From the outside, it had seemed a relatively contained building. Large and well built, but nowhere near the size of Skyhold. Inside, however was a different story. When they reached the first floor, an enormous breadth of _space_ lay before them, not simply a corridor with rooms branching off like Cullen expected. It was enormous and echoing, vast and empty in a way that made him nervous.

The light from outside was unfailingly bright and the glass, when not smeared with dirt, dust or greenery, was often adorned with impressively detailed art in a fine array of colours. Cullen glanced at it but barely took in whatever the scenes were depicting, his mind firmly _elsewhere_.

As they walked, heading to the opposite side of the first floor, Cullen tried to temper the feeling of extreme trepidation. Aquinea had said that Dorian was in the Well, the water outside that he’d swam in, _breathed_, for Maker’s sake. Why couldn’t he just… find him and take him?

_He is close by_, the magic assured Cullen. _We sense his shade, his trace, our Dorian but we cannot take him yet. Not long, our Cullen, not long. _

‘You can understand the magic when it communes with you,’ Aquinea commented, leading them through a door at the other end of all the empty space. Inside there was another staircase, a much narrower one. Cullen’s chest tightened just to see it, but he ignored the feeling and followed on, keeping an eye on Jassen.

‘Yes, much more now than before.’

‘It’s blood magic,’ Jassen put in unexpectedly. ‘Did you know that your _darling son_ was a blood mage?’

Aquinea smiled, the kind of thing that might have morphed into a chuckle if she hadn’t loathed Jassen quite so much. ‘Yes, the _monstrosities _of blood magic. How appalling and terrifying I’m sure it seems to little cavemen like you.’

‘It’s the vilest level of corruption,’ Jassen said, undeterred by her tone as they climbed. ‘Even _he_ knew that.’

‘It is the oldest form of magic,’ Aquinea said. ‘And the only corrupting element about it is intent. Demons use the strength of the emotion to corrupt the user when the emotion is dark enough. Does it set you trembling to speak my son’s name? Rightly so - his name is not fit for your waste of a tongue.’

Jassen faltered just a hint and Cullen, watching him the whole time, was ready to stop him if he so much as even _tried_ to hurt what was essentially the ghost of Aquinea Pavus.

But he didn’t attack then, he didn’t do anything besides frown and shoulder the insult which was… far more worrying than if he’d simply lashed out.

When he said nothing, Aquinea filled the silence once more, waiting for them at the top of the spiralling metal staircase.

‘Blood magic is greatly misunderstood, perhaps even more so than mages themselves for the fear of it is ripe amongst them, even in Tevinter there are those who abstain out of fear. The Chantry has too long held sway over what is written and what is cast aside in terms of _factual_ academia. The study of magic in the south is little more than a brutal exercise in control - death in failure, a lifetime imprisonment if successful. That _you_ are able to pull magic into your body and use it where once there was lyrium is neither impressive nor unique. There are countless instances of it throughout time, but no recorded accounts thanks to a cowering squadron of men who hold captive all the story tellers and writers of the world. The Chantry has done more damage to this world than anyone will ever know.’

Cullen listened intently the whole time, unable to shake the feeling that it was _Dorian_ telling him all this, off on one of his beautiful tangents again perhaps, glass of wine in one hand, holding a book in the other.

At the top of the staircase, Jassen said, ‘So, you’re proud of your son for becoming a blood mage, then?’

Aquinea blinked and gave a smile that could have frozen water.

‘I am proud of my son _regardless_ of his choices, of his actions. He is a good man and that, little Templar, is rarer than you think.’

Jassen shrugged. ‘Maybe you should have told him that while you were alive, then.’

He walked past her, not waiting to see the fallout from his casual suggestion, likely not needing to. Aquinea’s smile fractured and she stared unseeingly, Cullen watching helplessly, able to offer _nothing_ because he could count on one hand the amount of times Dorian had spoken of his mother.

She gathered herself quickly, as was apparently a Pavus trait, and they left the stairwell, walking out into a much smaller, circular room which Cullen knew was the tower.

It was glass, no brick or stone anywhere, the entire tower was made of glass and that glass was covered in vines and ivy, in the growth of the Well. Lush, green and thick, it was like being inside a tree. The interior of the tower was empty but in the centre of the circular room was a thickly drawn shape on the ground. A kind of double hexagon, drawn perfectly in black.

‘The third trial?’ Jassen asked, staring at it.

‘Yes,’ Aquinea answered dully. ‘Within the confines of the rune, you must not speak anything but truth. To lie or to remain silent when questioned will result in failure, do you understand?’

Cullen nodded but so did Jassen.

Something very cold crept up his spine then, a sour rush of suspicion and dawning, dull horror.

‘Is… is _Jassen_ being tested too?’

Aquinea stared at him plainly. ‘You brought him with you. Both of you have a connection to my… to the fallen.’

‘I brought him with me to _exchange_ for Dorian.’

‘The Well sees two who entered, two who will be tested, only one of whom will succeed. Did no one explain it to you?’

Jassen met Cullen’s gaze then, calm and flat, with no hint of surprise and Cullen realised that Jassen had been aware of this the whole time. Jassen had made it through the water, had passed the second trial. As for the first, Cullen didn’t know if that extended to Jassen but…

‘That’s why all the decency then?’ he uttered, barely able to contain himself. ‘I wondered where the _real_ Jassen was.’

Dark eyes held light for a moment before Jassen stepped inside the rune and sat down on the marble floor.

‘I told you I’d fight you, lover. Just not the way you expected.’

‘What happens if he succeeds?’

‘Then he will be offered the boon of the Well. Where you would use it to bring Dorian back, he would likely use it another way.’

‘I wasn’t told any of this.’

‘Well,’ Aquinea said, barely refraining from rolling her eyes. ‘More’s the pity.’

Cullen moved forward. ‘Did you know about the Well already?’

He waited, heart pounding for an answer that deep down, he was already fully aware of.

‘Yes,’ Jassen said simply. ‘I knew of the Well. I’m sorry. This was the only way I could gain access to the trials. Your connection with him is the only way through and because we are bound, it extends to me also.’

Cullen couldn’t quite feel his body, a kind of ringing in his ears when he asked, ‘Was this the reason, Jassen? The reason for all of it? Killing him, pushing and herding us into various states of… of _connection_?’ He felt like he couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t make his body obey him to do anything more than pose questions to things he already _knew_. ‘Was it all for this?’

Jassen didn’t even blink. ‘I knew you would try and bring him back. I _counted_ upon it. Did you really believe I would let you drag me all this way just to sacrifice me for him? Did you really think all of this… was for _you_ alone_?_’

Cullen turned away, hand over his mouth, eyes closed tightly. He was _falling_, the strange world in which he found himself careening to the side but he kept himself upright, shored his strength because… because he would _not_ fail Dorian again. He would _not_.

Dorian was all that mattered.

Dorian _was all_.

He took a few steadying breaths, in and out, seeking his centre. He could be brave, he could withstand _anything_ if it meant the merest chance of saving Dorian.

Aquinea watched him but he didn’t look at her then, not wanting to risk weakness.

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ she said with a hint of regret. ‘I am not permitted to interfere.’

Cullen gave a tight nod and then turned back around. Jassen was waiting inside the rune, expression almost curious.

‘All right’ he said, stepping inside the boundaries of the double hexagon, sitting in front of Jassen and crossing his legs also. ‘Let’s fight, then.’

Jassen smiled, the kind that Cullen fully recognised at last.

‘There’s my boy.’

Cullen took hold of himself completely, letting his gaze turn dead and cold when he surveyed Jassen. ‘I’m not _your_ anything.’

‘The trial,’ Aquinea said, a touch forcefully. ‘Will begin when the rune lights up and ends when it fades. Remember what I said. Speak _only_ truth, or fail.’

Cullen’s jaw was tight, hands balled so hard that when he flexed them, his bones ached. He sought strength from any part of himself that would provide it. Jassen knew him well, knew what might trip him up in terms of wanting to lie but Cullen knew him well also, or at least he had once.

He could do this. He had to.

The black rune turned white, glowing faintly and Cullen tensed.

Jassen spoke first because of course he did.

‘Did you enjoy raping me?’ he asked without preamble.

Cullen’s jaw tightened, all he would show of how much that _hurt_ but he answered truthfully because to do anything else would be to _fail_ and he would not fail, not now.

‘I enjoyed it to the extent that the blood magic forced me to and then beyond, to the point where I looked forward to it because I missed you and I loved you and I wanted to touch you, to be close. I enjoyed it, yes.’

It came tumbling out, the confession; the kind of thing that would have destroyed him to admit once, but it felt like nothing anymore. He didn’t _care_, all he cared about was beating Jassen and getting Dorian back.

Jassen for his part of the confession seemed oddly fascinated by Cullen’s truth.

Cullen wasted no time in asking, ‘Are you jealous of Dorian?’

‘Yes,’ the other man replied instantly. ‘Very much. Jealous of his power and of how much you love him. Are there things about him that you hate?’

‘Yes. I hate how sometimes his instincts tend towards deception, that in the earlier days, at least, he would rather hide something from me than be honest.’

Jassen’s brow creased. ‘Is that all?’

Cullen searched himself. ‘Yes.’

The light remained white and glowing. Jassen didn’t seem as _pleased_ with that answer and Cullen took it as a small victory.

‘Do you believe your Father ever loved you?’

The crease deepened into a scowl but Jassen wasted no time in answering, ‘No, I don’t. I believe he wanted rid of me as soon as he was able to pass me off. I believe he blamed me for my Mother’s death and that he never, not once, looked upon me with love. Tell me why you liked hurting Dorian when you were fucking him.’

Cullen’s heart was beating so hard he could _hear_ it, Aquinea’s presence throughout this trial made everything so, _so_ much worse but failing Dorian would be an even greater crime.

‘There were many reasons, but the strongest and most prevalent are that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed hurting him and feeling him fight back, knowing he was able to _earn_ the pain that I inflicted on him, that he could take it, that he _liked _it.’ And then, because he wanted the answer to be as honest as possible, he added, ‘Dorian was powerful enough that when I _took_ power from him - made him bleed, made him cry out, held him down - he was never actually powerless. It never reduced him to anything less than what he was. It was always a game between us and I liked… no, I _loved_ that he could take it and get back up afterwards and still be _Dorian_. Still be the man I loved, my equal and my better in every way.’

Though Cullen’s hands were shaking to say such a thing out-loud, this time he knew he managed to _hurt_ Jassen with his truth and that was worth the stinging sensation in his armpits, the trickle of sweat forming in beads on his temples. Jassen had paled towards the end and Cullen fucking revelled in it.

‘What do you intend to do with the Well’s power, should you succeed?’

‘I want to have my own _power_,’ Jassen said without hesitation but his voice had lost some of its strength. ‘I want to be able to use magic without drawing it from others.’

‘You want to become a mage?’

Jassen’s mouth twisted. ‘Yes, I want that.’

Cullen laughed then, couldn’t help it. ‘All this… to become the thing you despise most?’

‘To become a mage, _yes_,’ Jassen ground out and then before Cullen could press it, he asked, ‘Do you believe you and Dorian are truly in love or just swayed by magic, by your curses and our bond?’

Cullen’s laughter faded and he shook his head. Jassen thought that was a hard question, a vicious, ruthless hint of success gleaming in dark brown eyes.

‘I know in my heart that Dorian and I are in love,’ he said easily. ‘I would love him in the absence of magic, in the absence of this cursed link between us. I love him more than anything in this world or the next.’

The light remained strong, did not flicker at all and Cullen smiled coldly. ‘Do you think I would have loved you if you hadn’t controlled me to such an extent when we were younger?’

‘I didn’t…’ the light _flickered_ and Jassen froze. ‘No,’ he answered through gritted teeth. ‘I don’t think you would have loved me _as much _if I hadn’t kept your focus on me. But I _loved you _then and I love you still.’ The light did not flicker that time and, obviously emboldened, Jassen followed up with, ‘Do you love him more than me?’

It was a strange question, it presupposed things, assumed things. Sometimes Jassen’s state of mind was entirely unknowable to Cullen. Sometimes he felt like a stranger, coming at Cullen from a position that baffled him.

‘I love Dorian more than anything. He is everything you were not and never will be. He is my whole world.’ Jassen stared back at him, a relative non-reaction to that element of Cullen’s truth but that didn’t mean much, Jassen had always been good at hiding his feelings when he wanted to. ‘What will you do with your powers, should you succeed?’

Jassen inclined his head for a moment before answering. ‘I will exact revenge upon _all_ those who wronged me in Tevinter. I will level it to the ground, destroy every man, woman and child there and build upon the rubble with you by my side.’ Jassen smiled a little then and added, ‘When your _friends _come to stop me, when the Inquisition rears its head and runs to save the day, too late as usual, I will have you cut them all down, one by one. My strong, powerful lover. You won’t know a single one to look upon them and you’ll kill them without a second thought, drawing from my power. You and I will be linked for all time, no need for that blood mage’s magic inside you any longer. Mine will be all you need. That is what I will do. It’s what I always intended to do, right from the start.’

‘What makes you think you’ll win?’

Jassen smiled. ‘I’m as worthy as you are, lover, if not more so.’

‘You’re a _murderer.’_

‘I’ve never killed anyone,’ Jassen said, tipping his chin, a cold smile dancing in his eyes. ‘I’ve never laid hands on a person and taken their life, not once. In many ways, I’m more pure than even you. Your hands are dripping in blood. Did you enjoy killing Merek?’

‘Yes, I did. How long were you planning this?’

‘Since Compassion first came calling for me. They told me of the Well. That I might one day have the power to right my wrongs, to live with myself as I ought to be. They warned me of the rules, of the strongest qualifying element that contributed to _worthiness_. Not killing. After that, when I was free enough to browse Allendas’s library, I researched it all the more, learning what little I could. Almost nothing is known about this place, beyond elven myths and hushed, whispered legends about great protectors and dread wolves.’

‘So, that was all a lie about not being _able_ to kill anyone? It was in preparation for this.’

Jassen was distant and unreachable, but he spoke true in as much as the rune deemed it so. ‘A lot went into preparing for this, yeah. Borrowed power only gets you so far. Tell me, what’s your favourite thing to do in bed with your mage?’

Cullen’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t flinch, not that time because he knew the answer, didn’t even have to think. ‘Kissing.’

‘That’s not what I asked. I mean, sexually.’

‘I know what you mean and it’s still _kissing_,’ Cullen repeated emphatically, daring Jassen to question it again. ‘I could kiss Dorian forever and it might never lead anywhere but I would die a man fulfilled. Of course I _want_ more, but it’s just the natural progression. Kissing him is my favourite part because it’s the _start. _It’s the beginning of something beautiful and incredible, something you’ll _never have_.’

Jassen sneered, but it trembled slightly. ‘Pathetic.’

‘If you had to choose between having me or having this power, what would you choose?’

‘I don’t—’ but the light flickered again and Jassen tensed completely. Cullen knew he’d landed a hit that time.

Jassen closed his eyes. ‘I would choose to have the power because then I know I could always use it to get you back.’ He leaned forward, fixing Cullen with a searching stare. ‘If I offered to throw my claim to the Well, give you the boon and the chance to save your darling mage, would you give yourself to me in exchange?’

‘You’d betray me.’

‘If you could be _certain _that I wouldn’t, if it was set in stone like a demon bargain… would you?’

‘No.’

_‘No_?’

‘It’s a gift, what he gave me, what we had. The easy thing would be to give in, to jump, to offer myself up for him and fuck the consequences, not care about what happens _after_ but he…’ Cullen’s throat caught and he ground his jaw for a moment before forcing himself to continue. ‘What he felt for me was a real thing, quantifiable enough that his curse took him for it. I will not throw that away, I will _not_ betray him. There are no easy roads that lead where I want.’ Jassen’s upper lip curled, something very dead in his gaze and so Cullen moved on. ‘Is your connection with Cole _truly_ broken?’

‘Yes. The lightning seemed to break it, or so the boy explained to me when he came calling by my grim little cell.’ Jassen chuckled darkly. ‘Your precious _spirit _riddled in prose of how I was not made to survive outside of water, that dry land cannot tolerate light. The connection was thin at best,’ he added shrugging. ‘It required a lot of my energy and magic, controlling him long enough to slip inside and then remove his memories before I left. The binding ritual was barely worth it, but my connection to you both was waning as your _magic _took hold. I had to do something.’

Before Jassen could pose a question of his own in return, Cullen said, ‘Like using him to spy and then betray us to Corypheus?’

Jassen blinked. ‘I didn’t.’

The light remained bright.

Cullen pressed on. ‘You were sending letters to Raleigh Samson. We both knew him from the encampment in Denerim.’

‘Vaguely, yeah, but I haven’t seen or heard from him until he visited the cell in your castle. I didn’t spy on you to help that _thing _and I sent no letters to anyone.’ The corner of his mouth quirked. ‘Why? Did someone betray you?’

Cullen tightened his hands into fists but kept himself contained otherwise. ‘Someone was sending information about us to Raleigh who was, at the time, under the command of the elder one. We… I thought it was you, using Cole.’

‘Nope,’ Jassen said with entirely forced serenity. ‘My turn. Do you worry you’ll never be able to separate yourself from me?’

‘Yes, I do. I worry about it the way a man worries about cutting out gangrene, that he might never be truly rid of it. Do you really believe you’ll _win_, Jassen?’

‘I believe in myself, that I will do whatever is necessary and so yes, I do believe that even though I know you’ll fight me. I want that, though. I want you to fight me. You sitting here opposite me, being forced to speak true… it just makes my blood _burn_ for you. Makes me more determined to win, so I can own you for all time, my Cullen, my lover. You make it _sport_. You make it fun. Tell me what you dreamed about all those years in Kirkwall, when you awoke to your palm throbbing and your body hard and aching, tears in your eyes and my name on your lips.’

There was a dark gleam in his eyes then and Cullen despised him for it, for asking such a thing even though he’d known full well it was coming. Jassen wanted to see him squirm, to wring something unwilling from Cullen and have it for himself, _know_ that he was a part of Cullen, no matter if that was what Cullen wanted.

Quietly, he said, ‘Do you _really_ want to hear it?’

Jassen’s throat bobbed. ‘Yes.’

‘I would try to avoid sleeping because I dreamt of you so often. Looking back, it’s not difficult to see _why, _but it was torture for me and so I tried to avoid it. Eventually, when I collapsed, I would dream and it was always you. It was a replay of everything I did to you, only so much worse because in the dreams Uldred didn’t cut my hand anymore. He left us there in the Tower, no magic, no locked doors. Just me, keeping you there and _choosing_ to hurt you.’ He swallowed thickly but went on. ‘I lost part of myself there. I lost track of time, lost who I was. I _looked forward_ to hurting you, to violating you. I became a monster in that place, just like they intended, maybe even exceeding their expectations. I would dream of it and my body would remember and yes, I would want it. Some gruesome, fucked up part of me would want it, want to hurt you and…’ he grit his teeth and pushed the word out. ‘_Rape_ you. It was all I knew of sex, it was literally the extent of my experience and my body didn’t know how to associate it with anything else. But that was before,’ he said, bringing his gaze back to Jassen. ‘That was before him. I don’t dream of you now. I will be forever changed by what happened, but I can and _have_ moved on from you. Whenever I dream now, and it’s a good dream, all I see is Dorian. So yes, regurgitate whatever you want of my past, of _our_ past. Go ahead, Jas. It’s all you’ll ever have of me.’

He was shaking when he finished, heart thundering in his chest but the light did not flicker and he was _proud_, undeniably proud that it was all true.

Jassen’s expression was nigh unfathomable, had Cullen not known him quite so well. He seemed to be struggling to comprehend what Cullen had said, not able to digest it because if he did, it would probably crush him.

‘Ask then,’ he prompted when Cullen remained silent. ‘It’s your turn.’

Cullen leaned back. ‘I don’t want to know anything more of you.’

Eyes narrowing in confusion, Jassen repeated, ‘But it’s _your turn_.’

‘I have nothing left to ask you,’ Cullen said hollowly, absent of inflection. ‘I don’t care enough to ask anymore. Ask what you want and I’ll answer honestly, but there’s nothing I want from you and that’s the truth.’

_There_ was the hurt, there was the slow understanding of what Cullen had really been saying about the dreams.

Jassen looked down at his hands. ‘What… what could I do to make you love me again?’

Cullen stared at him. ‘Nothing. You could use magic, you could revert me to when you were all I knew of love and the world, but it wouldn’t be _me_. Not as I am now. You would have to kill _me_, wipe this consciousness clean from my body and destroy the last eleven years, no different than murder. You only have my past, Jassen. You will never have my future, even if you take it from me. There is _nothing_ you could do to make me love you. Nothing.’

The light stayed steady throughout and then it gave a strong cream-coloured glow before fading gently, diminishing entirely after a beat. Aquinea was gone. The room was… different. No longer the same green and blue glass, covered in foliage, no longer the same floorboards.

‘Jassen,’ he said, pushing forward onto his knees.

‘Don’t _talk_ to—’

‘_Jassen!__’_

His head whipped around, likely about to hurl an insult at Cullen but then he caught sight of the shift, of the altered surroundings and his eyes widened. Jassen got to his feet quickly, assessing the situation much the same as Cullen.

‘Shit. Here we go.’

‘Do you know what’s coming next?’

‘No, but when the room changes beneath you, generally that means something is about to go down.’

Something was rising from the floorboards, a kind of slithering, writhing smoke, a mist. It was forming, taking shape of a man.

Cullen, with no sword on his hip, no boots with the dagger Dorian had returned to him, prepared to do whatever he had to. Use his bare hands if need be, just like he had done with…

‘_Merek_,’ he gasped, watching the slow, misty assemblage of a man who so resembled Keenan that it was jarring. Behind him, Jassen let out a low snarl.

‘Look,’ Merek said, wearing the same robes as the ones he’d died in. ‘It’s the soft one _and_ the sharp one. Quite the formidable team.’

‘Jassen,’ Cullen warned when he _felt_ the tension rising in the other man. ‘Don’t.’

‘I know,’ Jassen growled. ‘I _know_.’

It was a test, everything was a test. Merek, the man who’d begged so _nicely_ for flowers, for silly little inconsequential things to make it brighter for the children in the morning. Merek, who was Keenan’s _father. _Cullen could see the resemblance now, saw it plain as day. The dark hair, the shape of his chin, tilt of his eyes.

‘I see you’ve learnt a bit more _restraint_ since you left,’ Merek said, stepping forward and Cullen held his ground. ‘But you never really left, did you?’

Cullen blinked and realised that the room had not just been changing around them, it had been changing _into_ something else, into the one room in all the world he hated the most.

Jassen’s old cell in the Circle Tower.

And it was full of demons.

*

_Shay had never fought, had never once raised his arm to protect himself or to harm another. While the other men of his age had been armed, had been taught a trade or a profession, been handed a tool to pursue their calling, Shay_ _’s calling had only ever been to amble, to watch. _

_ It was unnatural to him and it was unknown in a way that made him feel rootless, aimless, but when he heard someone calling for help, he went towards the source of the trouble, tried to help someone. He thought of what his friend had done, all those years ago. Of how he_ _’d run into the fray instead of walked away. How he hadn’t even hesitated. _

_Shay heard the screams and instead of walking, he ran. _

_He ran across fields and through woods, following the sound, breathing hard, lungs protesting. He ran and ran and then he stopped to see a woman on the floor, cowering as three men stole her possessions and moved upon her with primal intent. _

_Shay threw himself inexpertly at them. He was hit in the face and he bled. He was punched and beaten, but his presence had done _something_. When they ran, the woman__’s coin purse in tow, Shay crawled over to help her. Though trembling and shaken, the woman thanked him. She looked into his eyes and _thanked_ him. _

_He had stopped. He had helped. A tiny difference had been made. _

_Shay_ _’s heart grew and he began to see. _

_*_

Weapon-less but by no means helpless, Cullen didn’t wait for the demons to circle and ensnare them. He lunged forward, raising and then smashing his elbow into the biggest one, drawing on his magic. When the demon revealed several layers of teeth in an indignant snarl, Cullen let loose that magic, now shored and ready.

It burst forth; an eruption of purple light, forming fire, forming force and whatever else was needed for Cullen to fight. It had been waiting for a moment like this, a time when it could help. Jassen fought with his bare hands, either not choosing to or simply _unable_ to draw on Cullen’s magic.

There were eight rage demons, large hulking things, like lava made flesh. Cullen spun on the spot, swinging his magic like a greatsword. His blood was liquid fire, heart fuelled by pure adrenaline, by the feeling of finally taking action. His back hit Jassen’s, the pair facing off against the circle around them and Jassen tapped his wrist three times. The signal they’d used as boys, the one that meant Jassen would _feint_, would pretend to lose.

Cullen understood. He hated that he understood.

The demons closed in fast, methodical and swift like all hungry beasts. Gaping mouths, burning skin and snarls loud enough to rattle Cullen’s teeth, they came. Cullen threw force and made a crackling lightning cage around two, ducking away as a pair of thick, hot arms came for him. When he stood, the magic was already there, intuitive and a _part_ of him. It was… it was incredible. It was every dream he’d ever had of wanting magic, of wishing he could cast, of wishing to be _magical_. It had never felt so real until then.

Jassen had nothing to wield except his deception and that was what he used. Demons were powerful, they were clever but they were also predictable.

When Jassen pretended to fall, pretended injury that Cullen knew would never have stopped him, the demons circled quickly, drawn to the irresistible allure of weakness.

Cullen… hesitated.

He could just leave. The door to Jassen’s cell was _open_. It hadn’t been before but it was now, light coming from outside. The demons were circling Jassen and in seconds he would be dead, torn apart and eaten and Maker knew what else. Cullen could leave him there to die, could escape and have no one to contend with for the power to bring Dorian back.

Contained within a single, solitary moment, Cullen experienced the conflict. He looked at the door and breathed in the air of the cell, as disgusting then as it had been eleven years previous.

Jassen was cruel and evil. He had blood on his hands. Cullen should leave.

It would be _easy_ to leave.

Teeth grit together hard, Cullen closed his eyes and turned back towards the ever tightening circle. He drew on the magic as much as he could, pulling it from every single cell in his body and let it form however it wanted, whatever it chose. He trusted it, deferred to it.

The magic made _ice, _twisted all that cold and made huge, jagged chunks of ice and then plunged them deep like daggers into fiery skin. It threw ice in sheets, covered them, weakened them.

The three at the back who were shielded by the others began to claw at Jassen and Cullen dropped to his knees, slamming his hand into the stone floor he knew so well, sending a thunderous ripple of _force_ out in every direction, enough to shake the walls, to loosen stones, to judder the beasts and draw their attention.

The five who died by ice had already melted away, but the remaining three came at Cullen, hissing and wading across the floor. The magic was drained, it needed to catch its breath. Cullen knew it needed blood, but he had no dagger, nothing to cut himself with.

Scrambling back, panic pulling at his sternum, he tried to think.

The answer came to him, but it wasn’t exactly a _comfort. _

Great, vicious talons, the exact kind that had torn his stomach open less than a year ago, raised and then swung. Cullen let them, made no move to stop it. He turned at the last second so the claws tore into his side rather than his front. Agony burst forth, shredding his nerves, screaming across the surface of his skin and jarring his brain.

But he forced the words out, the three words that would make use of this tribute, that would feed his magic.

The air in the room tightened, enlarged and before the other demons could do anything, the magic, now fuelled once more, reared high and powerful and it froze the three demons _solid_. The light sounds of ice forming crisply, the strangely unbearable crunch of such cold that it turned liquid solid too rapidly to be natural. Cullen hadn’t looked away, never looked away in a fight and so he saw all of it. He saw the air around the things turn _blue_, felt the slightest hint of that cold in his lungs, enough to make them ache and seize.

Then it was gone and Jassen was getting to his feet, covered in scratches and blood. He panted, breathing raggedly. He stared at the three demons and then swung around into a roundhouse kick, shattering them like spun glass. It was glorious to watch; they fell in a landslide of glittering blue shards, melting instantly, defeated and dead.

Cullen clutched his side, wincing hard and feeling blood run fourth, coating his hand, thick and sticky and warm. Jassen hurried over when he saw Cullen, crouched before him.

‘Let me see it,’ he said intently. Cullen smacked his hand away and Jassen ground his jaw, eyes flashing. ‘Don’t be _stupid_. Let me see it, now!’

Cullen didn’t relent though, unable to let such a small thing go. He held on to his side, weirdly compelled to deny Jassen the chance to show kindness, to show anything that wasn’t what Cullen _wanted _from him which would have been the power to leave the room, leave Jassen to die.

Jassen didn’t relent either. When Cullen backed up into the corner, he followed, grabbing his wrists and trying to pull them away so he could see the wound. ‘Stop it,’ he chastised and when Cullen tried to push him off yet again, he slapped Cullen across the face.

The moment caught, the moment fucking _burned_ and then Cullen was overwhelmed, overcome.

He hit Jassen as hard as he could with his free arm. It landed well, caught his jaw and sent him _down. _

_‘Don’t touch me_,’ Cullen growled, voice shaking all over the place even as Jassen got back up quickly, not so easily waylaid by a single punch.

Jassen licked the blood from his lip and chuckled darkly, looking around.

‘De ja vu, eh, lover?’

‘I sh-should have left you,’ Cullen ground out. ‘Should have let you die.’

Jassen’s expression softened. ‘You couldn’t do that. You’re too good. Please let me see it, you’re losing a lot of blood.’

Cullen closed his eyes, knuckles throbbing from the well _landed_ but poorly thrown punch that had likely splintered bone. The entire left hand side of his body was indeed drenched with blood and starting to turn worryingly cold.

‘Fine,’ he grit out.

Jassen returned, given permission that time. Cullen was determined not to make eye contact while Jassen drew back the material of his shirt. ‘Fuck.’

‘That good, eh?’

‘Cullen, give me your magic.’

Looking back so sharply that he cricked his neck, Cullen blanched. ‘What? No!’

Jassen was staring at the wound, face bloodless. ‘I can see your ribs,’ he breathed. ‘I need to heal it. You don’t know how to, I do.’

‘Do you think I’m that _stupid_ as to—’

Bloody hands took hold of his face then and Jassen’s expression creased into something pained, something _awful. __‘_Give me your fucking magic so I can keep you alive, you stubborn _bastard! _I didn’t let you die in this cell before and I’m not about to now. Give me your magic because I can’t take it, otherwise I would have by now. Let me save you. _Please.__’_

_If you die, we will never save our Dorian_, the magic whispered sadly. _We will only heal you, not be used for anything else. Let him. _

Cullen didn’t know why it hurt him so much, why it was so difficult but that didn’t negate the intensity of how much he hated the concept of _giving _any measure of Dorian’s magic to Jassen, even if it meant saving them both.

But he was a soldier too and he knew all about necessary evils.

Grudgingly, he lifted his hand and pressed it to Jassen’s chest, the shirt torn open at the front to reveal the same hand-print scar, though faded with time. Lightly purple, but very distinct. It made Cullen sick to see it, even as he added to it.

Jassen put his fingers into Cullen’s blood and then put those same fingers in his mouth. Cullen skin crawled, but he _pushed_.

He gave only what he could, what was surplus. Not the core, not the centre. Jassen took it into himself, years of practise making it easy.

Cullen breathed and he waited, staring across the cell at the place where he and Jassen had held each other afterwards, where he’d cleaned Jassen up, where Jassen had pleaded with him to remember that it had been months, not years and Cullen had pitied him then, had _worried_ for him. Madness came with certainty, gave faith.

It took a while for him to realise that Jassen wasn’t actually doing anything with his magic.

Slowly, he looked back at the man before him, whose middle and last names were lost to lyrium, and he saw his own conflict from minutes ago mirrored there.

Jassen had power now. He was nowhere near as badly hurt as Cullen was. He could leave him. He could get up and walk out and Cullen couldn’t do a thing to stop him because he was badly hurt and bleeding out. Oh Maker, he didn’t want to die in this cell. Didn’t want those walls and bars to be the last thing he ever saw.

‘Jas,’ he wheezed. ‘Jassen.’

The dark haired man stared down at Cullen’s wound, something _detached _in his gaze then. He _could_ do it, Cullen realised, strangely affected by something almost like disappointment. Maybe not in Jassen, but in himself for thinking otherwise.

But it passed or rather, Jassen shoved it back, ground his jaw and pressed his hand to where Cullen was torn open. The contact burned immediately, so much worse than fire. Whatever Jassen was doing, it _hurt _bad enough that Cullen couldn’t contain the burst of noise from his throat, couldn’t keep his eyes open when they needed to screw tight as he bellowed out all the agony, all the _pain_.

And then it was gone and he wasn’t cut open anymore. Body trembling, sweat pouring down his temples, Cullen opened his eyes. Jassen was pale and drawn when he said, ‘It’s all right. You’re all right now.’

Cullen looked down at his side and saw three very ugly, angry talon scars. It was painful to behold, let alone touch, but he wasn’t bleeding out anymore, wasn’t dying.

Jassen helped him up and Cullen allowed it.

Together, they left the cell, taking care not to slip in Cullen’s blood on the way out.

*

_The watchful ambler wandered from place to place, seeing of the world what he chose but instead of endlessly moving, he stopped to rest at night, he stopped to interact, to meet with people. He began to feel hungry for the first time and so he ate. He ate apples and he ate bread, he drank fresh, cool water and he partook of all the nourishment that the world could offer those who cared to tarry a while in the beauty of it. _

_He ate and he drank and he slept. Shay dreamed of lights, of colour and sensation. He dreamed of running water, of endless calm. _

_Then he awoke and went back out into the world, searching for more of what the land could give him. _

_He walked for a year, stopping often. The more he stopped, the easier it became and the pain that had once sent him reeling began to lessen. _

_The ocean had warned of what would happen if he stood still too long, of how the cord to his fate and his destiny would be cut if he _

_strayed far enough from it. _

_So sometimes, Shay walked all through the day. He watched other rivers, put his fingertips into the running water and heard whispers, rushing sighs of voices. Shay closed his eyes then and felt the pull in his chest, felt it keenly. _

_When he stood, fingers cold and numb, he looked around at the land he knew well and then made for the village at the base of the river where the water frothed and the air was blessed by lavender and elderflower, stomach rumbling to taste the perfectly salted bread, heart straining to see his friend. _

_*_

Cullen wasn’t surprised to find that outside of the cell, they were no longer in Kinloch. He was met with cool, clean air, rushing water, the skies bright and warm.

They were back outside by the Well, by the emerald waters that had drowned him and allowed him to breathe.

Jassen’s hand was beneath his upper arm, helping keep him steady but that close to the water, Cullen felt all at once _better_. As they stood on the jet stone bridge, the heart of the Well behind them, he carefully knelt down and caught his breath, closing his eyes as the sun beat down upon them gently.

‘You all right?’ Jassen asked and Cullen nodded, something in his chest unlocking, loosening.

_Dorian is close_, the magic whispered to him and Cullen knew it already, could feel it somehow. _He is nearby, in the waters._

‘You have strived bravely,’ Aquinea Pavus said. Cullen opened his eyes, blinking through the light. There she stood, Dorian’s mother, just a little ahead of them on the bridge, the shore behind her. She was expressionless, entirely calm. ‘The Well has taken your measure and decided upon one of you as more worthy than the other.’

It was really the lack of expression that gave it away. Cullen put his hand to his heart, but no pain came. No tearing sense of loss or agony.

‘Jassen, you may take the gift of the Well to shape as you see fit.’

Cullen closed his eyes, but within, his magic gently _shushed_ him, caressed him, held him. It didn’t speak, not with Jassen still connected to them, even in a fading capacity, but Cullen _felt_ it and let it guide him, unable to do any more than he had done.

‘I… I can have the power of the Well?’ Jassen breathed.

‘Yes.’

‘I was worthy?’

‘You were, yes. Cullen has killed many in his life. Has shed blood and ended lives, many without true cause. You, despite your trickery, have _not_. It is the qualifier. It is the _only _reason why. Your spirit friend advised you well, all those years ago.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Cullen whispered then, speaking to the water, to Dorian who he could _feel_ was nearby, waiting. Dorian who he’d _failed_, yet again.

_Shhh, _the magic bade, singing to him then; a gentle, sweet siren song of colour, forming words along with the soundless music that rang within Cullen. _When it happens, it happens fast. _It was singing the preface poem from The Watchful Ambler, Cullen realised.

‘I can ask anything of the Well?’

‘This one time, yes. You may ask a single favour or a single gift, nothing more.’

‘I want power,’ Jassen said in a rush while Cullen tried to breathe. ‘I want all the power of a mage, the strongest mage in Thedas. Make me magical.’

_Too fast to think, no roadmap showing. _

‘The power is yours, little Templar.’

Something glowed bright, something set the air trembling and vibrating and Cullen opened his eyes, unable to keep himself in the dark any longer.

Jassen was surrounded by swirls, by beautiful light, just the kind that Cullen had traced his fingers over once in books, hidden by his arm, his longing buried deep. Jassen was lifted into the air as all the magic in the world surrounded him, sank into him, became a part of him.

‘It is done,’ Aquinea said, hollow and controlled. ‘Soporati no more.’

For a long time, Jassen just breathed, arms outstretched, staring at his hands. He stared at them as the magic lowered him down gently, carefully and the remaining magic within Cullen kept right on singing to him.

_Hindsight flares bright for all that is past. _

‘I can feel it,’ Jassen panted. ‘I can… oh Maker, it’s inside me. It’s everything, I’m connected to _everything_.’

He turned then and knelt before Cullen.

‘My lover,’ he said, something drunk in his gaze, especially when he smiled. ‘My _perfect_ Cullen. I’m going to make you so, _so_ happy.’

He touched Cullen’s face and it felt like a deathblow. The magic swirled and it sang but Cullen wanted to die, wanted to pitch sideways and drown properly this time because he knew what was coming.

He held Cullen’s face, fingers trailing over his cheeks, over the scar on his mouth. ‘I’m going to make you anew. Remove every scar, every hint of taint from the world, every bad memory. I’ll make it all go away, everything that wasn’t _me_.’

He pressed his forehead to Cullen then, letting out a small, soft kind of sob. ‘We’re going to be _so happy_ together.’

_And we return to fate__’s curve, unknowing_.

He reached inside Cullen’s mind then and _took_.

*

_Shay made it there within a week and upon his arrival into his favourite village in the world, he found it quiet, far quieter than usual. There was no smell of baking bread and the scent of lavender and elderflower was soured by smoke, the grey skies above blackened a little. The villagers were gathered around a pyre. A great, burning thing that darkened the grey skies as rain drew closer. _

_On shaking legs, the ambler slowed until he was stopped before the flames, before the casket atop the wood, set ablaze. He asked who it was they mourned for, who was burning within. _

_They spoke his friend’s name and Shay_ _’s heart broke then, broke clean in two because he had waited too long, he had hesitated and considered when he should have come back. _

_The villagers offered comfort and Shay took it. They told him that his friend, the man he had loved once, had died while saving a child from the river, that he had drowned but the girl had lived. Shay wept and he blamed himself, lost to the feeling that his heart was caving in because the man, his friend, had been so very good. He_ _’d been kind and caring, he’d stopped and risked his life while Shay had walked on. _

_He ate the perfectly salted bread and he drank elderflower wine and he cried for his friend, cried for so much, for so many years lost and people left by the roadside. The watchful ambler grieved. _

_*_

Cullen was twenty one years old and he had no idea what was happening. Everything was bright and there was a gaping _chasm_ inside his mind, left dazed, his skull positively throbbing.

‘Wh-what?’ he croaked. ‘Jassen, did I fall asleep again?’

Jassen was right there, thank the Maker. Cullen blinked through tears, his vision hazy, but he would know Jassen anywhere, even if he was covered in blood, staring at Cullen tremulously, looking strangely _older_ than twenty.

‘Cullen,’ he said, voice deeper than it had any right to be.

‘Jassen, what’s happening?’

He reached for his friend then, trying to _remember_, but he couldn’t. Everything hurt and a terrible, monstrous sense of loss sat heavily inside him though he didn’t know why.

‘What do you remember?’ Jassen asked, touching his face, eyes wide.

Cullen shook himself. ‘I, uh. I got your note. I was reading it. You said to meet you on the… on the roof, but Jas, where are we? What is this?’

Jassen let out a terrible, shuddering sigh then and took both of Cullen’s hands in his, pressing a kiss there. ‘My Cullen,’ he breathed and Cullen was alarmed, instantly worried to see that his friend was crying.

‘What is it?’ he asked sharply. ‘Please tell me.’

He moved closer, needing to find out what it was, but Jassen quickly released his hands and instead, brought their mouths together. Cullen’s heart soared, it fucking _bloomed_ to feel the man he loved kissing him, holding him so tight it almost hurt, like Jassen was afraid he would vanish if he let him go.

‘I love you, I _love_ you,’ Jassen muttered into his mouth. ‘Say you love me too.’

Cullen drew back enough to try and _look _at Jassen then because he seemed so… _so_ unlike himself. ‘I love you, of course I love you, but please tell me what’s happening.’

Jassen pressed a slow, sweeter kiss to his lips then, fingers curling possessively in his hair. ‘Blood mages,’ he muttered. ‘They hurt you, they took you from me for years, lover. I’ve been trying to find you for over a decade.’

Cullen went cold. ‘No.’

‘Yes,’ Jassen said, tears slipping down his undeniably aged face, lines where no lines had been only days before, _scars_ that Cullen had no memory of Jassen acquiring. ‘They took you and I couldn’t _get _to you in time. I’m so sorry it’s taken this long. I swear I’ll make it up to you. I swear it.’

He was so fervent, so intense that Cullen had no choice but to believe it. ‘Are you all right? You’re hurt.’

Jassen smiled and blinked yet more tears down his face. ‘I’m fine, now that I have you.’

Cullen managed a smile too, lost and trembling, clinging to Jassen. ‘You have me, you’ve always had me.’

Something _stirred_ inside him then, a strange little niggle.

‘We’re going to remake the world,’ Jassen told him, kissing him again and pulling Cullen to his feet. ‘You and I are going to make _everything_ better.’

‘We are?’ Cullen managed between kisses that were gaining momentum, gaining heat. His body felt… oddly detached from it, though. His heart was unaffected by the growing sense of need as it emanated from Jassen, his friend’s hands slipping up under his shirt, one hand hovering over a painful area on his left and pressing something _beautiful_ into it, making the pain vanish entirely.

‘I’ll take away all your hurts,’ Jassen panted, fingers trailing over Cullen’s skin as the _thing_ in his chest moved again, making Cullen wince that time but Jassen didn’t notice. ‘Take away every mark they gave you.’

Everywhere he touched, there blossomed a sense of light and healing and Cullen did _not_ understand. Was Jassen using _magic_ on him?

‘Jas,’ he whispered, holding onto the man’s shoulders. ‘What are you—?’

‘Shhh,’ the other man said, pressing a finger to Cullen’s lips and a sense of _peace_ came over him then, making him realise there was no need to speak, no need to worry about anything because he was with Jassen and Jassen was the whole world.

_No_.

Cullen blinked through the mild, _pleasant_ haze as Jassen’s mouth fastened onto his neck, sucking the skin there.

_No, he is not the world, _something whispered.

And it was right, that little voice. Jassen meant everything to Cullen, but what about where they were? What about the others? The mages? The Circle Tower? What had happened over the last decade?’

When Jassen’s hand slipped down his trousers, Cullen jumped back. Jassen laughed, biting his lip. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry, I forgot. I’m so sorry, lover. Come here, come back to me. We’ll be slow, I promise. I’m gonna make you scream my name over and over. I’m going to paint you with love, carve it deep and watch it scar, once I get rid of every single _other_ mark that they gave you.’

‘Who gave me?’

‘The blood mages,’ Jassen said, drawing Cullen nearer with what was _definitely _magic that time. The sense of blissful peace settled over Cullen again when Jassen raised his hand and this time it was strong enough to penetrate whatever shield was in place keeping his body disconnected from the desire, from the love and need that had him writhing in the night, had him dreaming of Jassen and only Jassen.

_Not only. _

‘Jassen,’ he moaned, eyes rolling when another wave hit him, making his skin hot and sensitive. ‘I can hear… a voice.’

Jassen stopped dead. ‘What?’

‘Th-there’s something inside me,’ Cullen panted. ‘I can feel it.’

Dark eyes lowered to Cullen’s chest. ‘It’s still there,’ he said, nodding slowly. ‘It’s the mark of the mage who took you from me. A Tevinter blood mage. I killed him for you, don’t worry, but… but his mark still remains. No matter, I’ll burn it out.’

Cullen’s entire being jolted, the outrageous desire flickered and faltered in the face of something _stronger_. ‘No!’

‘Cullen, be _quiet_.’

He wanted to. He felt it settle in his bones, a kind of _tiredness_ like he should stop all this silliness but… but _no_, he couldn’t let Jassen just kill it. He didn’t know why, but he couldn’t. He had to protect it.

‘You can’t burn it out,’ he whispered. Jassen took his jaw in hand, tilted it back and studied Cullen carefully, a small frown in place.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t… I don’t know…’

‘Be _honest.__’_

The compulsion was instant, hooks in his sternum dragging the truth out, even if Cullen didn’t _know_ it was the truth.

‘Because I love it,’ he blurted out.

Jassen’s eyes widened. ‘Why do you love it?’

‘Because I love h-him.’

‘Love who?’

Cullen shook his head, tried to shake off the compulsion because he didn’t understand, he didn’t _understand_ anything. ‘I don’t… I love you, Jassen. I love _you_.’

‘Say the name of the other you love.’

It tore out, a name he had never heard, never shaped. ‘Dorian.’

Jassen stepped away, hands over his mouth. ‘No.’

But the strange voice within took strength when Cullen spoke that name.

_Our Dorian_

‘It can’t be. I _wiped_ him.’

_He is yours, too. _

‘Jassen, I-I don’t understand. Please.’

Looking around wildly, Jassen shook his head. ‘It’s not enough. I’ll have to take it all. I’m so sorry. Don’t worry though, we’ll make new memories, I promise. All new memories, all new, beautiful and perfect.’

Jassen seemed manic, seemed almost wild. Something frantic about the set of him, like he was right on the edge and Cullen just couldn’t understand, not a single thing. Not why they were on a bridge, not why there was green water everywhere, not why there was a woman behind Jassen, staring impassively.

‘Who is she?’ he asked while Jassen muttered to himself.

‘Some dead bitch,’ Jassen said coldly, not even looking at the woman. ‘Forget her. Well, you already have. Come on, we’re leaving.’

Jassen lifted his hand and _twisted_ his fingers like he was bending steel. The air crackled and split as it turned bright green; some kind of _tear, _a critical rip in the material of nothingness.

‘What’s that?’

‘A rift. We’re going home. Come to me.’

Jassen held out his hand to Cullen who stared at it, uncertain in a way he’d never been about Jassen. Years of worrying for him, of watching him descend into mania and cruelty… it was nothing to _this. _

‘I don’t think—’

‘Then don’t _think_ at all_!_’ Jassen snapped, something angry and impatient splintering through him. ‘Just… do as I say, you understand? Come here to me.’

Cullen felt the pull, a kind of _hauling_ sensation around his naval, felt the desire to do as he was told.

But he also felt something sickly crawling down his spine, a sensation of bodily fear that he had no reason to experience, but it was _there_ and it stemmed from Jassen.

He resisted the pull, disobeyed him. ‘I don’t want to,’ Cullen said, frowning slowly, looking around. The waves lapped and rolled gently and the water… it seemed benign to him. It seemed _soft_ and sweet and it called out to him. He stared down at emerald depths and felt the desire to touch it. Within, the sensation stirred; a gentle thing, a kind of caress.

_He is there, our Dorian, your love. He awaits you. _

Jassen was in front of him, was grabbing him and Cullen wanted to push him back because everything was… it was all moving too _fast_ and he had no true North, no idea which way to turn, not when Jassen was being like this. Was using magic and—and _controlling _him.

Because that’s what it was and he knew it. Jassen was controlling him somehow, using magic to move him, to influence his mind.

But beneath that shallow attempt to control Cullen, beneath the strength of Jassen’s power, there was something _else_. Something buried deep, something that was a part of him as much as his blood or his bones, mind or soul.

_Don__’t be afraid_, it whispered to him, fixing it’s gaze onto Jassen, cold and steely. _Stand as stone, our Cullen. You are worthy. Remember that. You have always been worthy and we always, always knew it. _

Cullen didn’t understand and it was making him dizzy, this world. This world around him that he was so strongly removed from, so lost in.

‘Look at me,’ Jassen hissed taking his face in both hands and standing on tiptoes to do so. ‘_Look_ at me, Cullen. I am yours and you are _mine, _you understand? Now, we’re leaving and you’re coming with me. Once we get out of this place everything will be different. I’ll—I’ll make it all better, make you mine in every way.’

_So worthy, so beautiful_.

_‘_I’ll draw new scars all over you, carve my name into your neck so everyone knows you’re mine.’

_Do not falter, our Cullen. Do not waver. He is close by, feel his soul, let it soothe you._

‘Jassen, stop.’

‘No, I will not, I will never stop because you’re mine and I am _never, _ever going to let you go. Tell me you love me.’

Cullen’s voice broke when he tried to step back and said, ‘I-I love you.’

It soothed Jassen just a fraction, but it didn’t calm him. He kissed Cullen again, kissed him deeply, holding him in place, keeping him there by sheer force of will and Cullen felt that he did not know this man, this _other _Jassen. Where was his love, his friend, his brother?

‘Stop!’ he yelled, shoving hard. ‘Just… stop! You’re not _him_!

All the blood drained out of Jassen’s face. ‘Not who?’

‘Jassen, _my _Jassen!’ Cullen cried in a voice he barely recognised. Oh, what was _happening_? ‘You’re… you’re something else. My Jassen hates magic, he would never, ever use it. Would never control me, would never hurt me! You’re _not him_!’

And Jassen, or whoever he was, just stared. He just stared at Cullen then, expression almost entirely blank. Despondent, despairing, he shook his head once and smiled bitterly.

‘He was right,’ he said quietly. ‘_You_ were right. You really don’t love me, do you?’ Jassen gazed down at his hands. ‘I went so long never killing anyone, always playing by Compassion’s rules that I might one day stand here, to be _worthy _and… and you don’t love me, no matter how much of your mage I rip out of you.’

‘What _mage_?’

The bitter smile turned positively hate-filled. ‘Dorian,’ he said, voice trembling. ‘Your great love. He’s in the water, right here. I’m going to find his soul and destroy it for all time and then I’ll _make_ you love me, I’ll make you ache for me even if I have to bleed every mage in this world _dry_. You will be mine, Cullen. We will have our moment, I swear to you.’

Within, the magic rustled, turning sensations to words and Cullen spoke them, couldn’t help it. ‘We…’ he said hesitantly looking down at his chest and then up at Jassen again. ‘Already… had it.’

‘What did you say?’

In a shaky voice, Cullen repeated the words for Jassen. ‘Our moment was the… the first time I saw you. Our time together was in youth. It will never live… beyond that, no matter what you do, no matter… who you kill or what you… take.

Jassen snarled. ‘I’ve never killed _anyone_!’

‘But you have,’ Cullen said, voice finding his strength as that sensation within stroked his insides, soothed him, _loved_ him and guided him with words by wrote. ‘You killed… me.’

Jassen blinked, his eyes widened and he opened his mouth but then the woman, who had thus far stood statuesque behind them, moved forward and cut him off.

In a voice that did strange things to Cullen, she said, ‘You have failed your last trial, Jassen.’

*

_In grief, Shay wandered. In sadness, he ambled. He left the village and he sought comfort elsewhere, unable to remain behind and linger among the shadows of what might have been. _

_For many years, he visited new places, strange lands but he walked slow and he always stopped. His heart, once broken, healed but it did not heal quite right. Shay lost his faith, his belief, his hope. _

_And as he wandered, he found himself helping, as his friend had once done. He found himself _wanting_ to help. He stopped and helped children to gather firewood, he asked elderly women if they needed anything done around the house or the garden and they always did. He looked out for all those who might need someone who cared nothing for themselves and helped them where he could. They repaid his decency with kindness, with smiles and a sensation that made him almost whole. _

_Still, there existed a chasm in Shay_ _’s heart that nothing could replace, that no time could heal. He walked less and less, noting that his skin was starting to age. _

_One day, he found a small dog being whipped by a cruel, impatient master. Shay took the dog while the master slept and carried him away. By the river, he washed his wounds and set his broken leg. He fed him and nursed him to health, worrying that the creature would die anyway. That no amount of helping or stopping would do anything this time, as it had not for his friend. _

_But the dog healed. The dog grew strong, though he could not yet run, only walk at a slow pace. The dog, who Shay gave the same name as his lost friend, followed Shay after that and Shay was glad for it. He walked slow, he matched the dog_ _’s pace and stopped often, resting and foraging and speaking always to his new friend, scratching soft silken ears, feeding him all the best parts of whatever dinner he made. _

_And it did not fill the hole, nothing ever would, but Shay remembered how to smile. How to laugh. He could feel the cord between him and his destiny at it_ _s thinnest, days away from snapping forever. His choice was coming ever closer, the decision coming due. _

_*_

Jassen turned slow, with a face that was etched in disbelief.

‘_What_?’

The nameless woman stepped forward, hands clasped before her.

‘I said, you have failed your last trial.’

‘_No_,’ Jassen said, speaking as though she were stupid. ‘I passed it. I had the chance to leave him, to take power and go and I didn’t.’

‘Neither did Cullen.’

‘I told the truth the whole time.’

‘So did Cullen.’

‘I fucking _drowned_!’

‘As did Cullen.’

‘So where did I fail, then? Tell me!’

She gifted him a cold, cutting smile. ‘Cullen’s reality was warped to show a world in which he had failed, to test the courage of his convictions, to see if he was truly worthy of such a gift. You underwent no such trial, until now.’

‘The ramparts,’ Jassen said, frowning. ‘That was his first trial, but I… how did I fail? I _have_ the power, the Well gave it to me!’

‘No, no,’ the woman said, clipped and icy. ‘The Well bent reality to show you a world in which you had _succeeded. _A world in which you had the power you chose, to see what you would do with it, to test what little, if any, goodness remained inside of you. Your first act in using this power was to commit murder and so, you failed.’

‘I murdered _no one_!’

‘You murdered Cullen Rutherford.’

‘I—’ but the rest of it died in Jassen’s throat as he turned back to look upon Cullen then, upon the man who most definitely did _not_ understand any of this.

‘It was the rule Compassion warned you never to break. Had you not done so, you might have stood a chance of succeeding here but let us be honest now, little Templar,’ the woman said, leaning close. ‘You were always going to fail. This… all of this, was _Cullen__’s_ test. To learn about him, to see what it would mean to sacrifice you in exchange for my son. To know the heart of him. He is worthy and you… _you_ are wanting.’

She raised her hand then and Jassen let out a blood-curdling scream. She was _dragging _something out of him, some kind of light. She took it by force, held him still with magic and drew the light from him like poison from a wound. Jassen screamed and he pled, but she was unmovable.

When it was done, the magic hovered in the air for a moment before disintegrating.

And then… very slowly, _things_ began to occur to Cullen.

Just vague things at first.

Kirkwall. The Gallows. Haven. Skyhold. Flashes of places he’d forgotten about, areas on a map that had been blotted out. He saw them, recalled them all and then other things came back too. People were returning. Leliana came back, Fenris came back. Meredith, Hawke, so many others in Kirkwall, so many fallen. Red light splitting the Chantry, Fenris saying goodbye. Letters. Jassen’s letter.

Jassen _died_. Jassen left him. Jassen…

The Tower was falling, blood magic everywhere and all for a box of flowers. All for guilt, for wanting to ease his conscience rather than stand up to Jassen, rather than do the right thing. Blood and punishment and loss of self in a place where he would never see daylight again except…

Dorian.

Dorian Pavus.

Dorian was daylight. He was hope. Bright, beautiful, gorgeous, intense and irresistible and brave, so very _brave_ despite everything. Dorian was…

_‘Oh, didn’t I mention? The South is so charming and rustic. I _adore_ it to little pieces.__’_

And…

‘_Well, I__’m up for it if our handsome Commander saves me a dance.’_

And…

_‘I left Tevinter by choice. No dramatic exile, I’m afraid, though my Father does indeed disapprove of my _predilection for men_, as you so mildly put it.__’_

And…

_‘What would you do if I hit you?’_

And…

_‘Andraste’s _arse_, I don__’t have your fucking book, Cullen!’_

And…

_‘Commander, I’d only be disappointed _if_ you submitted without a fight.__’_

And…

_‘Tell me what _you_ want.__’_

And…

_‘Why’re you always catching me? I _can_ fall, y__’know. Won’t break if… I just fall sometimes.’_

And…

_‘Long day. Read to me?’_

And…

_‘If we’re breaking up, I probably shouldn’t still be in your lap.’_

And…

_‘The past is the past and every day with you is more than I ever expected or hoped for. I accept your past if you can accept mine.’_

And…

_‘I care about you and I’ll prove it to you.’_

And…

_‘I’ve never loved anything like I love you.’_

And…

_‘You’re everything, _everything_. Beautiful, strong, fucking perfect, fucking _centre of the world _and you always—_always_ will be!__’_

And…

_‘That’s how you make glass.’_

And…

_‘Yes, I’ll be elsewhere with you, of course I will be. Especially if this _elsewhere_ is somewhere wonderfully lacking in accursed snow, of which I__’ve quite had my fill. I’ll be there to check as many drinks as you like. If you’ll… ah, that is, if you’ll have need of me for such a task.’_

And…

_‘Don’t stand there and tell me how much easier things would be if I was wrapped in cotton wool, left behind to protect the children. I am yours yes, but you are fucking _mine_ in return and where you go, I go too.__’_

And…

_‘Save me from beautiful Ferelden idiots.’_

And…

_‘Of course _yes_. Did you think__… did you honestly imagine a world where I would say _no_?__’_

And…

_‘I’m so tired. I’m just… so _tired_.__’_

And…

_‘I love you. I love you more than—’_

Oh, Maker.

Dorian was… everything.

Cullen couldn’t catch his breath, caught in a shockingly bittersweet kind of _agony_, caught in a flood of memory and realisation. The powerful return of his better _self_, of his reason for living, of his whole world wrapped up in one man. He couldn’t feel his body, couldn’t _connect_ to the feeling of it, too great to be quantified, too vast to be constrained by rational thought.

It was the return of _light_ to his interior which had been cast in darkness; blinding, perfect light, too bright to even gaze upon. Eleven years came back in a visceral rush, not unlike falling face first into a ravine. The part of him that had _died_ was resurrected once more and all of it, _so much of who he was_… circled around…

‘Dorian,’ he said, turning from Jassen, from Aquinea. The water, the beautiful, emerald waters… Dorian’s _soul_ was in there, was waiting for him.

Dorian needed him. He was here for Dorian, to bring him back.

Jassen was crying and Cullen didn’t care, couldn’t care when every single moment of his time with Dorian came back all at once, slammed into him like an avalanche of existence, of memories, of love and arguing and pushing boundaries and learning, so much _learning_ because he wanted to know Dorian inside and out.

His love, his mage, his… his whole fucking _world. _

Jassen threw himself at the woman in a weak, bitter outburst of rage and Cullen started forward, but it was in vain. She _froze_ Jassen mid-air, caught and suspended him with effortless magic. The woman… _Aquinea Pavus_, Dorian’s Mother, then turned her gaze upon Cullen.

‘You have proven yourself worthy. The trials were not really trials, I’m sure you’ve ascertained as much by now. Merely attempts to _know_ you, to see what you were made of when placed under stress and duress. You _are_ brave and you… hmm, you do seem to love my son.’

‘I do.’ It came out in a tumble, in a rush of words and feelings because he had _lost_ Dorian twice now, lost him in flesh and also in memory, but he had one back, he could regain the other, no matter the cost. ‘I do, I love him so much. He’s… he’s everything to me.’

It was strange, that _younger_ man inside, reconciling eleven years of darkness and solitude and _loss_ with the new knowledge that there was someone _else_, someone other than Jassen, someone _better. _ It was an uncomfortable experience to have two halves of him so abruptly thrown together and to realise then that he _was_ his memories, he was his memories right up until the latest one, the most recent. Moments passing by, expiring idly to be reborn anew in the next, and he was every single one of them.

It made him thank the Maker all the more that he was able to remove himself from the shackles of lyrium.

‘Well,’ she said, looking around. ‘Walk with me.’

Cullen followed cautiously as she led him around Jassen’s frozen form, suspended beneath all the white sunshine. He followed her down the jet stone walkway towards the shores of the Well, the water rushing over rounded stones, back and forth, in an endless rhythm. When he caught up with her, Aquinea linked her arm through his and the pair began to _stroll_ along the shore.

‘You know,’ she said, suddenly pleasant, almost conversational. ‘In Tevinter, tradition would have had you coming to me to ask for Dorian’s hand in marriage. I believe in the South there is some absolute nonsense about asking for the _Father__’s_ permission.’ She scoffed then, shaking her head in a most familiar way. ‘If you had come to me, what might you have said?’

Cullen blanched. ‘Um.’

‘Oh, come now. Don’t keep me in suspense. I should like to hear you say it. Dorian was never one for the formalities, never _liked_ most of our traditions but this is one that… hmm. Ask me, if you will.’

Cullen felt oddly _pinned_ again. ‘Well,’ he said, stalling for time. ‘I would have come to you and asked—’

‘No, no, dear. Ask me now, ask me as if I were still alive, Mistress of the estate, lounging around with servants to keep me cool, organising events and scheming to lure my son back for Satinalia. Ask me how you might, were _that_ the case.’

Oh, bloody _void_.

‘Madam Pavus,’ he said, oddly gruff, clearing his throat and then stopping as she turned to face him expectantly. ‘I— I’ve come today to ask for your son’s hand in marriage.’

There was something almost like a smile playing about her, demure and reserved as she was.

‘Oh?’ she said coyly. ‘And you believe you are worthy of my darling boy, do you?’

It reminded Cullen of how Dorian called Saffy _darling girl_, it all reminded him of Dorian.

Cullen took a breath and tried to sound _Tevinter-esque_. ‘I am eminently unworthy, but I believe I am the most determined man in all of Thedas in regard to making your son happy. I will devote my life to making him safe, making him… smile. I love him and I want to marry him and though he could do a lot better than me in many respects, I don’t believe anyone in this world will love him like I do.’

Aquinea slanted an eyebrow. ‘And love is enough to sustain a marriage, is it? What of your station, Ser Rutherford?’

‘Uh, well.’

‘What of your family? Of breeding? Of languages? Do you intend to deprive my son of his homeland, keep him in the sodden, frosty South where he will likely die of ceaseless colds? Or will you accompany him to Tevinter, a weight around his neck while you cower behind his robes in lands unknown to you? How do you expect to keep my son in the luxury to which he is accustomed? Or perhaps you expected to hoard my son - the crowning jewel of the Pavus legacy - _and _his inheritance?’

Cullen stared, jaw somewhat slack, cheeks burning.

Aquinea broke out into a wide, amused smile. ‘I jest,’ she said easily. ‘Well, no. Had I been alive, I _would_ have put forth such questions and many more. I’d have set you to the task of proving yourself to me, in proving your worth to take my son’s hand in marriage and the end result,’ she said, smiling fondly. ‘Would have been my beautiful boy telling me in no uncertain terms that you didn’t need to prove anything, that my blessing was a relic of a tradition considered long since redundant and that he would be marrying you no matter what.’ She closed her eyes. ‘And I would know then that he truly loved you and that you loved him.’

Cullen didn’t know what to say as they stood there on the shores of a Well containing every soul that had ever, or would ever, exist.

‘Such questions are meaningless now. The aspects of my life I devoted time and attention to are _meaningless_, all but one. Nothing matters but those we love and it is plainest to see only when we are parted from them.’ She looked out at the waters. ‘My son is waiting for you and I deem you worthy enough to take him. As to whether or not you will make him happy, that falls to you. Promises made in the moment are easy. Following them down a path that spans a lifetime, less so.’

‘I can…?’ Cullen ventured slowly, heart straining wildly against a kind of _hope_ he didn’t dare embrace. ‘I can bring him back, then?’

‘If you would use your gift of the Well to remove a single soul, yes you may. However, I believe you to be cognisant of the fact that it must be replaced by way of a sacrifice.’

‘Jassen is—’

‘Jassen’s _death_ would be no sacrifice to you. It carves no loss and though his soul would fill the void left behind by my son’s, it costs you nothing to lose him. So,’ she said heavily. ‘We face a small problem.’

‘What do I have to do?’

‘It must cost you something, this gift. Though you are deemed worthy, nothing in life is free and before you offer up you _own_ life in exchange for his, as I see you are about to, I would remind you that _you_ must carry him out of here and place him back in his body. Only you can contain his spirit because you are bound, by blood and by love, forged by magic.’

Cullen waited to learn of it, dread sinking low in his gut.

‘The price is two-fold. Two halves of something making a whole. The first half is that Jassen will be stripped of his memories; every single one. He will still be a man, he will know speech and how to walk through the world, but rootless and alone. He will not know you, his own name, nothing. His memories will make up the first half of the sacrifice.’

Cullen’s nose furled, fists tightening. ‘That is no _sacrifice_ to me.’

‘No, but it costs you to know that Jassen will live on, that somewhere in the world, he will be walking and living and you alone will bear the burden of that knowledge. Your link with him will be fully severed. He will be _remade_ in many ways and you will be the last man in Thedas to know of Jassen as he was. _This_ will cost you something, the Well knows. Secondly,’ and here she seemed a little sad. ‘To complete the sacrifice, your magic must also be destroyed.’

A physical twist and wrench of _worry_ and fear hit Cullen hard, his hand flying protectively to his chest. ‘No,’ he said automatically. ‘_No_.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid. It is sentient, that magic and you care for it greatly. To lose it will cost you and that is enough for the Well. Enough sacrifice for you to take back my son and bring him to life once more.’

Cullen turned away. Within, the magic swirled patiently, calmly.

_We knew_, it told him. _We always knew. Worthy, beautiful Cullen. We knew always. Be not sad for us, for we are fulfilling our glorious purpose. We are proud and we are strong. Our Dorian will live, his natural magic returned to him and you by his side. Bring him to the surface, our Cullen. Breach and breathe and remember us always. _

It hurt, more than he could say. His hand clenched tightly over the place where that piece of Dorian resided, that link born of them both. The beautiful connection that had allowed him to _feel_ Dorian sometimes, that had moved through him and let him know magic. That had burned the lyrium right out of him, made him so fucking _whole_, he could hardly stand it sometimes.

Maker, but it was agony.

‘Do you agree, Cullen?’ Aquinea was asking. The magic coiled and nuzzled him, purring gently.

_We love you always, our Cullen. Burn bright for us._

Cullen squeezed his eyes tight shut, throat working over a lump as he swallowed.

‘We have little time now,’ Aquinea pressed. ‘What is your answer?’

Cullen gazed out at the black bridge, at the glass heart of the Well, at Jassen, still caught and frozen in time. He saw the waters and he felt the magic.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly, distantly. ‘Yes, I agree.’

_*_

_Shay__’s decision came due one night when the stars sat sparkling in a crystal clear sky and the air was still and cool. He sat with his dog and he looked around at the world. At the trees, at the people, at the ever changing landscape and the endless possibilities of what life could offer a man such as him, a man willing to stop, willing to help, willing to _try_. _

_He stroked his dog and took off his boots to feel the grass beneath his feet, listening to the crickets and the gentle sighs of the night. _

_Shay had been the watchful ambler once and it was all that had made him remarkable. Within him, awaited a destiny that offered immortality, a connection to greatness. To be one with the ocean and the earth was not _nothing_, he knew. _

_But the night was beautiful and the stars were bright and Shay understood then, just _why_ they were so beautiful. _

_Because they were immortal and Shay_ _, as of that moment, was not. Were time infinite as it had been before, he would not look at them in such a way, he would not care to, there would be no reason to. _

_His dog nuzzled him roughly, happily, falling asleep, safely in the care of someone who loved him and Shay pondered the universe, the world entire. _

_He felt the link stretched to breaking point, the thread about to snap. He could stand there and then, he would walk and it would not break. If he walked for the next two or three years, it might grow anew, strengthened enough that he could fulfil his destiny. _

_Shay stroked the ears of his dog, who could still not run and often liked to rest, and he let it break. Destiny released him, greatness backed away and left only a man, unremarkable in all ways, bar none. _

_Shay was unremarkable, but he was happy. _

_He slept soundly then, dreaming of stars and his friend_ _’s smile and the possibility of what tomorrow might bring. It was lightweight sleep; restful and born of peace, his dog snoring gently in his arms. _

_*_

Aquinea lowered Jassen none too carefully and unfroze him.

‘Bid farewell to your friend,’ she told Cullen then. Jassen drew himself to full height, looking around.

‘Wh-what’s happening?’ he asked. ‘Cullen, you—’

‘I’m bringing Dorian back,’ Cullen forced himself to say. ‘Your memories are to be taken in exchange and you’re to be… _let loose_ somewhere in the world.’

Jassen seemed to _die_ inside. ‘No. Oh, Maker. No, please.’

‘Why?’ Cullen asked tightly, crushing down a deeply unworthy part of him that protested against such a fate for _anyone_, even Jassen. ‘Is that unbearable to you, then? To have your memories stricken?’

‘Kill me instead,’ Jassen pleaded, low and raw.

‘I _am_ killing you. The same way you tried to kill me.’

‘I would never kill you, I love you, I—please. Don’t leave me in this body without your memory. Please.’ He made for Cullen then, stumbling as his knees wobbled and Cullen caught him, but held him away, created a barrier instead of offering help. ‘Please don’t take them from me. I’m sorry for what I did to you. I didn’t… I didn’t think. I just wanted you to love me, Cullen. I wanted us to be happy, to have everything we should have had, all of it and more but I’m… you’re right, I’m not who I was once. I-I twisted myself to stay alive, to get free and I lost every part of me that wasn’t _you_. Please don’t take it all, please.’

Cullen swallowed and stepped back. _‘I’m_ not taking it. It’s not my choice. I’d kill you, Jassen. You know I would.’

He seemed lost, that man who had once meant so much to Cullen. He cast a glance with glassy eyes around at the circular world of the Well of Souls.

‘This is where it ends then, is it? Better view at least,’ he said in a shuddering way, the last part coming out on a rushing exhale that might have been an attempt at laughing. He looked at Cullen slowly. ‘Not gonna say you're sorry?’

The weight of that memory might once have winded Cullen, might have tightened his lungs and left him short of breath. Instead, he stared at Jassen, holding his gaze evenly. 'Never.'

Jassen tipped his chin, something vicious wrenching a long since rusty feeling into limited motion. Pride, perhaps. 

'You’ll remember me, won’t you?’ Cullen nodded, not trusting himself to speak. ‘All right then.’ Jassen took a shuddering breath, lifting his gaze to Cullen. ‘Jassen Ivan Emory.’

Something stung in the corners of Cullen’s eyes and he ground his jaw hard. It was no simple thing. Jassen would never be simple, not to Cullen’s recollection. It would never be clean cut, no matter how he felt in the moment, no matter how he _wanted _it to be.

Cullen repeated his name, slowly, the memory of that first introduction seeming clearer now that he knew Jassen’s full name again.

The other man heard him say it, seemed to take some measure of comfort in it and then he closed his eyes, waiting. Quietly, so quietly Cullen barely heard it, he said, ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

And for the first time, Cullen believed him.

Aquinea lifted her hands once more, crafting magic, the conduit of the Well as Cullen had once been Dorian’s.

Light moved through Jassen but not to _give, _this time to take. To take everything. The light seemed to consume him, brightened until it was blinding and then… gone. _Jassen_ was gone and Cullen started forward, unable to help himself but it was an aborted movement, a wasted gesture.

‘Cullen,’ Aquinea said. ‘You must take Dorian now.’

‘How do I do that?’

‘Reach into the water and let the magic find him.’

Cullen lowered himself on the flat, roughened surface of the stone bridge and leaned down, arm extended, fingers stretching. He had to lay himself flat atop the bridge to reach, fingers dipping down into the cool, soft waves of liquid emerald.

Immediately, the magic within _reached _out through him, passing into the water, calling and singing, that siren song of colour and light, of synaesthesia and beauty. It called to Dorian in the way that only his magic could because they were bonded, one and the same.

And as he watched, enraptured by the fluid movements of the magic through the water, he saw something _else_ move in turn. He kept his hand in the water, so reminiscent of months past when he’d helped Dorian to heat his bath. Held it there and waited with a bated breath for the magic to _find him_.

A lightly purple, shimmering mass began to rise up through the depths. It was small, no bigger than Cullen’s rounded shield he’d left discarded and useless on the ground near the Wilds. It left a light trail as it moved, the two magics reaching for one another. Cullen _stared_ as they converged, as they met and combined after swimming around each other for a second.

The meeting was bright, the colours melding and the light joining as easily as drops of water. It grew large then, more _formed_ as it returned to Cullen. He kept his hand steady, heart simply _smashing _in his ribcage as that light, that purple light returned to him, slipped into the skin of his fingers and journeyed inward.

He sat up carefully, breathing shallow. There was a very definite kind of _weight_ within him and something like emotion was flooding into his blood stream, something impossibly moving.

There was a purity about what the magic had sought out, what it had _found_ and retrieved. It was Dorian, minus all else. It was his essence, his being stripped bare. His soul.

Dorian’s _soul_ was inside him.

Carefully, oh so _very _carefully, Cullen got to his feet.

‘He… he’s inside me,’ he gasped, one hand on his heart.

‘Yes,’ she said, something soft playing about her features then. ‘And you must return him now, place him back where he belongs.’

The rift was still open, still crackling green. ‘What about the magic? I need it to carry him.’

‘Once you pass through the rift back into your own world, the magic will cease to be. Dorian’s natural magic will replace it. You will need to act quickly, to return him to his proper form, but you _can_ achieve that part alone. The magic was needed to call him out of the Well, to find him. You can place my son in his body once more.’

‘All right,’ he said, mostly to himself, wishing that moment had come already, wishing for Dorian, for his centre of gravity, for his beautiful mage.

‘There is another caveat.’

Of _course_ there was.

‘Tell me.’

‘It is a series of highly convoluted moments and choices which has led you here, no small part of which was accomplished by the determination of Dorian’s magic to banish not one, but _two_ blood curses.’ She took a moment to smile to herself. ‘My son’s determination and brilliance surpasses even natural law. The magic always knew he would fall to the curse and in you, it found someone _worthy. _Someone to carry it even after Dorian was gone, someone to venture here and bring him back. A clash of two curses and a hint of _fate. _Understand, that this would not ever have been possible, even with the gift of the Well, were it not for this confluence of events.’

‘I understand,’ he said slowly, brow creasing.

She gave him a look then that made plain how she really rather doubted that, but Aquinea went on anyway.

‘Death is a frontier that few can accept with grace, less so those left behind. To protect the Well from would-be ravagers, greedy for secrets, when the sun rises back in your world, all memory of this event and knowledge of the Well will be wiped from anyone not touching you.’

Cullen blinked. ‘Sorry?’

Aquinea Pavus sighed and her eyes fluttered ever so slightly. ‘The Well has deemed you worthy and as such would not inflict memory loss upon you nor those you designate as capable of safeguarding such a secret. Everyone else, however, will have the memory of bringing Dorian back _removed_.’

‘But… everyone knows he died,’ Cullen said slowly, feeling more than a little bit _stupid. _

‘Yes,’ she said, plainly exerting patience for his sake. ‘But I trust my son to come up with a glittering lie to level the situation out. He is of Tevinter, after all. Anyone not touching you when the sun rises will have the memory stricken from them. That knowledge will be taken from them, without damage to their minds or,’ her eyebrow quirked. ‘Intelligence. It is for the best, believe me. You would be hounded all your life for the secret. Men can be brave in the faces of their own death, but the death of a loved one drives them to the edge of reality, as you are clear and present proof.’

Cullen swallowed hard and nodded. He turned towards the rift, something like determination overcoming him then, but a gentle hand on his elbow stayed his efforts.

‘Wait,’ she said suddenly. ‘Here. When you marry him, give him this. I cannot abide the thought of what a Southerner might use to bind my beautiful boy.’ Aquinea Pavus pressed something into Cullen’s hand and closed his fingers around it before he had the chance to look. She then pushed him very firmly onward before he could say anything else and the rift was only a few feet away. ‘You be sure to make good on your promise,’ she called out in a somewhat terrifyingly stern way. ‘And tell him, no Mother could be prouder.’

Cullen didn’t look back as he drew closer; he could taste the ozone, felt the unnatural static and hair-raising sensation caused by proximity to the tear. Once he went through, the magic would be lost, but Dorian would be ever closer to his body, to being _alive_.

_Go, our Cullen,_ it urged sweetly. _You were everything we hoped for and more. Grieve not, regret nothing, begin again. Live and love, breach and breathe. You were ours and we were yours, it was not for nothing. _

And as he took that final step, about to walk through, something occurred to him then, Cole’s suggestion.

_‘Be sure to say I love you before you say goodbye,’ _the boy had told Cullen, cryptic as ever.

Cullen closed his eyes, hand on heart. ‘I love you,’ he mouthed, not daring or needing to speak it aloud, not when it was inside of him, and then he walked back into his own world.

*

It was chaos when he stepped through and it was _raining_. Pelting, in fact. A rich, thick downpour all too common for that time of year in Ferelden. It hit Cullen like a bucket of ice water, the rift closing with a resounding _crack_ behind him.

As soon as his feet hit solid ground, movement and _noise_ all around him, he felt a staggering _weight_ inside, like his body gravity had doubled.

And he felt a _loss_ too. He felt the lack of that magic, strong and secure. It was gone, but Dorian was inside him. His soul resided with Cullen, clinging to their blood connection, clinging hard but it couldn’t hold.

Where was his body? Cullen strained to see just as something came flying at him.

A _demon_.

He wiped his eyes. The upper ramparts were _swarming_ with demons, every kind. Not only demons, though. Wraiths and wisps and other foul creatures of the world that sought to possess an empty, warm body… were _clamouring_ for Dorian.

And the others, they were fighting them back.

Cullen ducked, could not risk trying to fight without a weapon, without magic, not when he was carrying such precious cargo.

‘Fenris!’ he yelled over the din, over the downpour. ‘Leliana!’

But it was Lavellan who heard him, who turned and ran flat out, skidding low and cutting heels of big bad demons as she went with her dual blade, face spattered in ankle gore. She got to her knees, wheezing but very much _alive_.

‘Cullen!’ she panted, trying to catch her breath, eyes wide. ‘Thank _fuck_, we were—did you do it? Did you get him?’

‘Yes,’ he said, scanning the scene. ‘Where’s Dorian?’

‘We had to move him,’ she said. ‘Come on, it’s this way.’

She handed him a blade and went ahead, cutting a path for him where possible, calling out to the others along the way.

Rainier sliced a despair demon in half, running to Cullen’s side. Cassandra was ahead, _purging_ and _dispelling. _Sera’s shimmering form came out of nowhere, face spattered with blood and a bad cut to her upper shoulder.

‘Maker’s balls, you’re back! Did’ja get him, yeah?’ Cullen barely had the chance to reply when a voice tore out into the wind and the rain, calling down a spectacular amount of lightning and at least twelve demons were simply _fried_.

Halward Pavus was ahead, protecting his son with Vivienne, Hawke and Varric at his side. Directly in front and providing flanking cover was Fenris, forcing the demons to bottleneck as he phased over and _over_, ripping out hearts and guts, tearing through them like they were tissue but Cullen knew Fenris, knew he couldn’t do it forever. Like any other ability, it wore with time and prolonged use.

With every step, the weight in his chest grew _heavier_, to the point where Cullen began to feel like his knees would buckle soon. When he stumbled, Rainier caught him, kept him going, strong arms around his middle.

The rain was relentless and it seemed like every demon in _Thedas_ was trying to get inside Dorian, to claim that body for their own.

Halward and Vivienne were casting shields repeatedly but two pride demons were shattering them, using lightning whips. Varric’s arrows whistled through the air, but the demons were climbing up the side of the fucking castle.

‘Get me to him,’ Cullen ground out, barely able to support his own weight as the light inside began to struggle and panic, began to _grow_.

Rainier moved faster. Fenris caught sight of him and Cullen thanked the Maker and blessed Andraste a thousand times for his friend when Fenris immediately seemed to _understand_, and cleared a path for them to the right, using his own body to do so.

Sera helped Cullen when Rainier couldn’t do it alone and Lavellan killed the stragglers. With combined effort, they got him to Dorian.

Dorian who was laid out on the ground in a corner, who was still… not alive, but was glowing with effects of magic cast by Tevinter mages who hovered over him.

‘Keep them back!’ Lavellan screamed. ‘Keep them back, he has him!’

Halward and Vivienne heard, pushing their magic to the side, trying to maintain the path that Fenris had instigated. Cullen felt the call of gravity then like his bones were going to snap under the weight of what he carried, heavier than any man.

Rainier and Sera dragged him most of the way, Sera throwing tricks where she could, Rainier casting guard and protecting them to the best of his abilities. The demons were rabid, snarling and scraping, trying to get to him.

When they were finally through the wall of demonic entities vying for a vacant host, Cullen was lowered carefully to his knees beside Dorian, who was guarded by Leliana and Josephine. Leliana had a bad slash across her forearm and Josephine, Maker bless her, was clutching a _maul_ with the utmost determination, as if she’d ever held such a thing in her life before.

‘Cullen,’ Leliana said, speaking volumes without ever actually shaping it. She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re ready?’

Halward crouched beside Cullen, Rainier and Sera taking his place in the protective line-up. The mages stood above, hands hovering, chanting over and over.

Dorian glowed with white light, his eyes closed, soaked from the rain as he lay in a dark corner, the fall-back kind, intended to prevent becoming surrounded.

‘I am,’ Cullen managed to say, even as his body began to feel too full to _bear_ it, to even draw breath. He scrabbled like a dying man then, hands frantic for contact with Dorian. Contact was what he needed, he felt it.

The second his hands touched Dorian’s chest, the weight inside of him _twisted_ hard. It stole his breath, trapped him in a moment of agony while the weight, the soul, the _essence_ of the man he loved realised that his own body was there.

_Go,_ he urged. _Please_.

And then it began to move. It began to move _fast_, travelling through Cullen, narrowing down to his arms, slipping painfully into his fingers in a strange travesty of _birth_. It prickled all wrong, splintered like red hot shards of glass and Cullen was screaming, lost to the wind and the rain.

It moved and it travelled, flooding out of him and back, back, _back_ where it belonged and then…

Then it was gone. It was _out_.

Cullen opened his eyes, arms shaking badly enough that they juddered. He looked down, daring to smooth Dorian’s hair back where the rain had it messily spread over his forehead but… but Dorian was not moving, was not breathing.

‘Why isn’t he breathing?’

Halward stared for a moment, a horribly long moment. Cullen didn’t _have _a fucking moment.

He reached down, tipping Dorian’s chin back, wrecked hands pressing over his heart, just like before.

_You can__’t wake him, lover, _Jassen had said then. _It isn__’t his heart that failed him. Death has taken him whole. Even if you revive his body, he will not be inside it._

This was different, Cullen told himself, beginning to press. This was different because Dorian _was_ inside.

He was panting with exertion. ‘It can't be for nothing. It can’t be for nothing, it _can__’t_ be for nothing. Come on, don’t do this to me now! Not _now_, not—you wake up, you hear me?’

‘Cullen.’

He couldn’t stop, would not stop. Dorian was inside his body and he only had to restart it, move blood into that beautiful heart and see it stutter to life. ‘It can’t be for nothing. I won’t let it be. Please, _please_.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Halward said as a demonic roar rent the air. ‘He should be breathing!’

‘Cullen,’ Josephine said again, soft but urgent.

‘What?’

‘Cullen, maybe… maybe he _can__’t_ breathe?’

The flood in the Tower, Jassen’s red water. Dorian had floated but not at first, it took time for a body to bob up to the surface.

Cullen crouched low, tipping back Dorian’s chin to free his airway. ‘All right,’ he said, mostly to himself. ‘Leliana.’

She understood, taking over the compressions. He counted for her, _with _her and then he sealed his lips over Dorian’s, the furthest thing from a kiss, and pushed all his air into him.

And nothing happened.

‘Again.’

Compress, count, push, _breathe_. Nothing.

‘Again, come on.’

The demons were getting closer. He heard the noises, tasted sulphur.

‘Come on, love, please. Again.

Compress, count, push, _breathe_, please breathe.

_Breathe for me, breathe for yourself, breathe for the world without you. _

Nothing.

‘You don’t get to do this again,’ he said, trembling, _furious_. ‘Not again. You owe me this, you owe me one last surprise. Come on, you _fucker_, get back here! Again!’

‘Cullen, maybe—’

‘AGAIN!’

Leliana compressed, they both counted, the mages chanted and then Cullen breathed into Dorian, all his breath, as much as he could extend.

Please.

Please.

_Please_.

‘Breathe for me, love. Breathe for me, please. You can do it, I know you can do it. _Breathe_!’

Lightning flared softly above, the slightest rumble of thunder chasing it and Cullen felt something beneath his palm. A weak, pulsing kind of _jolt_.

His heart _seized_ and everything inside of him was suspended like it didn't _dare_ to hope. Cullen’s fingers frantically sought the source of the movement, feeling Dorian over everywhere.

It happened again, stronger. Dorian’s chest was weakly convulsing.

And something in Cullen was _terrified_. Just… frozen solid with the fear that it was _more_ false hope, that it was only false dawn come calling to play one last cruel trick.

‘Turn him on his side!’ Josephine said urgently and that was enough to shake him from the rigor mortis of dread, from the dangers of inaction.

Water came from Dorian’s mouth. First a trickle and then a flood, followed by a severe and thorough hacking fit, his body trying to forcibly eject all that liquid and there was no denying it now, no way to deny _anything_ because… because…

‘They’re falling back!’ Rainier roared to be heard over the rain. ‘The demons are retreating!’

Cullen shook from head to toe, rigid and taut. ‘Dorian,’ he uttered like it was the Maker’s given name. _‘Dorian_.’

His mage, his beautiful mage began to _breath_e.

*

_Years passed for Shay without the strain or the pull of destiny and they passed with wonder and love and struggle. With difficulty and stress, with happiness and laughter and all manner of things that slowed him down, that kept him rooted in the moment, in the present. _

_He wandered still, never finding a single place able to keep him longer than a year. He was born to roam, after all and he ambled happily, stopping to taste the fruit of the land, to smell flowers and the sample delights where they were offered to him. He never fell in love again, but he loved many and he loved freely. His dog, his best friend and closest companion, learnt to bound once more, learnt to dash ahead on stronger bones, nurtured by love and patience, by one who had taken the time to tarry. _

_Shay learnt to wield a weapon and he defended those who needed it. He protected who he could and he mourned those he failed, but he slept at night, his dog close by, knowing he had tried his very best and that was enough to make him worthy of the beautiful world he had once walked through without ever stopping to know. _

_Where before he had only watched, spectator to the great, messy paradigm that was life, he was now a participant. There was joy to be had and tears to be shed and lives to touch. Experiences and sensations and wonder. Enough wonder to fill the land twice over, had he but taken the time to truly let himself feel it before, back when he had been only the watchful ambler._

_Years passed, finite time slipping through his fingers and Shay regretted none of it. He smiled to see a river and he let himself be open, let himself be free of any ties, barring those that he chose for himself. _

_Years passed in happiness until one day, Shay became too tired to walk any further. His body, decorated with scars and wrinkles, with stories woven into his skin, could take no more steps. He settled with his dog in his arms, his best friend who was slower in those later years also, resting against a great oak tree, beneath a benevolent sky. _

_Holding close his dog and the image of a face he had been lucky enough to never forget, Shay closed his eyes and smiled a final time, departing the body he had chosen over immortality and he exhaled his last. _

_*_

Dorian Pavus was thirty-one years old and he had been having the _weirdest _fucking dream of his whole life. Maker, but Cullen was going to laugh his arse off when he told him all about it. It was the kind of dream that took a long time to actually resurface from, left his body groggy and his mind bleary, seeking clarification about which reality was which.

But fuck, it had been weird.

Dorian was also wet and not, he noted sulkily, in a good way.

Very slowly, _things_ started to become apparent to him.

Firstly, it was pissing rain which was a strong indicator that he was in Ferelden - fucking _Ferelden_ \- or Maker forbid, somewhere like the Fallow Mire.

Secondly, his lungs _hurt. _It felt like he’d been punched right in each of those squishy, vulnerable organs and each breath he took was a wheezing, _tight _thing that required effort to pull the air inside.

Thirdly, and this was really the most pressing one, Cullen was saying his name.

Dorian hadn’t actually opened his eyes yet, was frankly somewhat _terrified_ of doing so given the state of things he’d awoken to, but he knew that voice, would know it anywhere. It was that, above all else, that made him push up onto his arms, despite other people - Leliana and Josephine by the sounds of it - objecting and scolding, warning him to stay still.

No, he would _not_ be still. Cullen needed him.

He opened his eyes only when he was fully sat up.

It _was_ night, it was _indeed_ pissing rain and Cullen was still saying his name; a reverent whisper, a one worded prayer.

‘Cullen,’ he rasped, voice absolutely _wrecked_, like he’d endured several gloved hands shoved down his throat, vying for treasure. ‘Why…?’

Oh, right.

He’d died.

It was no small thing, the memory. It hadn’t left him, not at all, but it most certainly hadn’t been at the forefront of his mind upon waking from a ridiculous set of dreams that were, in retrospect, perhaps his fucking _afterlife. _

He felt dizzy with the realisation. When he wavered, strong hands held him in place. Cullen touching him was not enough to stop the endless cycle of the mage’s name falling from scarred lips.

Dorian gave a kind of half smile, touching Cullen’s face then. It was cold and wet, rain soaked as they all were. ‘That’s me,’ he said, laughing somewhat awkwardly and instantly succumbing to a cough. Leliana, who was apparently right behind him, patted his back firmly. Josephine, crouched nearby with a maul in her delicate hands, stared openly, jaw slack.

Lightning flashed and the rain didn't seem like it was going anywhere, intent on slowly drowning them all but no one had moved yet.

Dorian had the distinct impression that he’d awoken in the middle of some kind of _battle;_ a battle that he hoped they had won and was now finished with because he had bigger priorities than _battles_, for Maker’s sake.

Cullen’s hands began to move over him gently, checking for injuries, for… well, Dorian didn't know really. He felt fine, aside from the pain in his lungs.

‘Cullen,’ he said softer, trying to gain and hold the other man’s gaze. ‘Are you all right?’

Cullen’s jaw fucking _dropped_.

‘Am I—_am I alright?__’_

‘He needs to get out of the rain,’ Josephine was saying and Dorian wholeheartedly agreed.

‘Is everyone _else_ all right?’ he asked, daring to try a different tactic. When he tried to stand, finding his legs a little bloodless and weak, Cullen made an irritable kind of noise and hoisted him easily, gently setting him upright while Leliana helped on the other side. ‘I can stand,’ the mage insisted, trying and instantly failing to sound remotely confident. ‘Where are the others?’

‘Samson and Cole are guarding the children, Bull and Solas guarding the castle interior, but the demons were coming for _you_,’ Leliana told him. ‘For your vacant body, left open to possession.’

That was the moment when Dorian became distinctly aware of _another_ person behind him. He turned and there stood his father, Halward Pavus, soggy and stunned.

‘Dorian.’ The pair proceeded to stare at one another, the very thing that had _killed_ Dorian… however long ago. But that curse was gone now, used up and burned away. ‘My son, you’re—’

‘Freezing,’ Dorian said, hoping to cut through any _more_ rainy awkwardness, because really, that could _all_ take place inside, somewhere with a fire, and blankets, and food. Possibly a bath at some point.

Possibly all while being wrapped up in Cullen’s arms, skin on skin, holding close because Dorian had been _far_ and he could feel it. He felt the stretch then, he felt the distance, bore it like a scar, like a loss.

He had died.

How Cullen must have suffered. How _Dorian_ would have suffered, were it the reverse. It didn’t bear thinking about.

‘Let’s get you inside,’ Cullen said as the others, Rainier, Sera, Hawke, Vivienne and Varric, came hurrying over.

‘Holy nugfucking _shitebags!__’_

_‘_Lovely to see you too, Sera,’ Dorian sighed, but dropped her a rain-soaked wink all the same. Cullen helped him, one arm wrapped about his waist, careful not to allow the mage to trip on the gore slicked path, demon ooze diluted with rain, slowly being washed away.

They passed Lavellan who was knelt over Fenris.

Cullen tensed, but his worry was waylaid quickly when Lavellan smiled, her eyes settling on Dorian with a fierce wonder and love that he _felt_, bone deep.

‘Don’t get weepy just yet,’ Fenris drawled, clutching his side and pressing a wad of material there. Green eyes met grey and the elf nodded, something kind in his wry smile. ‘Dorian,’ he greeted, sounding pleased, even as Lavellan pulled a demon talon from between two ribs.

‘Where is Solas?’ Cullen called back to the others. ‘Get him to heal Fenris!’

‘I’m fine, stop your _nannying,__’ _the elf grumbled, but it was teasing.

Dorian wanted to stop and help too. He couldn’t _heal_ but he could have offered something witty and amusing that might have made Fenris smile again, because he liked Fenris, he just did. Maybe it was because Cullen liked him so much, but the elf was—

‘Ow!’ the mage winced suddenly, stopping.

Cullen seemed simply overcome with instantaneous, irrational _fear. _‘What? What is it? Is it your heart? Oh, Maker, can you not breathe? Shall I get—where _is_ Solas, where’s—?’

‘I stepped on a stone.’

It brought Cullen up short, a mixture of relief and mild, hopelessly affectionate irritation coming over him as he stared at Dorian, lips pursed.

‘A _sharp _stone!’ the mage clarified. _‘And_ I’m barefoot!’

It came as no surprise really, when Cullen, who was _also_ barefoot, swept him off his feet and carried him like a princess the rest of the way.

*

Dorian decided that it was rather _nice_ being carried like this. He felt very safe, very _light_ even though he knew he was anything but. Cullen carried him like he weighed nothing, like he wasn’t a full grown man, the same fucking _height_ as Cullen, though maybe not the same weight. Cullen was solid, was all muscle and strength beneath a single, thin layer of fat to keep him warm throughout Ferelden winters and such.

They had an entourage trailing behind. It wasn’t surprising, when one considered what had happened. Cullen was not stopping, not for questions or gawking stares. He pushed on, carrying Dorian like it was his one true cause in life.

It was crazy, really. They needed to talk, they needed to go and see Nalari, Saffy and Keenan, all the others too. They needed to do so much and Dorian had _questions_, great burning things inside of him that _needed_ answers but Cullen just carried him up and up to his room, to the safety of that tower and he stopped for no one and nothing.

And though it was madness, though there were elements everywhere that required attention, Dorian understood. He wrapped his arms around Cullen’s neck and stopped his feeble protests, made on general principal because the last time someone had carried him like this had been… well, never.

He stopped pretending it wasn’t fine, wasn’t _nice_ even and softly, sweetly, pushed the tips of his fingers up into Cullen’s hair from where they had rested on the nape. He leaned his forehead to Cullen’s cheek and sighed, letting himself be carried, the feeling altogether oddly _familiar_ somehow.

When they passed the mage dorm, Dorian’s protests strengthened somewhat but Cullen was fucking _immovable_. Cole waved brightly from where he and Samson guarded the closed door, smile quite dazzling. Samson was shaking his head with an annoying little _smirk_. There were comments being exchanged, words back and forth but in truth, Dorian was starting to feel a little bit _weird_ and he curled inward, curled closer to Cullen like a cat seeking a warm lap in winter and he let Cullen be strong, let Cullen take him away. It would all be there later, _later. _

Because Dorian understood. He didn’t _know_ what had happened, not really, but he understood it. He felt Cullen then, he could actually _feel_ him and it wasn’t really that Dorian needed to be away from the people following them, from Skyhold and a world of expectant questions.

It was that Cullen needed it.

And it was only when they were inside that room, inside the place that Dorian loved most with all his pretty things, with his creature comforts and his books, with the tools to make himself Dorian Pavus, Scion of House Pavus, Altus extraordinaire, that Cullen finally let Dorian down. He carefully, cautiously set Dorian down and someone, Sera by the flash of yellow leggings, thoughtfully clicked the door shut for them.

It was quiet in the room, nothing but the gentle lashing of rain against the glass doors and Cullen’s laboured breathing from having carried Dorian all the way there without _stopping_ even once.

Dorian found his legs were stronger then, were able to hold him upright and that had to be a good sign, didn’t it? He stared at Cullen, at that beautiful, blond, gorgeous, fucking _painfully_ amazing man.

He looked and he longed to clash, he wanted to bring them both together then because his heart was beating so very hard, so very fast and something in him insisted that they be close, skin to skin and heart to heart, ignore all else.

Ignore the world, ignore the door, ignore the people, all but one.

All but the one who must have _saved_ him somehow. Brought him back. The man who had held himself together long enough to remake Dorian, who had done what no one else ever could. Who had done things Dorian didn’t even _know_ about yet, but could feel the weight of them, the depth.

And later, Dorian would be _furious_. He really would. When the dazed feeling passed and he was mired in certainty that everyone was fine, everyone was _safe_, he would be _so_ fucking angry because Cullen had clearly gone above and beyond, had risked himself in as-of-yet unknown ways. He would be furious, but not just then.

Dorian stepped forward, wanting closeness but that was when Cullen’s legs buckled and he fell to his knees before Dorian, his arms around the mage’s middle. He clung hard, buried his face in Dorian’s abdomen, into dripping, sodden fabric.

Dorian’s hands hovered in the air, uncertain of what to do for a single moment, but quickly, they came to rest upon his love, lightly settling one on Cullen’s cheek, the other on his shoulder. Cullen held Dorian like he was never going to let him go again. He held him close, just breathing. He had made it behind closed doors before his strength had given out but it _had_ given out now, there was no denying it. He’d held himself together long enough.

‘I’m here,’ Dorian promised, stroking his hair. ‘I’m here, and I’m not going away ever again.’

Cullen held him all the tighter and finally, he let himself cry.

*

_The eternal ocean, the waters that had birthed all life once, shivered and rippled to feel Shay_ _’s passing and it was pleased then. It was rare, after all, that one destined to become a river - vein of the earth, pure extension of life and water, always rushing, always nourishing - chose the correct path._

_Too often, those with the potential failed. They made the wrong decision, seeking immortality, choosing destiny over the more difficult path. The path forged by choice. The path forged by free will and by struggle. Too often they failed and the ocean mourned the loss of such potential, but it always remained hopeful that a new river was being born somewhere, one who would choose to carve their _own_ path, at their own pace, to fly in the face of expectation and fate._

_To own the strength of a true river._

_When Shay_ _’s soul left his body that night, the waves lapped and the surface of all the water of the world shivered as it was joined by the worthy one, by the man who had once called himself the watchful ambler, but chose to die as Shay, friend to mankind and creatures alike, liked by so many, loved by his dog, who chose to go with him then, to follow and be close to him always._

_And the ocean smiled then, because Shay had made the right choice, the choice that made him worthy of his ascension._

_The humans of the world named it River Shay, that new wild rush of water, running between the blue mountains and through the woodlands where his dog had loved to play, joining with the frothing river that bubbled at the curve, close to the gardens that grew elderflower trees and lavender, near where they still, almost one hundred years later, made the perfectly salted bread and a small, slightly faded stone sat in place of a man who had been reason enough for the watchful ambler to slow, to touch and to tarry._

_The ocean sighed, content for once despite all else, and for a single, precious moment, everything in the world was well._

_ *_


	31. Doors

Time tended to play tricks and Dorian knew that. He knew the weight of boredom, of how long moments slowed to hours and joy made them fly by in a blur. How four hours spent with Cullen in the evenings felt like ten minutes. He knew how it worked, though maybe he didn’t know _why_.

This would be such an occasion. Outside, a whole world of _requirement_ was waiting. It was there, like a physical pressure, pushing but temporarily patient.

‘Cullen, darling,’ Dorian said delicately, carding his fingers through blonde curls. ‘It’s all right.’

Cullen’s arms tensed, face pressing deeper into Dorian. ‘You went away,’ Dorian heard, muffled and bare as it was. ‘You left me, _truly_ this time.’

Dorian’s throat clenched hard, eyes closing. ‘But you brought me back, amatus. You brought me back, didn’t you? You came for me, wherever I was.’

The nod was a small thing but it simply broke Dorian’s heart because as much as he wanted to lean into the anger he felt then, a shocking kind of anger that Cullen had risked himself to such an extent, he just couldn’t help but mourn for the loss Cullen had endured. The loss of his own _self_. It was plain how deeply it had marked him, Maker, it had Cullen on his knees, exhausted and broken and clinging to Dorian’s waist like he was a rock in the stormy oceans.

Slowly, with as much care as he could exert, Dorian knelt too. He slipped his fingers between the iron grip about his middle, seeking to create space, to craft leeway. Cullen was unyielding, unbending. He clung harder and Dorian knew why. He didn’t want Dorian to see him crying, to actually _see_ it.

And Dorian wasn’t having any of that.

When he managed to get both arms beneath Cullen’s, he lifted the grip higher, moved it to his neck and Cullen raised his face from where it had been pressed into Dorian’s rain-soaked chest. With nowhere to hide now, Cullen’s hands laced around the back of Dorian’s neck, but not so hard anymore. He was _shaking_ all over, head to toe; a thing born of shock and cold and _loss_.

‘You were gone,’ Cullen kept saying, face tipped down, eyes determinedly shut. ‘You were gone, you weren’t _there_ and I… watched you leave and I couldn’t… I couldn’t _stop it_. I had no control, no way of… of—’

‘I’m here now.’

‘Don’t leave me again,’ Cullen said in a voice that was barely even _there_ it was so weak. ‘Dorian, don’t leave me again.’

Dorian planed his hands over Cullen’s cheeks, around his neck, into his hair, holding him like he was precious because _he was_. ‘Never, I swear it. Never, never, _never_ again.’

‘You were gone.’

‘I know.’

‘You were gone and I was _alone_.’

‘Shhh,’ Dorian said, blinking back his own tears and then they were kissing. It just happened like it was the most natural and necessary of things, of movement given perfect intent and proximity finding true purpose. They were kissing to heal, kissing to _show_.

_Here I am. I_ _’m right here. Feel me. _

Cullen’s hands were holding Dorian’s face, holding him there while they kissed and at first, it was emotionally no different than simply _hugging_. An extension of that same comfort, of wanting to be close. At first they just kissed, lips moving over lips and slanting to fit, soft and sweet and so fucking _sad_ it made Dorian want to cry.

And then something shifted.

Something _caught_ and it morphed in a split second. Need for comfort and closeness was stripped abruptly bare to just _need, _to the barest bones of that desire.

Movements tried to craft a clash where one was simply not possible because they were already so close, but not enough, not _close enough_. They didn’t seem to know how to hold one another without grabbing, without pulling, without _hurting_. It was stuttered, instinct driven and wild, so wild that Dorian couldn’t form thoughts, couldn’t bring himself to wonder if this was the right thing to do. They moved against one another, kissing and touching and trying always to get _deeper_, to make _one_ where there were currently _two_.

And there was no bond, Dorian knew. No magical bond. He felt the loss of it, too deep to even contemplate at such a time when he was drowning in painful, grief addled kisses from the man he loved. There was no _connection_ and so they tried to forge a new one, tried to replace what had been there before, _before_ Dorian had gone away, left Cullen all alone. Replace it with skin and love.

Cullen sank his teeth into Dorian’s bottom lip, not to hurt, not to draw blood, but to _hold_, to claim. Dorian’s fingers were tangled in messy golden curls, his knees aching from kneeling on stone, body screaming for _more. _For the purest version of connection, for the deepest they could get inside one another. Dorian moaned and Cullen lost it.

They fell in a crash, Cullen pushing forward suddenly. The hand around the back of Dorian’s head protected him from the worst of the impact, but Dorian wouldn’t have cared either way. Cullen was on top of him, moving to cage him there with both arms, nudging in between his legs and then reaching back to lift Dorian’s thigh, bend it and grind into the crease, kissing the mage deep enough to render Dorian dizzy and breathless, clinging to Cullen for life, for gravity.

It wasn’t enough.

Open mouth moving messily, absent of finesse, over Dorian’s, tongue tracing lips and teeth taking whatever they could, Cullen was _wild_ and driven by something Dorian almost understood, but supposed he could never truly understand because… because Cullen had not died, he had not yet been made to live in the world without the one he loved most. Cullen was wild and he was driven by something deeply rooted in grief, in violence, carved roughly by loss, crystallised by love.

Love, love, fucking _love_.

And the deeper Cullen kissed him, the more Dorian _felt _it. Felt alone in his body, cleaved in half and missing something, incomplete without Cullen inside of him. The magic born of them both was _gone_ and there now was the magic he came into the world with. Intuitive, clever, lilac and _his_, but not Cullen’s. Not the child they’d created, not the thing born of their blood, their crashing and their _love_.

That was gone, Dorian knew it.

And he felt empty. So painfully, agonisingly empty then that it _burned. _Empty without that piece of them both inside, lost and adrift without the tether, all the reality of what had truly fucking _happened_ slowly drowning him from the inside out.

_‘_Please,’ he begged licking into Cullen’s mouth, pulling his hair, wrapping his legs around Cullen’s back and interlocking ankles to tighten, to _squeeze. _Cullen keened and ground harder, movements becoming increasingly desperate, everything driven by darkness, by the two halves of death; one in being left behind, one in leaving.

It was all death, it was all _loss_ and love and rebirth and that need to get Cullen inside him, to chase bittersweet with whatever counteracted pain like this, whatever they could get. To crash and collide, to make enough mess that they would never be parted again, could never be separated, no matter what.

And Cullen was saying things. He was muttering words and promises and pleas and absolute _madness_, but it didn’t matter because all Dorian wanted, all he needed then was to be touched, was to be held down, to be taken care of in that way that only Cullen could. To feel light, to feel _weightless_ from everything crushing him then.

He needed to feel it. He needed those words carved into him from the inside out. Sentiment branded, painted in bruises, in bite marks, love’s inkwell on his far too blank canvas.

‘Please,’ he repeated, so far beyond the ability to vocalise everything he wanted and needed that he could have cried, but it wasn’t necessary because Cullen knew it all, _felt_ it all and he knew Dorian. He knew the mage. Knew what he needed and by the Maker’s grace, needed the same, only the flip-side.

Where Cullen had lost control and needed it back, Dorian wanted his _gone_.

Clothes went first, lost and ruined by the force of the breakage. It _hurt_ when Cullen tore his shirt and yanked until it gave, until Dorian’s chest was bare and exposed. No gory wound to heal, no death brand for Cullen to drag his tongue over. Death had come for Dorian silent and insidious. Stopped his heart and deprived him of anything resembling a hero’s death. Quick and quiet, smiling all the while.

The memory choked Dorian, _sickened_ him.

‘Make me feel it,’ he uttered into Cullen’s mouth, tears sliding down his face as the man above him kicked off what remained of his trousers, finally - fucking _finally -_ bringing them together flesh on flesh, nothing in between.

Nothing except skin and bone, keeping apart what was meant to touch, meant to connect like liquid, bond and blend, breach and breathe and Dorian _could not_ breathe. That smiling darkness was in the forefront of his mind and he needed Cullen to drive it out, smash it out of him, replace it with blood and marks and love and a _claim_ that would never be contested, that even death would not dare fuck with.

Dorian wanted to be owned, remade in Cullen’s name, taken apart and rebuilt as _his_, no one else’s. He needed it, he would die without it.

‘Cullen,’ he said in lieu of begging and the man above him stilled, paused the movements that dragged his hard, desperate length over Dorian’s and looked down, arms on either side of the mage’s face, caging him, _keeping_ him.

‘Dorian,’ he panted, lips red and bitten but no blood, no cuts and bruises and Dorian was going to fucking _scream_ unless he got this out of him, unless he could get what he needed because it was building relentlessly, that feeling, like a maelstrom, volcanic and electric, too much of _everything_.

The mage shook his head, more tears leaking helplessly, fingernails driving into Cullen’s skin above his shoulder-blades because it just wasn't enough. He needed Cullen inside him and he needed to come but Maker, it wouldn’t be enough. He needed _violence, _he needed more than he even understood but that was fine, that was _fine_ because Cullen had always known what he needed.

Blinking rapidly, shaking apart beneath Cullen, he dug his nails deeper and dragged, feeling perfect, pale skin give way and tear. ‘Take control,’ he said, rough and lost ‘Take it all. Please.’

And Cullen did.

*

It was very strange, Cole noted, the creation of doors. For one such oddly minded man to have, at some point, simply become tired of the lack of privacy and set to improve the situation with a wooden cut out, swinging on a hinge, handle and all. Doors were tunnels, were invitations and shields. They were choices and offers, denials and opportunities.

He liked the hinges, though. They were pretty. He liked how they _swung. _How they held the doors upright and permitted movement, how sometimes they became stuck with rust or age when motionless, when people did not come and go.

Cole stood guard in front of Dorian’s door, idly contemplating the manufacture of hinges, wondering about things like _metal_ and _fire. _As always, the world was shaped by words, by speech formed into letters and sentences. The language of the inanimate and whispers of thoughts shed like skin, turned to dust and ignored by most, but not by Cole. He heard every single one, saw them, felt them. Traces of ancient anger, a swipe of bitterness, droplets of love. Humans cast emotions aside as they expired, never once thinking that they _went_ anywhere, that they sank into the walls, the floors, the doors and even the hinges.

Kinloch Hold had been drenched in pain, in agony wrought solid, in death and sacrifice and so much blood that Cole had barely been able to stand it, were it not for Cullen’s beautiful lightning, silencing the words, the incantations branded into the stones.

The words _stay with me_, they had been branded the deepest. Even struck dumb by lightning, Cole had felt them reach out to him, screaming into the void to be heard.

He trailed his fingers over the residue of all the times Cullen had stood outside Dorian’s door, indecision weighing heavily and sinking like a mist into the cement between the stones and the wood of the jamb. Words flared gently to life under his touch.

_I should leave, I shouldn_ _’t go inside, better not, better to keep away and keep him safe, but… but he’s so strong, I want him, I want to be near him, Maker guide me, Maker let me do right by him. _

Sera had given him strict instructions not to let anyone past for anything less than a life or death emergency. ‘_And even then, maybe not_,’ she’d added. Sera had been distracted. She wanted her _Ellie_, her love. She wanted to find warm, familiar skin and press her face into it, find home, that sensation and direction.

Just like Dorian and Cullen whose sense of north had been disturbed by too much metal, too much _sway_. Skin was needed to re-establish direction. Skin was needed for love and reassurances. Cole smiled to feel it, to feel all the weird ways that humans chose to love. So many endless brush strokes to make a picture that best reflected _them_. Always different colours, always different patterns, always different hinges.

And they were noisy too, which Cole liked. Happiness should always be loud, even if it made people turn red and cough loudly. Cole didn’t mind, found it interesting. He stood guard over their loud happiness, over their noisy painting and passionate brush strokes, over their homecoming and contemplated the creation of doors.

Of doors between worlds. Doors between men and women. Hearts and minds. Love and hate. Life and death.

And hinges. Hinges made to allow doors to swing wide, should the need or want arise. Some shiny and well-functioning, others rusted and prone to jamming, lack of use making them hard to budge.

Dorian’s hinge had been such, had required blood to ease the way.

And blood was strange too. A whole lifetime in the twists, in the patterns. Father to daughter and mother to son. Inheritance and familiarity. Defiance and love and destiny.

‘Absolutely not,’ Cole said, crossing his arms when people came calling. When _friends_ Rainier and Josephine came calling to check in on them, to see if they needed anything. ‘They only need skin and words and they’ve plenty of both.’

Josephine smiled, gaze fixed on the floor while Rainier frowned and looked at the door indignantly. ‘It’s been a bloody _hour_!’

‘Has it?’ Cole wondered aloud, following the upward path of errant dust motes, of emotions cast aside and turned dry without focus. ‘Time has little meaning outside this door and the hinges are clenched. They guard and protect. It needs to reconnect, you know. It needs work and that can begin now. Do not worry,’ Cole added when the man who had once worn an ill-fitting name made as if to argue. He put his hand on Rainier’s shoulder and spoke solemnly. ‘They will touch you before dawn.’

Rainier’s eyes widened almost impossibly and Josephine bit down on a lovely, musical laugh.

‘No,’ Cole said looking at her, she who had mimicked death and made no song of it. ‘No, don’t hold it in. Let it all out. Louder is better, now is the moment and the time. Everything is being decided and holding things in is not the way to swing.’

From behind the strong, oak door, Dorian made an especially loud sound; something vaguely tortured, something that caused Rainier to cough extremely loud to cover it, but Cole simply smiled. They were making excellent progress to finding their way back home and he was glad for it. He thought back to the days when they were walking blindly, not knowing which way to turn, not understanding so much of what each needed and how to find it.

It was still messy between them. It always would be.

That was all right though. Messy was good. Messy was passion and love and _we can clean it up later_. Later was good for everything _unimportant_.

There followed another noise; a kind of _crack_ and now Josephine had her hand over her mouth, back shaking with laughter.

‘What in the blazing void was _that_?’ Rainier asked weakly and when Cole opened his mouth to explain about how it was Cullen’s belt, the dark haired man sternly raised a hand and shook his head. ‘No, forget it. I _really_ don’t want to know. We’ll… we’ll just come back in _another_ hour, I suppose.’

‘Oh, leave them to it,’ Josephine scolded gently. ‘Let them have whatever time they need.’

‘But there’s things that need attention,’ Rainier insisted and Cole looked towards the door, feeling only love and the polar pull of South defying law to travel North and North abandoning rule at the top to travel down, to meet in the middle and clash, to bring about directional implosion and make a new _true north_, to make a new home. _Magic and love, break down the doors, no need for hinges when I__’m already yours, no need for boundaries when we’re the same person in two bodies, split down the centre. Make me yours again, bleed for me, break for me and I’ll put you back together even more perfectly. _

‘Cole?’ Josephine prompted. ‘Is that all right?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said, nodding sagely. ‘You’ll see them soon. They just need a few more hours.’

Rainier swore, scandalised and grudgingly impressed. ‘What about you, son? You need anything?’

Here, Cole faltered. There were _things_ inside his chest, fighting and hurting each other with the need to tumble forth. Dorian had been the only one to ever listen to him without prejudice, to let it all out so that Cole might know some measure of peace. Without him, it was a mess inside. Dark and bursting with thorns, with secrets wrapped in vines and hidden by flowers, only two in nine were poison, so hard to tell.

‘I would very much like some wine,’ Cole said in his best imitation of Dorian because Dorian gave him strength, emulated so much of the world that Cole _liked_, that he hoped the wolf would see too, in time.

Rainier looked at Josephine and she shrugged, smiling warmly.

‘Why not?’ she said. ‘I think we could all use some after the last few weeks. Yes, we’ll have some wine brought to you, Cole. Thank you for… for protecting them. You’re a good man.’

Cole wanted to point out that neither was true, but Dorian would have said it was rude to reject a compliment, even if it was a lie. Compassion could not be good, it was made to falter when pushed, to turn vengeful. And of the many things Cole was, he would never be a man.

When they left, Cole looked back at the hinges of the door to Dorian’s room and ran his finger absently over the top one. When he touched it, the trailing, moving sentences flared brightly gold. The words spoke to him in supple whispers, the combination of every language that had ever existed.

_Stone and water and fire birthed for purpose, to permit movement, to designate and select, I am choice and I am secrecy, without use, I rust and fail. _

The hinge that spoke to him was brass; well-made and strong enough to permit the heavy creation to swing wide as and when was necessary.

From within Dorian made a noise that Cole decided was a good kind of noise, even though he was crying. Humans were strange, the world even more so, but he did like it, sometimes.

‘…kid, you hear me?’

‘Oh,’ Cole said, attention still on Cullen’s discarded sentiments. ‘I thought you had left.’

The Qunari eyed him warily, all tension, all watchful stare. ‘Not yet,’ the Iron Bull said quietly. ‘Did you tell them?’

‘No,’ Cole sighed, picking at the wall to the left of the hinge as from within him, silvery voices began to speak, silvery and cold, echoes of the future, clashing with the faded gold of the past, hard to distinguish as always. ‘You should just leave. They will know soon. The red Templar will see the curve and the shape. They will not understand. They will be angry; shattering and splintering, stupid, should have seen it before, should have known.’

‘I wanted to see Dorian before… before I decide anything.’

‘You have already decided,’ Cole said, finally bringing his gaze to the horned man before him, to the Qunari whose choices were wrought with chains and scraps of paper, ravens feet and unexpected friendship. ‘It is good, to decide. To make a decision. But they will not understand and they will be angry. Cullen especially. You touched his love once and you were not true grey, you claimed to be Tal-Vashoth but you were not, you were _theirs_ still and he will not forgive it. Dorian would, in time, but Cullen never will.’

‘I appreciate what you’ve done for me.’

‘I wanted you to choose.’

‘I have.’

Cole extended his hand, palm up, waiting.

Bull sighed. ‘I can’t go back empty handed.’

‘Then you cannot go back,’ Cole said flatly, choosing to ignore the nuance, to ignore all the words and feelings and floating rhymes. ‘It is simple. It is a chance for change, for you to make your own way. No _boss_, no _chains_, no need to lie, for a while at least. They will not understand that it was a lie, that some people are capable of lying so well that there is no distinction between that and the truth.’

The Qunari ground his jaw and Cole waited, standing to cover the door just a bit more. Within, the love being freshly made had to be safeguarded. It was fragile and young still, Dorian was not even two hours old and he needed Cullen to make him strong again. Cole would protect them always, no matter the cost.

Because Dorian was his friend and Cullen was Dorian’s everything.

He waited, unflinching, ignoring the voices, ignoring the pull of a million distractions around him, of threads and poems. He focused on the Iron Bull and he waited.

And when the Iron Bull gave in, Cole was glad.

He handed Cole the ring; the small, shimmering tiny thing that he’d sneakily scooped up from the Circle Tower while everyone else was distracted. A ring to command legions of slaves, a lifetime of work from one who had never known how to be alone, a world of possibility for those who sought to conquer, who would see Dorian as a _dangerous thing, _mouth sewn shut and chained in liquid, in opals and quiet despair. A world shackled and tranquil, a world _dull_ and quiet. No. Cole would not have it.

‘You realise now that I have to tell them about the ritual,’ Bull said heavily. ‘If I don’t give them the ring, I have to offer them something. They’re gonna hunt me down either way, but my… the Chargers deserve—’

‘You need not tell them anything. The Qun need no _reason_ for war, they urge it ever onward. You seek to shed light on their behalf but all your words will become is a spark, falling upon an ocean of gaatlock.’

‘I can’t _not_ tell them about raising the dead. About walking freely into the _Land of the Dead_, that’s not something I can live with.’

‘You will not have to live with it, Hissrad.’ Cole watched the words the Qunari chose not to say as they moved over his skin, travelling like a line of ants, following a path and stopping just shy of his mouth. They were neat, well organised, angry. Angry at Cole, angry at himself, at the Qun. Angry for taking a middling path, such weakness in the middle.

‘I should have stopped them.’

‘I warned you to stay back.’

‘Yeah, just like you fucked with my memory to stop me sending any half-decent intelligence.’

‘It has been many months since I have had to do that.’

Bull sighed. ‘I wish things were different.’

Cole made an incredible effort not to comment on anything he saw beyond saying what was necessary to protect Dorian. ‘They will be. Wait a single day, that is all I ask. Wait one day before you send word to your people, before you buy generosity and time for yourself with secrets. A day is not much in exchange for years of friendship and loyalty, is it?’

‘No, I guess not.’

‘Good. You should be gone before sunrise. Leave them a note, let the door close forever and seal the edges. Closure is a gift and the hinges will melt away. Find a new name, a new life. Choose it and own it this time. Walk the path and do not _middle_ between the two.’

Bull closed his one eye. ‘I never told the red Templars anything that could truly compromise the Inquisition. I never left them vulnerable.’

‘A slow trickle from a shallow cut may still blacken and turn foul over time. Infection is best cut out.’

Shoulders squared, he bristled. ‘I did my job.’

‘Yes, the Storm Coast was especially well designed. Let them see a hard choice, let them think the Qun would ever lose such a valuable spy over a mere _dreadnought_, over a squabble. I am the hard shelled creature beneath the hot sand. Their trust comes naturally now, they are foolish to love and trust so freely but infection swings both ways. As betrayal can infect over time, so can goodness. You are afflicted by their bravery. By their kindness.’

‘By their fucking _stupidity.__’_

_‘_Stupidity is endearing, though.’

He sounded tired when he said, ‘They should never have sided with the mages. I warned Lavellan about how the Qun views these kinds of things.’

‘We both know it is a poor excuse. War is always hungry. Reasons are just feet in the doorway, greed is the army behind it.’

‘I would have died for them,’ he said quietly, frowning because his own sentiments confused him. ‘In the Wilds, I was ready to die in battle.’

‘Death is not forgiveness.’

‘No, I suppose not.’ He heaved a great sigh, the Qunari. ‘I appreciate you not saying anything while I figured my shit out.’

‘You kept to the lines,’ Cole said, struggling to ignore everything else Bull was not saying. ‘You have toed and you have walked them for a long time. That time is over now. Cullen will be looking for the traitor.’

Bull rankled at the word. ‘I bought them time,’ the Qunari insisted quietly. ‘I filled the place of someone who would have ripped them apart the second they defeated the Elder One. Do you have any idea how fucking difficult it’s been for—’

‘You should leave now, while you can,’ Cole interrupted sternly, worried that a raised voice would interrupt the precious reconnection process behind the door. ‘You are of no interest to me anymore as you pose no threat. I find myself only wanting to be around friends’

All Bull’s unsaid words turned briefly red, _hurt_ by that. Cole felt the instinct to apply a salve, to soothe with compassion but it was more important that he leave, for Dorian’s sake.

‘And what if, after a day, I decide to send word to the Qun of what they did here, with the help of _Tevinter_ blood mages, no less?’

‘Cullen is not going to touch you.’

‘Right? Which means _what_ in weird-speak?’

‘Which means you have no place here and the weapon you hold is made of ice. The sun will rise soon and Cullen will not touch you so you should leave. Now, ideally. But write them a note. Closure is the least you can offer before you are only a name, only a colour, only grey.’

For someone so large and strong, Bull could be still sometimes. Cole observed him, distantly noting where precisely would be required to push a knife, a well-placed dagger between the ribs before he even knew it was coming. Cole liked the honesty of knives and the compassion of death, but it wouldn’t be necessary here, he felt sure.

‘Tal Va-fucking-shoth, for _real_ this time.’

‘Your path diverges and your corner in this place darkens. Head for the ocean, head wherever you choose for it is only your life if it is _your_ path.’ Cole wrapped his fingers around the ring, sensing the power of it, the failed attempts to subdue him. ‘I would like you to go now. You are distracting me from the hinges. Go and find your truth. Go and await the sunrise on the second day before you decide what to do with what knowledge you have.’

He nodded briskly. ‘I can do that.’

‘We all do what we can.’

‘What will you do?’

Cole thought for a moment, closing his eyes and seeing Dorian, seeing the world with a friend by his side, with _friends. _New places, new people. ‘I will be with my friend.’

Bull looked at the door and almost smiled. He smiled on the inside, Cole saw, but it was sad. Happy sadness, a tainted kind of relief. Dorian would be difficult to bid farewell to. ‘Who’da thought, huh? Well, it was nice knowing you, kid. Take care of everyone, yourself included, the Vint especially.’

Cole wondered why it was easier for him not to say Dorian’s name. ‘Panahedan, Hissrad. When we next meet, remember to brace.’

Bull left and Cole returned his attention gratefully back to the things that really mattered. To the shape of the screws of the hinges, to the colour of the brick, to the taste of the air, the sounds from within, the feel of the world, the Maker as he watched and smiled, the winds of change falling still for a small while. Cole found solace in the small things, his most favourite things and let the comfort in the air seep from beneath the doors, colouring a previously dark and dull castle freshly purple once more, the sounds of love all around.

*

‘You’re so good, aren’t you? So fucking _perfect_ for me, my love.’

‘Cullen… Maker, Cullen, I _can__’t_.’

‘Yes, you can, oh, you _can _because you’re mine and I’m going to make you feel it again, just one more time. You’re going to feel it for me, aren’t you?’

The silk around Dorian’s wrists wasn’t tight enough to cut off his circulation, but enough to keep his hands above his head despite struggling, strong enough to limit his movements. His shoulders ached and his body was all but _ruined_. Cullen was everywhere, his words trailing over Dorian’s sensitive skin, over his cheek, jawline, throat, chest. Leaving a slowly fading path of ruinous, torturous words, voice reverberating in the lowest reservoirs of the mage. Covered in promises and marks, in spent love and sweat and every other perfect, beautiful thing that proved he was _alive_, alive and so very belonging to Cullen.

Dorian was ruined, was stripped down to the very bones of his self; skin, muscle and memory no longer relevant, only his heart remaining, pulse vital and curving into a rhythm designed by the man above him. That beautiful man whose tongue made rivers down Dorian’s body, lips teasing and teeth gently biting, nudging Dorian to the edge _again _as he slowly drove him insane.

Cullen dragged out every droplet of pleasure and bliss, of rapture and connection, two hearts falling helplessly into perfect synchronisation, into rhythm and music, into a song that had once been sung in colour, but now had only physicality to compose with.

And Dorian had already come so _much_. It was all over him, messy and sticky, warm and apparently irresistible to Cullen who cleaned it from Dorian’s stomach with the flat of his tongue, who had taken Dorian deep into his throat the first time, no gag, no struggle for air. Taken him deep and swallowed, fingers digging into the meat of the mage’s hips with one hand, the other sliding around to press into his arse, to find that opening and play with it, make him mad with need.

That was _then_, that was _before_ the second or maybe third time, before Dorian was crying _properly, _before his body was almost completely detached from his mind, heart and soul miles apart and in the space between the two, pinpricks of pleasure-pain pressed night sky blue ink deep enough to brand and it drew the shape of him, of Cullen because…

Because it had always been Cullen, ever since they’d first met, ever since that first time. Cullen’s love was Dorian’s. The mage’s spend was Cullen’s, orgasms shared and everything wet, everything _theirs_. Messy, marked and the two of them as close as they could be, closer still than natural law dictated.

That was _before_ Cullen had taken him apart, taken control and gifted him the whole world with both hands, with bruises and blood, with leather lash marks and promises, wringing out all the goodness Dorian’s body could generate.

Now… _now_ Dorian was close to sobbing, was close to losing consciousness, close to that feeling he’d only ever experienced twice, that stunning, formless _drop. _

‘Just one more time, Dorian,’ Cullen whispered in his ear, fucking him in leisurely fashion, but never shallow, never _softly._ Cock deep enough that Dorian felt as though it was pressing against his _heart_, against the very deepest core of his self, against his fresh born magic, untainted by necessity of blood. Cullen fucked Dorian like he was made for it and he was, Dorian would swear it, would swear _anything _then. Fall to his knees and declare Cullen the Maker in the flesh. He was far gone, clinging to the edge of reality because Cullen needed him to, because Cullen wanted… ‘Just _one more time _for me. I’ve got you, my love. I’ve got you.’

Dorian felt every inch of that possession. Cullen inside him, fucking him with controlled thrusts, the way slick with magic and with all Cullen’s previous spend, his pleasure born of Dorian. Using bodies and love to make stars burst behind the eyes, to wash away the cold taint of things Dorian could still not yet comprehend. It might have sounded stupid once, might have seemed _far-fetched_, the idea of losing himself in someone, in giving himself completely and knowing, with perfect trust, that he was _safe_.

It might have seemed impossible, once.

But he knew then, tied with silk and caged in by strong, sure arms and the body of the man he loved, that it was true. Cullen possessed him.

Cullen had him, Cullen _had him_ and that was all that mattered.

And Cullen had found strength in control, in taking what the mage could not bear to shoulder. They were flip-sides of a coin, they were the moon and the sun. What Dorian needed taken, Cullen needed to take.

And how Dorian needed to be _taken _then. To be tied. To be remade.

It was pain and love, bruises and lashes, finger marks and bite marks. It was blood and come, sweat and tears, words and promises. So many promises, so _many_ words. In the outside world, Dorian was the _talker_ and Cullen always seemed to be the strong silent type.

But in _their _world, all Dorian could do was sob. Reduced to wordless begging and pleading while Cullen muttered an endless litany of praise, of love, of things that hurt to hear. Spoke of things that packed Dorian’s chest with wool and set his skin on _fire_, heart lost to that man above and around him, ruined and wrecked, reborn and remade with love, with that most extreme form of their love because they dealt in extremes, always had.

It was pure. It was perfect.

It was _torture_.

Cullen had said once that no one knew how to hurt Dorian like he did and that was true. No one had ever made Dorian feel this, no one had come close.

‘I can’t,’ the mage panted, eyes glassy, vision swimming as Cullen slid out of him, three fingers quickly replacing his cock to find that sweet spot inside with practised precision. Dorian’s whole body jolted when he found it, a burst of aching, agonising lightning shocking through him, sending his back arching, cock hard despite itself, despite the sheer fucking insanity of how many times he’d come now, giving his teenage-self a run for his money, surely. ‘I can’t, _please_.’

And it was so perfect, because Cullen knew not to stop, not to hesitate, not to even _think_ of giving in. It wasn’t the watchword and so nothing would stop him. Cullen brought their mouths together, not kissing, just holding them close as they breathed. His jaw was slack, his lips moving lightly over Dorian’s, stubble against stubble, days of unshaven scratchy mess that Dorian’s pleasure worn body could barely even _feel_, fucked out as he was. Too busy to shave, too caught up in _loss_ to attend to the smaller details.

‘You can,’ he insisted, fingering Dorian harder, rubbing over that spot mercilessly, ruthlessly driving him to the edge of sanity. ‘You can and you _will_ because you’re mine. Say it for me.’

Dorian’s eyes screwed shut in the distant approach of something mammoth, something dry and possibly deadly, not unlike a _heart attack. __‘_Y-yes,’ he managed, voice unfamiliar to his own ears. ‘I’m yours, Cullen, yours.’

Cullen growled, hand flying to Dorian’s hair, wrenching him back to expose the lines of his neck, to reveal a scar there that Dorian didn't know how to feel about, still had not quite processed, but Cullen didn’t bite him there, made no move to fit his teeth over the mark of possession. The snarl rumbled in his chest and as he held Dorian’s throat exposed, pulling hair with one hand, drawing out an orgasm to rival the fucking _apocalypse_ with the other, he bent and dragged his tongue from the hollow of Dorian’s collarbone, all the way up into his mouth where finally, _finally_ they were kissing again. Kissing and moaning and tongue-fucking like the world was going to end at any moment and maybe it was.

Dorian wrenched to the side but only to draw in air lest he pass out. ‘Yes, you are,’ Cullen panted, lost to madness, lost to love and all the millions of tiny things between the two. Dorian _loved _him, oh how he loved him. ‘You’re mine and I’m going to make you feel every bit of it.’ He bent to press his lips to Dorian’s ear, speaking smooth and low, all silken violence and threats cast in satin. ‘You’re going to come again.’

Dorian was crying openly. _‘Please.’_

_‘_You’re going to come and there’s nothing you can do, my mage.’

‘Cullen, Maker, _please!_’

‘Let it all go for me. I _have_ you. You’re safe and you’re _mine_. I’ve got you, Dorian, now and always.’ He swapped his fingers for his cock again, barely a second where Dorian was empty, but he sobbed at the momentary loss anyway, soothed instantly by the return of that perfect, long, thick cock, burying itself deep, where it belonged, where _he_ belonged. ‘Nowhere you could go that I wouldn’t follow, nowhere without me.’ Cullen fucked him in earnest, no slow build up, no teasing elements. All or nothing and Cullen didn't know _how_ to give nothing, had never been able to give Dorian less than his absolute and utmost everything. ‘Want to make you feel it, how you make me feel, love. Make you feel what you do to me, how _wild_ you drive me. Maker, but you’re too beautiful. Look at you. How am I ever supposed to be even a—_fuck_— even an inch away from you? I’m—ahhh, Maker— going to make you feel every bit of how _beautiful_ and perfect you are!’

It rolled, slow and heaving, up Dorian’s spine; a tidal wave of burnt gold, absolute, unbearable _rapture. _Dorian’s mind was pulling like a bird on a string, trying to get free of his body and as the wave crested, Cullen’s cock slamming in and out, smashing into his pleasure-worn body, drove mercilessly over the place inside Dorian’s sore, slick arse, it finally snapped _free_.

The pleasure hit, the orgasm was wrung out, Dorian’s cock twitching dryly with nothing liquid left to give and Dorian… Dorian _dropped. _

He dropped and then he drifted. He floated in soft, velvet darkness, at ease, at peace, happy and safe and absolutely perfect.

Dorian was perfect.

Oh, it was _nice_ to be perfect.

He floated, formless and shapeless, time meaningless and little but myth, until he heard Cullen’s voice calling him back, felt calloused hands stroking his hair, scarred lips kissing his own and he remembered he had a body of his own, he had _a body_. Slowly, blissfully, he returned to find himself safe and loved, found himself to be Cullen’s _Dorian_, Cullen’s most adored, Cullen’s beloved mage.

There wasn’t an ounce of strength left in him, not even enough to lift his arms but that was fine, he didn’t need to because Cullen was carefully, attentively untying the silk he’d so thoughtfully torn into strips to bind the mage. He untied him and kissed his wrists, placed them carefully atop Dorian’s sternum.

And then, like he couldn’t _help_ himself, he kissed Dorian again. A deep, shuddering thing, touching him like he didn’t know how, like he was shaking apart with all that adoration, with how much Dorian affected him. With so much love, so much intensity that it simply couldn’t be real. No one could love _this much_, could they?

Cullen kissed Dorian and told him, quite unnecessarily, that he loved him more than anything else in the world.

Dorian lay there, wiped out, stripped bare and utterly _unmade_. Cullen was cleaning him, was loving him, was caring for him in ways that the mage couldn’t even fathom just then because his consciousness was fading, but this time for natural causes, the lull of darkness and rest with intent to awaken refreshed hours later.

‘Sleep, my love,’ Cullen said, kissing his forehead when he was clean, drawing the turquoise satin covers over the mage’s shoulders and stroking his hair. ‘I’ll be here the whole time.’

Dorian wanted to smile but hadn’t the energy. He closed his eyes and saw gold, tasted only Cullen, felt only love.

*

Kissing, Dorian decided, was the best way to be roused from sleep. The second best way was with tea and food, which Cullen also had on a tray on the bedside table. Lazily, Dorian laced his arms around Cullen’s neck and pulled the man atop him, satin covers between them and not much else.

‘Mmm,’ Dorian sighed as Cullen licked into his mouth, fingers carding through his hair, over his skin. ‘Morning.’

‘It’s still night,’ Cullen pointed out, though he sounded like he could have genuinely cared less. ‘I’d have let you sleep for a week if that’s what you wanted, but…’

Dorian understood. ‘But we need to talk.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine,’ the mage said easily but he didn’t let go of Cullen, not at all. He threw his weight suddenly, pulling Cullen down and rolling on top of him, kissing from the new position atop the former Templar. ‘We can talk while I feel every part of you.’

Cullen smiled wryly, hands trailing down Dorian’s bare sides, fingertips hovering now and then to feel over some pretty mark he’d made a few hours previous, marks Dorian had begged for, had needed to feel _alive_ again, to feel grounded. ‘You’re so beautiful.’

‘See? We’re talking just fine.’

‘I have something to give you.’

‘Oh really? Something… _else_?’

‘Yes, something else,’ Cullen said, mouth curling in amusement at Dorian’s sudden interest. ‘But I’ll wait until later.’

Dorian sat up, hands braced on Cullen’s bare chest, low slung trousers doing precious little to conceal the evidence of how Dorian affected him. ‘I want it now.’

‘Well, you can’t have it now. We need to talk.’

Dorian rolled his hips, pushing his fingers through Cullen’s chest hair, lazy and teasing, a playful smirk playing about his lips. ‘So talk.’

‘That seems slightly unfair.’

‘No one said loving a bratty mage would be easy.’

Something in Cullen’s expression eased. ‘I wouldn’t have you any other way.’

‘So, come on then. Talk to me, darling.’

He shivered at that. ‘I like when you call me darling.’

‘I know you do,’ Dorian said swiftly, determined to divert all Cullen’s best intentions and march them down a road of ruin. ‘What else do you like?’

That made Cullen smile wide, something like the start of laughter bubbling in his chest and Dorian just didn’t have the heart to be annoyed. There was an undeniably _playful_ air between them. Giddy and happy and for once, just _once_, no big bad lurking outside the door. Lightweight, almost.

‘We can't, my love,’ he said, hands gliding over Dorian’s ribs as he surged up to brand Dorian with a kiss, a mark of love and a kind of temporary finality. A full stop where Dorian wanted a comma. ‘The things we have to talk about are… _not_ especially sexy.’

Dorian, naked and marked up, sighed in a highly put upon manner. ‘Maker, _fine_. Letting a trifling thing like me _dying_ come between the physical manifestation of our love. Whatever’s next, Cullen? Where are your priorities?’

‘With you,’ the blond said simply, honestly, eyes shining with all that love from last night, from the very moment they’d met. ‘Have some tea.’

Dorian glanced at the tray and groaned. ‘Oh holy fucking _void, _is that an apple flip?’

‘It is,’ Cullen said slyly, carefully retrieving the plate from the tray, Dorian still in his lap. ‘Joy made them to cheer me up. She uh, still thinks you’re dead. I didn’t correct her and she hurried away before my atrocious attempts at lying made anything worse.’

‘I only see one here.’

‘Yes, I ate the other. They were _both_ intended for me.’

‘If you loved me, you would have saved it for me.’

_‘Because_ I love you, I didn’t eat both and simply pretend they never existed.’ He stroked Dorian’s face, hand moving down his back. ‘How do you feel?’

Dorian took the apple flip, heedless of crumbs and mess, and bit into the flaky, golden pastry, sugary warm apples flooding his senses. He rolled his eyes and moaned. ‘Amazing.’

‘Are you sure?’ Cullen pressed, stroking patterns into his back.

‘Well,’ Dorian allowed, chewing. ‘Aside from being fucked into unconsciousness and pleasantly sore, of course.’

Cullen was kissing his neck. ‘Of course.’

And it was… weird. To be eating delicious things while naked, to be in the arms of a man who had said they needed _to talk_ and was yet somehow not talking a whole lot, pressing messy, open mouthed kisses to the mage’s throat, hands running over the cheeks of Dorian’s upper arse which were streaked with imprints from the force of a leather belt, fingertips gently tracing the ridges of those marks. Weird and _perfect_. It was how Dorian wanted to spend every morning for the rest of his life, he realised.

How fucking strange was that?

For a moment, after he took another bite of the flip, he indulged in imagining if he went back in time one year ago and explain to his younger self, to _Dorian of the Past_ that in less than a year, this would be his life.

Dorian of the Past was likely to set his eyebrows on fire for spreading such lunacy and lies.

When he brushed crumbs off of Cullen’s shoulders, Dorian froze.

‘Uh,’ he said, realising something for the first time. ‘Where the fuck are your scars?’

Cullen looked up at him. ‘Let’s talk.’

*

Cullen talked and Dorian listened. He drank tea and he wrapped himself in expensive, beautiful blankets and he listened to everything. Cullen laid it all out, piece by piece, every single thing that had happened since Dorian’s curse took him in Kinloch Hold. The fight between him and Jassen, the lightning sword, the others arriving, his Father telling Cullen that it might be possible to save him.

He told Dorian about Keenan, about Nalari and the others, about Samson and about Hawke. He told Dorian about Fenris and Leliana, about everyone who had helped him, who had grieved for Dorian. He spoke of Halward, what he’d said to Cullen. Dorian drank it all in, slowly piecing together the world _without_ him.

Then he spoke of the ritual. Of taking Jassen with him. Of _trials_.

And Dorian began to get angry.

He had decided, when they’d started talking, that he wasn’t going to get angry. He really wasn’t. What’s done was done and there had seemed no point in letting anger complicate something that had taken so long to become _un_complicated.

Still, he had to bite down on the anger and contained himself because Cullen had _brought him back_ and he deserved to be heard out fully. The thought of the sheer fucking risk, though; that was harder to swallow.

‘There was a guide through the trials,’ Cullen said, while Dorian sat there in front of him, trying to temper his heart. ‘It was your Mother.’

Dorian blinked. ‘_What?__’_

Cullen’s throat bobbed for a moment as he chose his words. ‘Aquinea Pavus was my… _our_ guide through the trials into the Well. Her spirit, at least.’

Dorian felt like all the air had been sucked right out of the room. ‘Did you speak with her?’ he heard himself asking, sounding oddly young.

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me.’

So Cullen did, and Dorian listened some more. The man sat before him had obviously taken great pains to remember as much as possible, for most of what he recounted seemed verbatim and Dorian could sense, just by the phrases and the turn in which they were delivered, the authenticity of Cullen’s claim. He could _hear_ her, his mother, _through_ Cullen.

‘She… said that?’ he uttered, expression entirely vacant, eyes burning.

‘Yes, she said that.’

Dorian looked down, breathing shallow and careful, like a deep inhale would cause something rattling and loose to come bursting out in turn. ‘Say it again?’

Cullen took his hand. ‘No Mother could be prouder.’

Dorian squeezed hard, the motion of a sob he’d kept buried for a very long time causing his back to quake, his interior to strongly and sternly _rebel_ against his attempts not to cry. He hadn’t cried at all, not once. Not when he found out, not in the weeks following, not when he learnt it had been Jassen’s hand guiding poison towards her. He’d thought himself above it, beyond it and had not cried once for the loss of her.

But it was there, waiting. That grief for his mother. For the woman who had made him, for the one person in the world he had wanted to see pride in the eyes of. Hearing it, however much the statement was dictated by love and therefore exaggerated for impact, broke something in Dorian then. Something very old, cast and moulded in youth and disappointment in those he had once considered idols. It snapped and gave and Dorian _felt_ her death then.

She was not just far, not only separated by distance and arguments, refusals to reply to her beautiful letters, filled with page upon page of painstakingly selected gossip about all Dorian’s least favourite people in Minrathous. She was not just far away, as some part of him had once insisted.

She was really, truly gone.

It didn’t last long, but Dorian felt every part of it. A few tears and a cold shudder of emotion that was almost frightening to the grown man Dorian had become. To feel _small_ and alone in such a way was jarring, was _foreign_. Cullen held his hand throughout and Dorian was grateful.

When the mage nodded at Cullen to go on, he spoke of the trials and that sorrow turned hot once more. Dorian kept himself quiet throughout because he didn’t want Cullen to have to explain this more than once, more than he wanted to at least.

He told Dorian about how the magic had always known it would have to die for Dorian. That it had always known _everything. _That it had chosen Cullen, among other reasons, primarily because he was worthy of carrying the magic to bring Dorian back to life. That it had always set out to save them both, at the cost of its own existence.

Dorian was almost shocked to see Cullen shed tears of his own while he spoke of it. For Dorian, it was not yet quantifiable. It was a chasm, a cut that had been healed before he’d ever set eyes on it. He felt the aura around where there had once been something decidedly sentient and _alive_, born of them both, and now there was his true born magic once again. Lilac and pure, connected to the world and untouched by any measure of corruption. It was _Dorian__’s _magic, the kind he’d grown up with, the kind he knew.

But it wasn’t _their_ magic and Dorian didn’t know yet how to process the loss like Cullen could. Maybe because he’d been absent throughout.

Cullen wiped his eyes and spoke then of Jassen. Of his plan to reach the Well, banking on the connection to Dorian. Seeking to obtain the power, of his _rule_ in never killing directly and his failure in the trials. Of how his memories combined with the conscious intelligence of the magic had been sufficient sacrifice to exchange for Dorian.

Of what he had tried to do to Cullen.

Dorian looked away, letting slip a low hiss, but Cullen pushed on, undeterred. He talked of carrying Dorian’s soul back to their world inside him, of the weight and the rain and the demons come clamouring for a warm, vacant body. Of restarting Dorian’s heart and pushing water from his lungs with his own breath.

_Breach and breathe_, Dorian thought, missing the coils of that other magic then, missing the shape of it.

‘And then,’ Cullen finished heavily. ‘There you were.’

Dorian let it sink in for a moment, let silence form a thin balm over the burn. ‘So, sundown is the imperative?’

‘Yes. We need to decide who will be allowed to remember this, who will know.’

Dorian looked away, something hot and pressurised building steadily. ‘Only those touching you. It’s designed to keep the number purposefully small.’

‘It is, I agree.’

The mage’s jaw tightened slightly, avoiding Cullen’s gaze, instinct guiding his next question. ‘What did you leave out?’

Cullen sighed. ‘Two things. While in within the truth rune, Jassen claimed not to have been the spy, even via use of Cole. He was very specific and while I have every reason to doubt him, the rune did not falter.’

Dorian nodded dully because that didn’t matter, not just then. ‘And?’

‘And… the other I would save for later. It is of no immediate urgency and it is nothing bad. It’s… to do with what I have to give you.’

‘This is a lot to take in.’

Cullen was still holding his hand. ‘You’re angry.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said in a shaky, quiet exhale. ‘I’m so angry I don’t know what to do with it. It’s the kind of anger I felt when you nearly killed yourself from weeks of neglect. When you went back on lyrium to spite me.’

‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Dorian,’ Cullen said in a tone that proceeded the next part. ‘I’m _not_ sorry for what I did, though.’

Dorian scoffed and pulled his hand away carefully, sliding off of the bed and walking for no other reason than to put distance between them.

‘You could have died, many times over.’

‘Yes.’

‘Imagine if it was me. Reverse the situation, Cullen. How would you feel?’

‘Furious, probably. I would feel that you were too precious to risk for me and that, perhaps in some way, you were even dishonouring my death by showing so little care for _your_ life. I would be angry, absolutely.’

Dorian gripped his upper arms and tried to find the right words.

‘When I first met you, I was a mess and so were you. So much of those earlier days was about risk for me. It was wanting to get close to the edge of something truly dangerous and _feel_ it. You were risk incarnate to me but now the idea of any risk to you is unthinkable. There will never be a risk free world for us, no matter where we go or what we do. There is risk in everything so all I will say is this. Do not risk _this_ ever again and neither will I.’

Cullen stared calmly before asking, ‘Are you saying never to risk myself for you?’

‘I’m saying let’s protect each other from risk from now on, rather than inviting it, all right? Jassen is gone, in every way that matters. His connection to you is completely gone. I can feel it and so can you. My blood curse is gone. My magic is… it’s natural once more. I’m not corrupted. This is as fresh a start as people like us ever get, if not far fresher, to be perfectly honest. This life, this state of being with you… it’s a gift.’ Dorian looked up intently. ‘Where I can be self-destructive, you can be self-sacrificing. Let’s do everything we can to counter that. To live the best life we can. _That__’s_ what I’m saying.’

Cullen sounded hesitant when he said, ‘I thought for sure you were going to hit me.’

Dorian laughed softly. ‘I still might. You have… issues, my darling. I have them too. We’re quite the pair, I think. But I love you more than words can ever say so I’m willing to self-destruct _less_ if you’re willing to put yourself first _more_.’

‘Put me before you?’

Dorian shrugged. ‘Well all right, tie for first.’

It was a long moment before Cullen, seeming still and just a fraction vulnerable, said, ‘I can do that.’

‘Second chances are rare in this life.’

‘I agree.’

‘So, let’s not fuck it up.’

Cullen cracked a small smile. ‘Let’s not fuck it up,’ he echoed dutifully.

‘I’m probably still going to hit you.’

Cullen shrugged that time, something both patient and eminently playful moving behind those impossibly beautiful eyes. ‘I don’t mind nostalgia.’

And while it stirred something similar in Dorian, made him want to lean towards the man, to touch, to connect and connect _hard_, he held himself back because he still had more to say. ‘You’re everything to me. Do you have any idea how important that makes you, to the world? To be the most favourite thing of Dorian Pavus?’

‘Scion of House Pavus, Altus and mage extraordinaire.’

‘Precisely. I’ll not have you slinking around thinking you’re anything less than magnificent, not if you’re _truly_ mine.’

Cullen didn't miss a beat. ‘I am yours and _you_ are mine. That, if nothing else, is certain.’

They stared at each other, the air between them clear and empty for the first time in a long time, maybe _ever_. There was nothing _there_ to keep them apart, no secrets, no lies, no dark and encroaching past creeping into the present. No blood curses. Just Dorian and just Cullen, looking at each other and talking. It was novel and, Dorian decided, it was nice.

‘I’m still angry.’

‘I know.’

‘On general principal.’ Dorian looked around. ‘I still feel like we’re going to argue.’

Cullen’s patience was apparently never ending. ‘Maybe you should slap me. It might help.’

‘I feel like if I slap you, things will escalate.’

Dorian wanted to be indignant about the rakish way in which Cullen had the audacity to _smirk_. ‘Escalate how?’

The mage huffed. ‘Well, not like _that.__’_

_‘_I think just like that.’

Dorian sulked. ‘We’re definitely still going to argue.’

‘I see that.’

‘Just not right now.’

‘Whatever you want, love.’

‘Right now,’ Dorian said, slowly uncurling his protective posture as he moved closer to Cullen. ‘I want, more than anything, to have a bath.’

‘Then that’s what you’ll have. Although,’ Cullen added with a sad little sigh. ‘You’ll have to do it. I no longer have your magic and if you think I’m carrying buckets of boiled water from the basement of this castle to the tower in a futile attempt to fill that _crater_ of a bath, you’ve severely overestimated how much I love you.’

Dorian closed the empty distance between them, stroking Cullen’s face. ‘I’m sorry.’

Cullen’s hand rested atop Dorian’s, eyes closed. ‘It was _your_ magic.’

‘It was our magic. We made it together.’

Cullen heaved a sigh but he was smiling, cleverly pulling the mage down to straddle him as he sat on the edge of the bed. ‘It doesn’t matter, so long as I have you.’

Dorian pushed his fingers through golden curls, something he was sure he would never, ever tire of. Cullen smelled of dried rain and wetlands, of elfroot and leather. Dorian pressed his nose into the curls, luxuriating in both sensation and scent, sliding his arms around Cullen’s back, drawing them close. He wanted Cullen’s natural scent back, sea-salt and honey, the air before a storm. He would wash away all else, make them both clean and fresh before they faced what lay ahead.

‘You have me,’ he promised in a throaty little whisper. ‘You have me, Cullen.’

He hoped, for now, it was enough.

*

‘You should have a drink,’ Fenris said, eyeing the Spymaster as she paced up and down the warm, low lit kitchen. ‘It’ll help.’

Leliana gave Fenris’s wine bottle a heated glare. ‘I don’t drink.’

‘Of course you don’t.’

‘Of course you _do_.’

‘He’s fine. They’re _both_ fine. If they weren’t, you’d hear about it.’ Fenris watched for a few more seconds before scowling mildly and pouring himself another glass, elbows atop the kitchen table. They were reasonably alone, a few people coming and going now and then, servants seeing to the minutia of the castle. This was where the wine was, albeit _cooking_ wine, so this was where Fenris had set up shop while his ribs healed. Leliana had found him a while ago, in a strange and somewhat fretful mood. ‘You’re giving me a headache, either sit down and have a drink or—’

‘Or what?’ she snapped, whipping around so fast that it raised the hairs on the back of Fenris’ neck. ‘Or _what_? What are you going to do?’

Fenris watched her, taking a measured mouthful of the atrocious wine. That was one thing he missed about Tevinter. Exceptional wine. Fenris had almost forgotten what passed for wine in the South, though there was no avoiding the memory anymore. ‘I was going to say _or fuck off, _but now I’m reassessing my odds for survival.’

She chuckled darkly, the laughter not enough to permeate whatever kind of mood she was in. ‘A wise choice.’

‘You know what we have in common?’ he asked, topping up the wine.

Leliana sighed with disgust but she did sit down after a beat. ‘Astonish me.’

Fenris gave her a sardonic smile. ‘Neither of us have last names.’

That time, when she smiled it was a little more real. Fenris drank and he smiled back.

‘That’s not what I expected you to say.’

‘You thought I’d say something like how we both love Cullen.’

‘The Lyrium Ghost is fond of prose.’

‘And the Nightingale’s song is sharper than her blades. It’s obvious we both care about him, too obvious to mention.’

‘I have a last name.’

Fenris inclined his head, eyes narrowing. ‘Do you, though?’

She huffed. ‘You have a last name too and a real first name. Why not go by Leto?’

Fenris drank. ‘Because he’s dead. I was fortunate enough to have a creative master who chose a name I could live with. I like it, the name. I like being Fenris. Leto was weak, I know that much. He didn’t survive the transformation. I did.’

‘My, how the world is just _crammed_ with men choosing their own names.’

‘I didn’t choose this name. I chose to make it mine, to own it in a way Danarius never did. There’s a difference.’

Leliana crossed her arms. ‘I didn’t mean to compare you to Hawke.’

‘Yet that’s precisely what you did.’ Fenris shook his head, something shifting beneath his ribs. ‘Is he to be executed?’

‘I suspect _not_, despite how I will make a case for precisely that.’

‘Why not just kill him yourself?’

‘Maybe,’ she sighed, staring at the stove, at the glowing embers within the oven door. ‘I’m tired of killing. Of living in perpetual darkness for the good of the world.’

‘Vendhedis, woman, have some fucking wine.’

He pushed the bottle towards her, a clean cup along with it. She didn’t touch either.

‘Did you believe he would return?’

‘Yes.’

‘I… had my doubts.’

Fenris slanted an eyebrow at her. ‘Is that why you’re in such a mood?’

‘I am _not_ in a mood, I am simply perturbed.’

‘You were worried about him.’

‘Of course I was _worried_ about him; he entered the _Fade_,’ she said, speaking to him as if he were slow. ‘And he brought Dorian back to life, a feat that should have been impossible and yet he has barely spoken two words about it, so how I’m meant to accurately prepare for whatever fallout may be—’

‘Oh, that’s it then.’

‘Excuse me?’

Fenris grinned slyly. ‘It’s the _not knowing_, that’s what’s driving you crazy.’

Oh, if looks could kill, Fenris would have been in tiny slivers.

‘I am _not_ crazy.’

‘You’re one of those who likes to know every little detail.’

‘Call me _one of those _again and see what happens.’

Still amused, but letting some of his features soften, Fenris said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘Well, nothing really, but that’s what people say, isn’t it?’

She poured herself some wine. ‘Is it? I don’t.’

‘There are worse ways to go through life.’

‘Save your empty apology. I am merely frustrated. It is no easy thing to set events in motion and see people go off into the fray, forced to remain behind. You are simply….’ Leliana gestured at him, up and down. ‘There.’

Fenris nodded slowly while Leliana took a sip of the wine and instantly recoiled. ‘Yes, it’s not good wine.’

‘_Not good_ is an immeasurably generous assessment,’ she said, swallowing audibly, casting a glance around the kitchen, in particular the top shelves. ‘I happen to know that there is whiskey in here.’

‘That’s usually a good bet in a kitchen.’

As she got up to rifle around in the cupboards, behind sacks of flour and such, she continued to speak. ‘How long did Jassen have you?’

‘Close on a year.’

‘Do you have any internalised torture and pain you’d like to speak about?’

‘No.’

‘Well good, because my talents do not extend to sympathy and empathy. A_ha_!’ She pulled down a half empty bottle of what looked like Backcountry Reserve. Leliana brought two smaller cups with her, pouring a generous amount into each one before sitting again.

Fenris grasped his cup, eyeing her. ‘I thought you didn’t drink.’

‘Today, I shall make an exception.’ Leliana lifted her cup. ‘To your health.’

He echoed the gesture. ‘To yours, Spymaster.’

She drained the cup expertly, not wincing. ‘Don’t call me that.’

Fenris sipped his instead of draining it, taking his time with something that had been distilled with a modicum of care. ‘Fair enough. Cullen is much changed from when I last saw him two years ago.’

Leliana nodded and refilled her cup. ‘Is he? I only knew him through letters so I have little basis for comparison, save for the first time we met, of course, but those were extreme circumstances.’

‘I know how much your letters meant to him.’

She laughed quietly at that, swirling the amber liquid before draining it once more. ‘He never kept any of them.’

Fenris looked down. ‘I think he trusted that you would always write more. That he didn’t _have_ to keep them.’

Her gaze hardened, the air turning brittle. ‘I hope Jassen died painfully.’

‘Would that set you at ease?’

‘I deeply regret not being able to have at least _witnessed_ the killing blow for what he did to Cullen.’

‘I feel much the same. Jassen was a complicated man but he _was_ evil, I’ve no doubt of that. What he had planned for Cullen, there was no goodness in it, even in the intention. I dare to hope that Cullen found some measure of closure in his passing. Despite seeing him in such a state, Cullen is…’ Fenris paused, seeking the right words. ‘The best version of himself.’

‘Because of Dorian.’

‘Dorian seems to have been the catalyst for much of the change, yes.’ After a brief pause, he added somewhat grimly, ‘Jassen claimed that they were bound by blood curses, by two opposing forces drawing them together.’

Leliana took another drink. ‘I only know they shared magic and, despite _not_ being prone to prose as some are, that they are very much in love. I have never known Cullen to be happy. Not since I met him.’

‘Nor I. Fate is strange, no?’

‘For it to be a mage?’

‘For any of this.’

‘Indeed.’

Silence stretched on. No one had come in or out through the doors for a while and the pair just sat, drinking quietly, existing in the same space.

‘Do you love him still?’ Leliana asked very quietly and Fenris knew it was coming, could sense the slowly building question as she drew breath to form it.

And he knew who she meant too. Could feel it.

‘I don’t think so. I need to talk to him, though.’

Slowly, Leliana nodded. She was staring very determinedly down at her cup, at the whiskey within that she had yet to drink. Fenris was unsure of the atmosphere, of the direction in which their companionship, for lack of a better word, was headed. There was a strange kind of tension in the air, an element of interaction that had once been well known to Fenris. Times, years ago, when he had sat with Hawke in the Hanged Man and silence crept between them, heat in the air and electricity in all their looks. He’d been good at recognising it then, had known what to expect because he was sure of himself.

A year back in chains, returned to slavery, albeit with _Jassen_, had removed much of that surety, of his confidence in understanding the nuances of _company. _

And more than anything, he did not want to complicate anything with a mistaken assumption. She was beautiful and she was terrifying and those were twin aspects that Fenris had always been just a little bit weak for but now was not the time and he suspected she knew the same, if indeed she _had_ been contemplating what he was.

‘Maybe you should do so sooner rather than later,’ she said in a hollow way, finishing off the whiskey. ‘Sunrise is going to set everything back in motion. In my experience, rats like him tend to scurry at the first sign of light.’

Fenris surveyed her. She was still tense, despite the whiskey, despite the three times he’d managed to earn a smile. Yes, he wanted to go to Hawke and speak with him again. Yes, he longed for cold, clean air and solitude. To look upon the sky after so long in captivity.

‘I’ll stay a while longer if that sits well enough with you, Leliana.’

The fourth smile, Fenris decided, was more than worth it.

*

Hot water led to relaxed muscles. Soaps and oils led to hands moving and cleaning. Clean skin and happy hearts led to touching and kissing and _kissing_ should probably have led somewhere else, but just then, in the beautiful inset stone bath filled with perfectly heated water, Dorian just wanted to bask in the luxury of unhurried kissing and so did Cullen.

It was languid and leisurely, hands moving over skin, through wet hair, mouths making kisses and kisses driving hearts wild, but there was no impetus to move it on, to evolve. Dorian sort of _loved it_. He knew without casting around for memories that there had never been anyone else in his life with whom he’d just _made out_. Just lay there, naked, wet and warm, body relaxed and clean, kissing simply for the sake of it.

And Cullen was a talented kisser, always had been. Or maybe he wasn’t talented, maybe he just kissed exactly how Dorian loved to be kissed. To be held, to be so deeply, completely _loved. _

It was unhurried and thorough, kissing like they had all the time in the world when both knew that wasn’t the case. Cullen kissed Dorian like he wanted to get lost in him, lips slanted perfectly, tongue curling lazily against the mage’s, hands always _moving_, even gentle and slow, always moving like he just couldn’t get enough of _touching_ him. Chest to chest, hearts weaving a rhythm to find and match with the other. Dorian’s legs wrapped around Cullen’s waist, the water up past his nipples as they sat in the middle of the bath at the deepest point.

It was perfect; a stolen slice of time, removed from reality and Dorian didn’t feel the least bit bad for it. There would always be necessities. Always be risks and extremes. Living in the world and being a part of it demanded nothing less and he knew that, respected it completely, but just then, for that tiny portion of time, there was no world, there was nothing outside of Cullen.

Nothing beyond the feel of him, of his scar-free skin, memories and maps taken by Jassen, all but the one marring the lips moving over Dorian’s own, crafting kisses with friction, drawing an endless rhythm of intimacy and depth. That scar remained and Dorian could feel it while they kissed, but it didn’t matter, it didn’t _matter_ then because there was nothing outside of them. Nothing beyond the world framed by their backs, nothing but benign silence and darkness sweet like blackberries.

Cullen broke the kiss gently, placing his hand over Dorian’s heart, forehead resting against the mage’s. He said nothing, didn’t have to.

It was plain, writ large and carved deep.

Dorian smiled, a thing born purely of his regard for Cullen, born of all that _love_ and adoration and respect. It was crystal clear then, set in the most basic of intimacy, water all around them, Dorian’s lilac magic swirling lightly within as it looked upon Cullen with something that could have been called _recognition_, if not mild curiosity.

It was just so fucking _clear_.

Dorian felt like he’d reached the top of a high place, somewhere he’d been striving for, never knowing what would be at the top, never knowing what the world would look like when standing at that certain point. He held Cullen’s face in his hands, heart solidifying the feeling, hoping to keep it for all time.

It was meant to be. _They _were meant to be.

Dorian almost wanted to laugh, it made him so happy, so fucking _giddy. _

Instead, he put his own hand over Cullen’s heart, liking the wordless gesture, existing in the moment and nowhere else.

He was present in his own happiness and it was a thing to behold. Beautiful, life affirming. Almost as beautiful as the man in the water with him.

_Meant to be,_ his heart sang.

For the first time, Dorian let himself believe that he deserved it.

*

‘Have you decided yet?’

Dorian was dressed and dry, warm and relaxed. He was ready for the question, ready for all of it. Cullen pulled on a fresh pair of Dorian’s trousers that fit rather well, save for the bottom of the ankles being a _tad_ too short, but that would be hidden by boots and Dorian wasn’t letting him leave to get clothes, probably wasn’t going to let him leave his side for a while, if _ever_.

‘I don’t think it’s my decision to make.’

‘I knew you were going to say that.’

Dorian rolled his eyes and grinned. ‘Well, obviously Ellana and Sera. My Father also. I need to speak with him first, actually. Without the others, preferably.’

‘Leliana and Fenris need to remember.’

‘Bull, Cole, Rainier, Cassandra, Josephine, Solas, Varric and Vivienne too.’

‘So, the entire inner circle, then?’

‘They deserve to know, don’t they? After all they’ve done. Maker, what about the kids? Surely they’d be happier _not_ knowing, don’t you thi—’

‘Not Keenan,’ Cullen said quickly, almost curtly. ‘He needs to remember. You can’t take away his grief.’

Dorian fell silent for a moment, yet again contemplating the vast ocean of _Things That Had Happened While He Was Dead._ Cullen had told him about Keenan blaming himself, about speaking with him in the chapel but there was evidently more to it than that.

Beyond the door, the world beckoned.

‘Nalari too,’ Cullen said, folding a shirt and carefully not looking at Dorian. ‘I hate the idea of… of anything messing with their memory. We don’t even know specifically what memories will be taken and what are we supposed to say in the meantime to those whose memories _are_ removed?’

‘Well that’s easy. We can just say it was Jassen, using magic to make it seem like I was dead while he attempted to get you to perform a ritual in the hopes of bringing me back, during which time he then made a daring escape attempt but was eaten by the demons he conjured in battle.’

Cullen was staring. ‘Huh.’

‘Huh, what? Why _huh_?’

‘Nothing. Just that… your Mother was right. That didn’t even take you ten seconds.’

‘If we let the older ones keep the memory, Nalari and Keenan—’

‘Saffy too.’

‘Oh bloody _void, _Cullen, you’ve turned into a pile of _mush_ where those mages are concerned.’

‘I have not,’ the blond insisted primly. ‘Definitely let the memory fade from Finn’s memory, though. The boy was definitely somewhat _too_ interested in all things blood magic and death related.’

Dorian smirked, pulling his boots on. ‘He’s got potential as a necromancer, that one. Obsessed with the Mortalitasi.’

‘He knew all the blood magic incantations,’ Cullen pointed out. ‘And while we are the last two people in all of Thedas who can say _anything_ about blood magic or… blood in general, you know as well as I do how tricky it can be, how much intent has to do with inception and corruption.’

‘All right. Just the older three then?’

‘I think so,’ Cullen said hesitantly. ‘Maybe Landon too.’

‘They’ve done a number on you.’

‘They have _not_.’

‘Right, oldest _four_ then.’

Cullen sighed. ‘That’s a lot of people touching me.’

‘I think you might have to be at least partially naked.’

‘Very funny.’ They moved around, seeing to the small necessities of the day ahead. ‘How should we proceed with Hawke and Samson?’

It was Dorian’s turn to sigh. ‘Hawke can’t be trusted.’

‘I agree.’

‘I don’t know Samson, I leave that to your understanding of the man but overall, I think he doesn’t need to know.’

‘I think the same. He was pleased that I managed to remove the red lyrium from a boy, a runner named Rob.’

Dorian tilted his head. ‘The runner from the Wilds?’ Cullen smiled in answer. ‘Oh, that’s good. That makes me very happy.’

‘Samson too. I need to speak with him again about the person who was contacting him, the spy. If it truly wasn’t Jassen, then we need to ascertain who exactly it was. I hate the idea of someone lurking in our midst.’

‘Hmm,’ Dorian agreed, locking buckles into place. ‘Especially for someone to slip past Leliana’s notice, even Bull’s.’

‘Exactly. It’s worrying.’

It niggled at Dorian, that worry, but he let it go for the time being.

‘What about Morrigan?’

Cullen snorted ungenerously. ‘Even if she were here, which she is _not_ \- she detached from the returning forces less than a day after Cassandra returned - I would not have her know any more than she has to.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘As far as I know, she’s gone. It’s for the best.’

‘So, the inner circle, Fenris and the four eldest.’

With a slow nod, Cullen met Dorian in the centre of the room, taking his hands thoughtlessly like it was natural to do so. ‘I think so.’

Dorian studied him. ‘You’re thinking about the spy.’

‘Something just doesn’t feel right.’

‘Well, maybe when you speak with Samson, he’ll know more.’

He kissed the back of Dorian’s hands. ‘Maybe.’

‘How long before dawn?’

Cullen’s pretty mouth curved into a teasing smile. ‘True or false?’

Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘True dawn, _obviously_.’

‘I’ll check the sky in a minute, but I estimate roughly two hours.’

‘All right, that should be enough time, don’t you think?’

‘We have to proceed carefully, though. For those who will have the memory removed, we need to wait until after dawn before we see or speak to them. Before we circulate the story about Jassen.’

‘Good point. I suppose we should just…’ Dorian gestured vaguely. ‘_Summon_ people here, then?’

‘Your Father first?’

Dorian felt a strange flutter of something in his chest, the way Cullen said that. Though he didn't really want to think about how Cullen had tried to help Halward in the Circle Tower (he didn’t want to think about the Tower at all, thank you very much) he remembered that part just fine.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘My Father first.’

*

Cole had no apparent problem with bringing Halward to them, the boy stationed outside their door in a way that made Dorian blush to imagine what he’d heard, but then Cole was really the last person in all of Thedas to care about things like sex.

He brought Halward swiftly and quietly to the Tower and Dorian was surprised to find himself enveloped into a very fierce, sweeping kind of _hug_. The feeling was unfamiliar, coming from his Father but Dorian embraced it.

‘Dorian,’ Halward kept saying, his hold intensifying. ‘_Dorian_.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, a bit _awkwardly. __‘_Definitely me.’

Halward didn’t seem to have words so the hugging went on for a good ten more seconds until he let go, wiping his eyes surreptitiously.

He stared at Dorian for a beat before swivelling his gaze to Cullen, who sat nearby, trying to blend in with the furniture.

‘Comman—’ Halward shook his head. ‘_Cullen_,’ he went with instead and Dorian felt some mad urge to step between the two, unable to shake the feeling that somehow, his father was about to say something _not good_ to the man he loved. ‘You have my eternal gratitude and my absolute support, for whatever you may undertake in the future, as we discussed before. I… I cannot ever thank you enough.’

Dorian saw what it took for Cullen to overcome the awkwardness, not to just sit there blinking and stammering because Halward, like Dorian, could be intense sometimes. ‘You’re very welcome, Ser, but please don’t feel the need to thank me so. I would have done, and still would do, anything for your son.’

Halward waved a hand and laughed shakily. ‘None of that _Ser, _now. We’re to be family, are we not?’

Dorian had clearly slipped in the bath and cracked his fucking head wide open because this… _this_ was not real, surely.

‘Call me Halward,’ said Halward_-No-Son-Of Mine-_Pavus_, _all ease and friendliness with the former Templar as he sat at the table with him. ‘And regardless of your humble nature, you have my unswerving gratitude. Dorian, come sit with us, won’t you? I would speak with you both, if you’ll permit me.’

Dorian followed, but years of instinct made him helplessly wary. ‘What for?’

‘Simply to speak. Now. How do you feel, son?’

‘I feel fine,’ Dorian said, speaking nought of belt marks and bruises, though really, at least _some_ of them had to be visible. ‘I’m not in any pain, at least.’

Halward watched Dorian intently, taking his son’s hand beneath both of his atop the small table. The table _he_ had paid for, had ordered be delivered right to Dorian’s room, smuggling in the mage’s copy of _The Watchful Ambler_ right along with it and the rest.

‘You’re certain?’

‘Yes, I really do feel… fine. Very much alive.’

‘That’s good to hear.’ Halward’s gaze shifted to Cullen. ‘And you?’

‘I’m very well, Halward, thank you.’

‘You look tired.’

Cullen laughed softly. ‘Yes, a little.’

‘You haven’t slept?’

‘I will.’

‘Don’t let my son keep you up all night.’

No, really. What the fuck was actually _happening?_

Halward _patted Cullen on the hand_ and then turned his attention fully to his son. ‘Dorian, I…’ his father trailed off, throat sticking slightly and he looked down at the surface of the beautiful, polished table. ‘There are things I need to say to you.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Dorian blurted out. ‘Really, it’s—’

‘I love you very much. I love you completely, in fact. I have always loved you and I have always been incredibly, deeply proud to have you as my son. The failure between us was mine and mine alone. I let society dictate my role as a parent. I allowed selfish needs to come between us and I… I committed unforgivable acts unto you in terms of attempting to change your nature.’

Cullen sat there, still and calm, but Dorian was _certain_ he remembered a time when the blond had offered to _murder_ Halward in cold blood for Dorian.

‘Your nature was never the problem,’ Halward said, holding Dorian’s gaze. ‘_You_ were never the problem. Now,’ he said, leaning back slightly. ‘You don’t need me to tell you any of that. You know how incredible you are. You’re a Pavus, after all.’

Peripherally, Dorian caught Cullen biting down a smile.

‘But, I wanted you to hear me say it. I’m not so naive as to think the air between us will ever be clear, that I have any right to be your Father again after what I did, but… but seeing you die, Dorian. I can say with confidence that my priorities are with you and whatever path you wish to walk.’ He gestured between them. ‘The both of you.’

‘Which means what, precisely?’ Dorian couldn’t help but ask.

‘It means whatever you want it to. _Ideally_,’ Halward said, glancing down, his expression carefully neutral. ‘I might prove myself enough to be a part of your life moving forward, but that will take time, I know.’

How strange that all Dorian had to do was apparently _die_ to earn the love and pride of his parents, one of whom, themselves, was dead.

Some part of Dorian wanted to be exceedingly generous and give his father an escape, nod and gruffly move the subject along but he found himself unable to let it go just yet.

‘To be _extra _clear,’ he said, leaning on the table. ‘You’re perfectly fine with me being in love with Cullen. A man. A former Templar. From the _South_.’

Halward smiled, a hint of a smirk in it like he was almost enjoying Dorian’s suspicion. ‘Yes, I’ve taken rather a shine to your Southern barbarian fiancé. He shows promise.’

Cullen was clearly biting the inside of his cheek now, smile there in all but form.

‘And you’re fine with us marrying?’

‘Though I see no rings on any fingers yet, of course I am fine with it. If you are happy, so am I.’

Dorian crossed his arms and slipped into Tevene.

‘Are you only _fine with it_ because you think we’ll be living in the South, away from prying Tevinter eyes and gossip?’ he spoke in his mother tongue, giving his father a hard stare.

‘Not at all,’ Halward replied in kind, natural accent coming into its own, giving Dorian a strange dose of de ja vu. ‘And pardon the assumption, but I dared to hope you would return to Tevinter, at some point.’

‘To parade me around, mage of the Inquisition, married to the Commander?’

‘No,’ Halward said simply. ‘Just my son. Just to be… nearby. To be a part of your life, if that is something you might want. In whatever capacity you deem fit.’

‘Hmm,’ Dorian said, narrowing his eyes and effortlessly switching back to the common tongue. ‘I’ll consider what you’ve said.’

Halward smiled. ‘Excellent. Now, I have taken the liberty of wiping the memories of those mages who helped with our ritual.’

Dorian rolled his eyes while Cullen blinked a few times. ‘Sorry?’

‘The Magisters, the remaining few, who assisted with the ritual. I wiped their memory. Better not to trust and regret it, believe me. A few of them were already working on sending word ahead of what was accomplished. I removed the memories, a great deal of them in fact, and destroyed what written documentation I found.’ Halward sighed, looking down at his opened palm which, Dorian assumed, bore some kind of recently healed _cut_ for him to have performed blood magic. ‘This is not something you want people knowing, especially not in Tevinter. You know as well as I do, Dorian, that the obsession with resurrection and inter-dimensional travel is rife.’

‘We’re aware, Father,’ Dorian said. ‘But I appreciate you looking out for… for _us_.’

It was more than a little bit surreal when Halward Pavus, who had once subjected his son to blood magic and was indeed, himself, a blood mage, smiled and looked between the both of them.

‘Of course,’ he said staunchly. ‘Anything for family. Now, when do you intend to marry and, more importantly, _where_?’

*

‘I ain’t _summoning _people! Like a poxy butler. _Oh pardon me my lords and ladies, you have been _summoned_! _Pffffft! Fuck that.’

Sera was still hugging Dorian even as she loudly objected.

‘You’re sneaky, though,’ Dorian pointed out, while Cole hovered nearby and Halward sat at the table, leafing through a book and speaking with Cullen, the pair drinking conjured water. Cole was studying the door from the inside, the way a craftsman might. ‘You can _sneak_ around and very quietly tell people to come here, one by one.’

‘Why all the subterfuge?’ she asked, drawing back and eyeing him suspiciously. ‘Is there more drama? Oh friggin’ _cracksacks_, is there actually more drama? I was hoping we were _done_ with the drama, at least for, like, a year. I had plans! Smutty, slutty plans!’

‘Yes, we all have those, Sera. There isn’t any _drama _per se, we just need you all to be here to explain a few things.’

‘Explain what?’ she asked absently tightening one of his buckles. ‘I think everyone got the memo that you’re alive, babe. Or are you _announcing_ something? Oooh, are you, though? Marriage? Elopement? Friggin’ void, you’re not _pregnant_ are you?’

Somewhere behind Dorian, Cullen suffered a very sudden choking fit as his water came right back up again.

Dorian remained centred and steady. ‘Sera,’ he said sternly.

She was snorting with laughter. ‘What? I mean, c’_mon_, it’s not even a stretch with you two is it? All right, all right! I’ll go be sneaky, _summon_ those you deem important enough for a big ol’ night-time _Love Room_ gathering.’ She grinned brightly, eyes wide. ‘Did you… did you get it? _Love Room_?’

‘I got it, Sera.’

‘Cos, War Room—’

‘Sera.’

‘—is where we planned all the war.’

‘Maker’s saggy arse cheeks.’

‘And this…’ she snorted freshly, giggling at her own brand of comedy. ‘Is where you make all the_ lurve_!’

‘Yes, most amusing.’

She shoved him and cackled. ‘Aww, I _missed_ you, Ree!’

Dorian groaned. ‘Not _Ree.__’_

‘I’ll be back in a flash!’ she declared, looking back when halfway out the door. ‘That means not enough time to get naked before I bring the Inquisition trampling in, right?’

‘Yes, we’ll try and contain ourselves with Cole hovering by the door and my _Father_ chatting with Cullen over there,’ he said with a wry smile, despite himself.

When she was gone, Dorian turned his attention to Cole. He approached slowly, quietly. ‘Thank you for standing guard all this time.’

‘Of course,’ Cole said, looking up and gifting Dorian a sweet, mild smile. ‘I was protecting your privacy.’

Dorian’s heart swelled. ‘Can I hug you, Cole?’

‘I think I would like that.’

The mage took the bony spirit, a boy not much older than Keenan in so many regards, and hugged him.

‘I missed you,’ Cole whispered as he awkwardly attempted to hug Dorian back, not quite knowing how and so he ended up plastering himself against the mage. ‘It was much too quiet without you. My insides were loud and the air was colourless and dull. It is a fracture, a crack through the stones that makes way for water, for rivers.’ He looked up at Dorian as they parted. ‘I am sorry I can’t be more useful to you sometimes.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Dorian said firmly brushing off actual cobwebs from the top of the boy’s hat before removing the thing entirely. Beneath it, Cole’s hair wasn’t especially clean, a messy clump and very much dented by the inner ring of his hat. ‘You need a bath, Cole.’

‘I’ve been too busy keeping quiet,’ Cole whispered. ‘It’s hard work, you know.’

‘Yes, I know. Not anymore, though. I’m back now, so you can make as much noise as you like. Tell me everything, all that glorious everything.’

‘I will,’ Cole said, oddly lucid just then. ‘But not right this moment. Maybe after the party. After the rings.’

There came a knock when Cole fell silent, as if proving him right, and Dorian patted his shoulder, opening the door to his friends.

*

They came in stages, which was good. Lavellan and Leliana first. Dorian picked up that tiny elf and spun her around as she clung to him, arms and legs wrapped about him, face buried in his neck. It wasn’t particularly dignified, especially as they had a perfect example of a _dignified_ embrace nearby as demonstrated by Cullen and Leliana, but Dorian simply didn’t care. She was his best friend, first and foremost, even before titles.

‘I missed you so much,’ she told him, voice oddly rigid. ‘Felt like I was cut in half without you.’

‘I’m here now,’ he promised. ‘Sorry for the scare.’

When they drew back, she wiped her eyes, her hand gripping his very hard. ‘I can’t believe he really did it, brought you back.’

‘It’s a good story,’ he said, smiling a little. ‘But we’ll wait until everyone else is here before we roll it out. No point in repeating ourselves.’

After that, the Inquisition trickled in a few at a time, the room becoming steadily fuller. Dorian was hugged and held and kissed. Nalari cried and Landon definitely had tears in his eyes. Keenan… Dorian didn’t quite know how to catalogue the way that the boy, young man really, looked at him. Like he couldn’t quite believe it, like he didn’t _dare_ believe it.

When Dorian moved forward to hug him, he half expected to be shoved away, for the mage to turn and leave but Keenan let himself be hugged, let himself be held.

‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ he breathed and Dorian could feel how much he meant it.

Saffy just smiled and when they hugged she sighed happily. ‘I knew you were coming back,’ she told him, like it was a secret. ‘I just _knew_ it.’

Dorian kissed her hair and whispered back, ‘Of course you did, my darling girl.’

Cassandra came stomping in, something worryingly wild in her eyes. Dorian wondered if he was about to be punched halfway across the room as she made for him but it was apparently only to sweep him up in a fierce embrace, backslapping him twice.

‘You are alive,’ she declared. ‘It is a good thing!’

Dorian laughed and everyone else followed suit. She moved to grab Cullen in the similar kind of greeting and Varric trailed inside, a cocky grin in place.

‘Well, it looks like you’re all hugged out, eh Sparkler?’

‘Just a tad.’

‘I’ll save mine for another day then,’ the dwarf said, dropping a wink and settling into the comfy chair, looking around. ‘Who’s missing?’

Sera closed the door behind her. ‘That’s it,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Couldn’t find Solas or Bull for love nor sodding money. Couple of people saw Solas leave but no one has seen Bull. Might be training, might be scouting, _but_,’ she added, smiling brightly. ‘Tah-dah! Got the rest! All sneaky, as requested!’

‘Very sneaky indeed,’ Vivienne agreed dryly. ‘Some of us were sleeping when she yanked the covers off and decided to douse us with silencing powder.’

Sera snorted. ‘Actually, it was mostly flour. I’m running low and you can stretch that shit pretty far.’

‘You’re lucky it’s easy for me to wash my hair,’ Vivienne said, glaring at the unapologetic elf.

Sera squinted as if about to question the very existence of said hair, but Dorian saved the day.

‘Now that most of you are here,’ Dorian said, glancing over at Cullen who was deeply immersed in conversation with Fenris and Cassandra. Their eyes met, gazes held and Cullen nodded. ‘We’re going to explain everything. The first thing we need to talk about, though, is sunrise.’

*

Explaining things took longer than Dorian anticipated. Mostly due to the sheer number of questions they were faced with as things progressed. Sometimes Cole stepped in to answer whenever Cullen struggled, which was adorable and made Dorian smile, especially if the answer the spirit gave had people scratching their heads. The only one with precious little in the way of questions was Lavellan, who stood towards the back, just listening.

The others though, they had questions.

‘What did the Well of Souls _look_ like?’ Varric asked, as if he wanted a well described area for a scene in an upcoming book.

‘Did you feel the Maker’s presence?’ Cassandra asked.

‘What of these old Gods?’ Vivienne asked.

‘Yeah, what was all this about them re-using old souls? Cos I definitely feel like I had a dick in a past life,’ Sera added thoughtfully and shuddered.

‘And there was no _additional_ price?’ Leliana enquired. ‘Nothing to be taken at a later date?’

‘Was Jassen sorry?’ Fenris asked grimly and Dorian couldn’t field that one on Cullen’s behalf because he didn’t know the answer.

Cullen contemplated for a full moment before telling Fenris that he thought he may have been, at least as much as Jassen was capable. Privately, Dorian didn’t believe that Jassen was sorry, that he knew how to _be_ sorry. It was sickening to know that he was out there somewhere, without his memories, without every moment of his life that had made him who he was, but still _Jassen. _

That was part of it, Dorian supposed.

The questions went on.

Rainier asked, ‘Did you see anyone else in the Well?’

Saffy asked, ‘Could you _feel_ anything while you were dead?’

Landon asked, hand on heart, ‘Did your magic know the whole time that Cullen was the only one who could save you, Dorian?’

Keenan simply questioned, ‘Was it painful, coming back?’

‘Will sunrise remove all memories of this night or only those pertaining to the knowledge that Dorian did indeed die?’ Josephine enquired, all business.

Quietly, Nalari asked them both, ‘Are you all right?’

It was one of the latter questions, as the seemingly endless slog of story-building finally drew to a close, as each query was fully answered.

‘Yes,’ Dorian spoke on behalf of them both. ‘Yes, we’re fine.’

Rainier muttered something about them being better than fine, which earned a nudge from Cassandra, though the Seeker was admittedly smirking.

Throughout it all, Halward had sat towards the back, not needing to ask any questions, keeping himself out of the picture. Dorian appreciated it.

Having answered everything to the best of his ability, throat somewhat dry, Dorian sought out his best friend’s gaze and held it, offering. She just shook her head, smiling sweetly as she leaned her hip against his chest of drawers. Every now and then she looked towards the door, checking to see if anyone else was coming but there were no interruptions, no knocks. Something in Dorian’s stomach coiled uneasily. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world if Bull forgot, they could just tell him all about it again, but _still_.

Cullen, as if sensing this unease, took Dorian’s hand in his. ‘Do you want me to go and find him?’

‘No,’ Dorian said briskly. ‘No, it’s almost sunrise. We can fill him in later. Solas too, should he deign to reappear at any point.’

‘I’d have thought he’d be front and centre,’ Vivienne said quietly, also seeming somewhat concerned. ‘Listening for every detail. I know his interest in the Well was significant, even in academic terms. It is…unexpected for him to be absent.’

‘Corners are folding, doors becoming walls as the gardens change forever. A harsh winter shapes the landscape forever, no matter the summers to come,’ was Cole’s sage contribution.

‘Quite, my dear,’ Vivienne said, eyeing Cole with only a very _little_ distaste which Dorian counted as a win. ‘Shall we, then?’

‘Does it have to be skin?’ Landon asked, rolling up his sleeves in bafflingly quaint fashion.

‘No one has to touch _you_, Lan,’ Saffy pointed out.

‘Well, I’m just…. Y’know. Preparing!’

‘Come on,’ Cullen said, looking at the glass windows. ‘There isn’t much time.’

‘You should probably take your shirt off, darling,’ Dorian said, not bothering to hide his mischievous tone and Cullen sighed, but there was nothing in it, not really. He pulled his shirt over his head revealing a body entirely void of scars, carved by muscle and strength, dips and sheer fucking _beauty_ in all of him. Dorian’s mind went weirdly blank for a moment, staring at his love, his Cullen.

And then everyone crowded around, laying hands on him. Dorian was last, squeezing for space between Leliana and Sera.

‘Get in ‘ere,’ Sera insisted and Cullen agreed by way of hauling Dorian closer, taking both his hands and holding them very tightly.

It was awkward and cramped. Varric complained loudly about choosing to be at the back while Sera made an endless stream of jokes and Cullen bore it all, holding Dorian’s hands and letting everyone in their lives touch him so that they could have the memory, so they would all know that Dorian had died… and come back. Halward was last to touch, remained very much on the outside, a single finger pressed to Cullen’s forearm, smiling at his son but otherwise sombre and quiet.

The sun rose slow and gradual, in no hurry. True dawn rushed for no man, could not be forced. The night ended at last and a new day was born in a milky haze of golden pink, gradually losing the rosy hue and only when there was light enough to bathe the room and sweep away shadows did Cullen deem it safe for everyone to let go.

‘Everyone remembers?’ he checked, quickly dragging his shirt back on. ‘Dorian?’

‘Yes, I definitely remember that I died,’ the mage assured him solemnly as a chorus of confirmations echoed around them.

‘We should test it,’ Lavellan said. ‘Find someone who wasn't touching you and see what they know.’

‘The official story is _what_, again?’ Sera asked.

‘That Jassen placed a spell on Dorian to mimic death. He then attempted to escape while we were all distracted and we killed him, bringing Dorian around and out of his sleep coma.’

Varric nodded approvingly. ‘Not a bad lie, all told. Better than the old, _I don__’t remember, _eh, boss?’ he grinned, nudging Lavellan.

‘The Tevinter mages will require a deeper level of detail,’ Fenris pointed out. ‘They will not be satisfied with surface details.’

‘My Father has taken care of that to some extent, but I agree, we should tailor the approach to people as we go.’

‘Shall I go get someone and bring them here?’

‘Can do, but who—’

A sudden knock rendered the conversation moot.

Everyone looked at each other before Cullen headed for the door, nodding at Dorian to get out of sight. Cole followed him over to the other side of the rounded tower room, where he couldn’t be seen when the door opened.

‘Ah, Joy,’ Cullen said, sounding mildly relieved. ‘Oh, that’s so kind, thank you. Would you… like to come in?’

There was some kind of muffled answer before Joy stepped inside, greeting everyone with a perfunctory nod, a small bow for Lavellan as she carried a tray of tea with several cups. When she clapped eyes on Dorian, she froze.

‘Oh, thank the Maker,’ she said, the tray wobbling dangerously. Sera took it from her just in time before Joy put her hand to heart, eyes closing. ‘We’ve all been praying for you, hoping for the best.’

Dorian’s brow lifted. ‘You… have?’

‘Yes, of course! We didn’t know what was happening, if you were only hurt or severely injured, no one told us anything!’ she added, glaring mildly at Cullen. ‘Oh, but you seem very well, very well indeed!’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said slowly, stretching out the _Y_. ‘I feel… fine.’

‘I am _most_ pleased, Ser,’ Joy said with a degree of fervency that warmed the mage’s heart. ‘Oh, I truly am. May I tell the others? Everyone has been concerned for you, kept in the _dark_ for a whole day,’ she added, once again throwing Cullen a fairly heated glare.

‘Yes, please tell whoever you wish, Joy,’ Lavellan said, stepping forward while Sera helped herself to tea. ‘Tell them that we’ve been working very hard to save Dorian’s life.’

‘Of course.’ Joy moved closer to Dorian. ‘Everyone in the castle will be relieved, if I might say so.’

‘Thank you. That’s very kind.’

Joy nodded, smiling. ‘Well. I think I’ll whip up some apple flips to celebrate. Oh, and before I forget.’ She handed Cullen a letter, the word _Commander_ scrawled across the front. ‘There was one for yourself, Inquisitor, but I didn’t know you would be here. I delivered it to your quarters.’

When she left, the room dissolved into a buzz of conversation about how Joy seemed to have been affected by the removed memories, how some sort of _other_ memories had been placed there instead.

‘Joy and the others knew very little, though,’ Rainier pointed out. ‘We should see what someone who was involved in last night knows.’

‘Hawke?’ Fenris suggested.

‘I think Samson,’ Cullen said, glancing at the spirit beside Dorian. ‘Cole, would you—?’

Cole vanished.

‘Maybe the lie about you appearing to be dead won’t even be necessary,’ Josephine ventured. ‘The simpler the better, in terms of defensibility.’

‘Yes, I see what you’re saying,’ Dorian said as Saffy made a bee-line for him, Landon in tow. Nalari and Keenan were having a very quiet, rather intent conversation over by the glass doors.

‘The others will be up soon,’ Saffy said eagerly. ‘When they wake, will you come by and see everyone? I don’t want them thinking you’re not well a moment longer than necessary.’

‘Of course,’ Dorian said, smiling at the thought of Pick, Cain, Finn, Marcus, of Aldis, Sebastian, Christopher and Sedrick, all his boys. Maker, but he’d _missed_ them. Dorian found himself excited at the prospect of getting back to teaching them, of just being with them. ‘I’ll be along as soon as I hear raucous yelling.’

‘All right, we’ll leave you to it then.’

They hugged again, Saffy holding on a touch longer than usual, her grip forceful and then she was off like a shot, Landon jogging to catch up. Their departure drew the attention of Nalari and Keenan.

‘I should get back,’ Nalari said to Dorian. ‘Joy’s daughter is watching Dawn. You are truly well?’ she asked quietly, studying him intently.

‘I promise I am.’ Her delicate hand found his.

‘Losing you was…’ she shook her head. ‘Please don’t go away again.’

‘Never.’

She moved away and Keenan, who had been hovering nearby looked at Dorian like he wanted to say something, as if there were words right behind his lips waiting to tumble out.

But Dorian also saw him push them back, force a smile instead. The older man knew better than to do anything besides let Keenan come to him in his own time. And there _would_ be time, there would be time for all of them whenever they were ready.

Keenan nodded and the pair of them left. Dorian watched them go, the feeling of just _hoping_ he was making the right decisions with them was becoming a permanent thing. Parental in every way, it sought to age Dorian prematurely, but he found he would not trade it for all the carefree feelings in the world.

‘I will take my leave too,’ Halward told Dorian as the others showed no signs of vacating. ‘I have not slept for several days.’

‘Of course,’ Dorian said easily, only _mildly_ relieved that his Father would be gone for a few hours.

Halward looked at Cullen, holding the letter, standing alone. ‘He should sleep too. I’ll see you soon, my son.’

In the rare moment of temporary privacy that followed, Dorian went to Cullen and brushed against him. ‘What’s in the letter?’

Cullen wrapped one arm around Dorian’s back, drawing the mage against him by habit, not even really noticing he was doing it. Dorian really, truly loved that Cullen was absent-mindedly affectionate, was sometimes at his most sweet and tactile when distracted. The mage still remembered what it was like to be called _love_ in a room full of militia, captains and lieutenants not batting so much as an eye because everyone knew, _everyone_ _knew_ that Cullen loved Dorian.

‘I’m not sure,’ Cullen said, tone low and guarded. ‘I don’t recognise the handwriting.’

‘Hmm, maybe if you _open_ it,’ Dorian suggested, hand settling on Cullen’s lower back. ‘There could be a slim chance to discover who it’s from.’

Cullen half-smiled, warm and wry. ‘So bratty.’

‘Don’t start talking dirty unless you want to put on a show for everyone in the room.’

‘Most people in the room can also _hear_ you,’ Leliana pointed out loudly from where she stood near their bed, speaking with Fenris. ‘These are not the ramparts, please exert some level of control.’

The room dissolved into snickers of laughter while Cullen simply rolled his eyes, no hint of colour in his cheeks from embarrassment.

Dorian thought of the time, it seemed so long ago, when after an _especially_ exuberant performance on said ramparts, Leliana had told them that everyone would know about them now, that all of Thedas would assume they were in a relationship.

_Good_, Cullen had said and meant it. Cullen had never been ashamed of them, had never once shied away from public displays or wanted to keep his relationship with Dorian, at whatever stage it was, a secret. If anything it was quite the opposite. He _wanted_ people to know, revelled in it.

The knowledge made Dorian ridiculously pleased and just a tiny bit _hot. _

_‘_Stop it, you,’ Cullen said warned lovingly under his breath as he opened the letter. A few people wandered over, Lavellan and Vivienne, followed by Varric and Leliana. Josephine, Rainier and Cassandra were all still speaking together while Cole paced leisurely around the room, trailing his hand over the stones as Cullen expertly tore the envelope.

The former Templar read it quickly and instead of scanning over his shoulder, Dorian simply studied his expression to learn the outcome, letting Cullen filter reality for him because he knew somehow, this letter had nothing good in it.

When had letters ever boded well for them before?

And judging by the way Cullen’s face drained of blood, it most assuredly wasn’t anything good.

Cullen lowered the letter.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s… the Iron Bull,’ Cullen said slowly, a small frown denting his brow. ‘He’s left.’

‘What? Show me?’

Dorian took the paper without waiting, read quickly and thoroughly. A simple note informing Cullen, as Commander, that he had left the Inquisition formally and would be taking the Chargers with him, diverting their path away from Skyhold as they marched with the returning armies. He wished the Inquisition, and everyone within it, all the best and…

That was it.

That was fucking _it_.

‘No,’ Dorian said, shaking himself. ‘I haven’t even _seen_ him. He wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.’

Lavellan nodded grimly. ‘I agree. There’s no way, something must be wrong.’

Varric groaned. ‘Bloody void, what was that? An _hour_ without some fresh doom, if that?’

The others began to speak, a rustling, worried back and forth as they read the short letter, but Dorian couldn’t look away from Cullen, couldn’t engage in speculation.

Because Cullen was staring at the space in front of him, staring and _still_ in a way that set Dorian on edge. Cullen’s mind was whirling, he could tell. Cullen was _realising_ something.

‘All right, what’s the what?’ Samson asked loudly, strolling into the room. When Samson clapped eyes on Dorian, he stopped and grinned. ‘Ah, feeling better then?’

Everyone fell quiet, watching carefully for the reaction of someone who had been involved in the previous night’s activities. ‘I’m definitely feeling better,’ Dorian said slowly, working to keep his worry about Bull well and truly squashed. ‘Why? Concerned for me, were you?’

Samson shrugged, looking around the room. Dorian had the impression he was formulating a few theories as to the scene he’d walked into. ‘Whole castle has been waiting to see if you were gonna make it or not. Thought I might die of boredom, myself. Only highlight was when Cullen left your bedside long enough to clear Rob of the red. Good kid, Rob. So,’ the former Templar added, giving Dorian a considering kind of up and down. ‘All better, then? Finally gonna fill some of us in on what happened?’

‘Well,’ Varric said, tilting his head. ‘That’s impressive.’

Samson frowned. ‘Why is everyone staring? I mean, I know I’m gorgeous and all, but surely not to this extent?’

He turned his attention to Cullen, opening his mouth to say something _else_, but then his eyes latched onto the letter in Cullen’s hand and Samson froze.

‘What?’ Cullen prompted quietly, almost hesitantly, like he had an idea of what was coming next. ‘What is it, Raleigh?’

Samson was impressively contained, barely moving. ‘Maybe we should talk elsewhere.’

‘Why?’ Dorian asked, moving closer, heart clenching.

‘Cullen,’ Samson said in a low voice, looking only at the man he recognised as the Commander. The pair seemed to share some dull, dark thread of understanding and there was no shock or confusion in Cullen, only confirmation.

Lavellan stepped in. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked, suddenly every inch the _Inquisitor_, stern and not to be fucked with.

Astonishingly, Cullen _ignored_ Lavellan, instead handing the letter to Samson. ‘Raleigh, I need you to be sure.’

Samson studied the yellowed paper, the note from Bull. He read it twice while everyone else in the room held their breath, silent and waiting for Maker only knew _what. _

_‘_Yeah,’ Samson said, handing the paper back. ‘I’d recognise it anywhere. Saw it once a week for months.’

Cullen swore fluently, turning away.

And while maybe some part of Dorian that was cold and clinical, intelligent and detached… _understood_ what was happening, the rest of him simply refused to.

‘What are you saying?’ he asked Samson outright, Sera coming to stand beside him as Cullen stared out of the glass doors at the sunrise.

Samson’s gaze was measured when it met Dorian’s, the stance of someone anticipating backlash.

‘By the looks of it,’ he said plainly, no pomp or frills. ‘Your Qunari was the spy.’

*

Fenris slipped away during the madness that followed, checking first with Cullen that he wasn’t needed for the time being. It seemed very much like _Inquisition_ business, the ordeal of realising one of their own had been systematically betraying them. An argument had broken out quickly between Cullen and Dorian, the root cause being that while Cullen seemed to swiftly accept that it _had_ been the Qunari who’d betrayed them. Dorian point blank refused to even consider it.

Arguments still made Fenris uncomfortably _nervous_, the feeling never having fully dissipated from his years in Tevinter, dreading evenings when Danarius would become embroiled in some overly heated debate and then take all that frustration out on Fenris later, when the guests had left. Fenris decided to leave Inquisition business to the Inquisition.

So, he slipped away, giving them time to grieve and work out their feelings between themselves, and besides, he had someone to see, after all.

Hawke appeared to be asleep when he came upon him in the room above the tavern. It was likely an oversight, that he was unguarded, unchained. Hawke had helped during the demon attack, but Fenris also knew that the state of things likely contributed to the Champion being so significantly overlooked. With the Iron Bull gone, fled before he could be discovered, Hawke was alone.

Fenris stood over him, laid out on the cot with one arm flung over his eyes, the way he always slept. He observed his breathing, the stillness of a man he’d once trusted and cared for. The man he had once loved, despite himself, despite so much else.

‘You’re not asleep.’

‘Nope,’ Hawke said, tone proving Fenris quite right. ‘I was waiting for you. Hoped you’d come back so we could talk alone. Properly alone, this time.’

Fenris headed across to the other side of the room and sat on a shoddy chair he found there. ‘Their Qunari betrayed them,’ he said, not sure why, maybe just to break the silence.

Hawke sat up slowly, blinking blearily. ‘Not surprising, I suppose, considering.’

‘Considering what?’

‘That the Qun want war with Tevinter and eventually, all of Thedas. Qunari are good liars. They breed exceptional spies.’

Fenris draped his hands over the arm rests. ‘Apparently so.’

Hawke coughed, yawning as if he really had just woken up. ‘Are they all upset?’

‘Of course.’

‘Like they haven’t got enough to deal with. Any news on Dorian?’

Fenris watched Hawke very carefully. ‘He’s recovered.’

‘Really? Seemed to be all doom and gloom last night, hushed whispers and worried glances.’

‘Hmm, was it?’

Hawke frowned slightly. ‘I don’t… I’m not sure, actually. It’s a bit of a blur. My arm fucking _kills_. I feel like I fought recently.’

‘I’m still sore from the Tower too.’

‘Yeah,’ Hawke said, frowning but dismissing it after a moment, focusing on Fenris. ‘I appreciate you coming to see me alone.’

‘The last time we were alone, I put my hand inside your heart and told you never to touch me again.’

‘I remember.’

Fenris kept his gaze on the floor. ‘Hawke, why did you… why didn’t you just _tell_ me about it first?’

Guardedly, Hawke asked, ‘What do you mean?’

‘About the plan with Danarius. To let him think he had me, then retrieve me later. Why did you not at least tell me about it?’

Hawke cleared his throat. ‘I knew you wouldn’t agree to it. He was offering a ton of money, Fen, I… I just thought I could take the bribe and then grab you later.’

‘Answer me truthfully. Did you not tell me because a part of you wanted me to be _grateful_ that you rescued me later?’

There was a long stretch of silence before Fenris heard a low, rough, ‘Yes.’

The elf nodded, something long since rotten in his chest finally giving out and dying. The process was painful, it _hurt_ to hear what he’d always suspected, but it was for the best.

‘I loved you very much,’ he told Hawke. ‘I did not expect you to betray me. That’s why it cut so deep and why I cut you in return.’

‘I know.’

‘I don’t think you do.’

‘I know that I would have killed every person in Thedas, myself included, to free you from him. Doesn’t that mean anything?’

Fenris looked up, meeting Hawke’s gaze and finding it imploring, gaunt.

‘I wish it did.’ Hawke’s body seemed to sag. ‘You know what _would_ mean something?’

Dark eyes met green. ‘Tell me.’

‘Your life not being an empty waste.’

‘I… what does that mean?’

‘It means I don’t want to be your only reason for living. I don’t want that responsibility. It would mean something if you put your skill and talent where it belongs. Towards helping people, like we used to do.’

‘That’s not my life anymore.’

‘Why? Because you’ve decided it? Because you’ve given up?’

‘Because my legacy is written in blood. Because these people will probably have my head come noon.’

‘You could have escaped by now.’

‘What’s the point?’

‘That’s pathetic, even for you.’

‘Just come to insult me, then? Like old times, eh? We just need Varric quipping in the background and Anders rambling on about his manifesto.’

Something in Fenris’ heart twisted unexpectedly, an old pain flaring bright. ‘Don’t talk about him.’

‘Sorry.’ He looked around as if to check they were alone before he asked in a lower voice. ‘Did you see him, then? In Tevinter?’

‘I _said_ don’t talk about him.’

Hawke stared and seemed to get the answer he was looking for, all but one aspect and the question hung heavily in the air around them.

Fenris made an irritable noise before he relented grudgingly. ‘I found him, yes. He’s a healer in Asariel, working under a different name. I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you were wondering. I don’t think I could, even if I wanted.’

Hawke looked down. ‘I’m sorry.’

The weight of a complicated and sensitive past hung all around them, dozens of things left unsaid and unknown. Fenris wanted it gone, wanted only to move forward unshackled by that past, no longer held back by lingering doubt and niggling questions.

‘I don’t love you anymore, but I am grateful for what you did. I know it was all for me and while that doesn’t make anything right, never will, I am thankful.’

‘Do you… forgive me for what I did?’

Fenris held his gaze, kept it level and even. ‘No.’

‘Oh.’

‘But I might.’

Hawke rubbed his face. ‘I don’t have anything left to give the world, Fen.’

‘You’re a damned good fighter. That’s more than most ever have.’

‘I’m not the Champion anymore.’

‘Good. He was a prick.’

Hawke laughed silently at that, but it was the kind that didn’t touch his eyes. ‘He was, was he?’

‘I don’t think they’re going to kill you, but if you’ve really given up, if you truly have nothing left to offer, then I’ll give you a clean death. The death you were asking for all those years ago.’

It shouldn’t have been there, that strange, low _hum _of energy. Hawke was staring, all his focus on Fenris and the elf remembered how it had started that way. All that _focus. _No one had ever made him feel quite as _seen_ as Hawke. It was difficult to get the man’s attention and even more so to _keep _it, but once owned, it was a vibrant, energising thing. Addictive, in a way.

‘Carver Hawke has been living on borrowed time for many years now. He has to die one way or another.’ In the silence that followed, Fenris sat forward, leaning on his knees with crossed arms, trying to break the tension by moving into it. ‘But Garret Hawke doesn’t have to die. When you step outside of these walls, you can leave behind the name and the mistakes of Carver’s past and go through the world as Garret, trying to make it just a little bit more bearable for everyone else.’

It was by wrote, when Hawke said, ‘Garret is dead. He died in the Deep Roads.’

‘No,’ Fenris countered calmly, the tone he had once used to soothe the man whenever he’d been running hot, running too angry to let near others. ‘He’s not. Your _brother_ died a long time ago and you did what you needed to. I’ve never questioned it. Names are… tricky things to own, to be weighed down by. What you did to me was disgusting and what you did here, to _save _me, was even worse. If you really want my forgiveness, then you can be brave and earn it. We don’t get to stop fighting just because we’re tired. It’s not the way of our world.’

Hawke looked away, removing the focus in a petulant, almost sulky way. ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Good.’ Fenris got up from the chair. ‘I didn’t hope for anything more.’

‘Will I see you again?’

Fenris lifted a hand to gesture. The last time he had performed such a motion before the Champion of Kirkwall, it had been to near rip his chest in half. ‘Let me be clear. I don’t ever want to see Carver Hawke again.’

He’d been expecting it, that dark haired man with countless scars, worn like a tapestry, like tattoos. Fenris saw the resignation there, but he wasn't finished. _‘Maybe,’_ he went on and Hawke looked back up quickly. ‘One day, Garret Hawke might be of a mind to track me down. He might have stories to tell about his new life, people he’s helped. I would not be averse to that.’

They stared at one another, Hawke’s defences wavering in the face of _hope_, Fenris holding fast to his convictions.

‘Yeah,’ Hawke said eventually, gruffly. ‘Maybe. Take care, Fenris.’

‘Well, you know me,’ the elf drawled. ‘I like a little risk.’

Hawke rolled his eyes, grumbling, ‘Yeah, I remember, hence why I said _take care_.’

Fenris was at the door when he stopped, hand on the wood, the hinges mid-motion. ‘You know, there’s a whole army marching back here. Templars afflicted with red lyrium, some of them good men and women. Only a blood mage can help them, apparently.’

Hawke grimaced. ‘I fucking _hate_ Templars.’

Fenris walked away and over his shoulder, he called out, ‘No one said the road to redemption was a cake walk, did they?’

*

It escalated, and really, what else was new?

In hindsight, always in bloody hindsight, it was easy to see where things were going to end up when he and Cullen started yelling at each other about the fact that there was no way - _no fucking way - _Bull would ever do that to them.

Leliana and Samson were naturally on Cullen’s side but they were the minority. Lavellan didn’t believe it, nor did Sera, Varric, Cassandra, Rainier or Josephine. Vivienne remained quiet, not having said a single word. Fenris had snuck out at some point, Dorian wasn’t sure when. Dorian’s argument had been simple and unswerving.

‘_No.__’_

_‘Dorian, there’s no other answer.’_

_‘No.’_

_‘He’s left the Inquisition—’_

_‘That doesn’t mean anything, Solas has gone too!’_

_‘Samson recognises the writing, he has no motive to lie and no impetus to do so!’_

_‘NO!’_

And oh, how it had _escalated. _

The argument had gotten steadily louder and louder, Dorian laughing at one point because it was just _not true. _Bull was staunchly loyal, he had turned his back on the Qun. They’d sent people to _kill_ him, for Maker’s sake!

Cullen had argued that the mercenaries sent to kill him were perfunctory at best, that the _scene_ on the Storm Coast had always bothered him and that Bull, whatever else the man was, had been trained extensively and thoroughly as a spy.

_‘No,’_ Dorian said, over and over.

Bull was his friend, he’d _helped _him countless times, consoled the mage, listened while he’d rambled about how shit his life was, about _Cullen. _Bull had given him sage advice time after time, had given them all good advice and he was _kind_ too. Dorian knew what it was like to kiss him, to be manhandled by him. He _knew_ him.

It escalated to the point where the others fell silent, bearing witness to the increasing discord between the pair, the argument on the verge of turning deeply personal.

Which it did, right around the time when Cullen, who was becoming impatient and fractious with Dorian’s endless litany of _no_, said, ‘You just don’t want to believe you fucked a spy!’

The others left very quickly after that. Dorian just sort of stood there, blood boiling, heart hammering for all the wrong reasons. Cullen closed his eyes and Dorian saw the regret, could almost feel it, but it didn't touch him. A part of him had to wonder, quite abstractly, when it was that Cullen had last slept. He might have even _worried_ about such a thing, had he not been caught in a gripping seizure of fury.

The kind of fury that had him shaking, had his insides cold enough to burn, tight enough to tune.

‘Did you really just say that?’

Cullen dropped his head into his hands. ‘I’m sorry, that’s not what—’

‘He’s my friend.’

With a heavy kind of impatience, Cullen bit out, ‘He is _not_.’

Dorian looked away, an expression of abject disbelief about him. His attention turned to the one remaining person in the room, sitting in the dry and empty bath, muttering rhymes like a distracted child.

‘Cole,’ Dorian said, heading for him on shaky legs. ‘Cole, tell him it’s not true.’

For his part, Cole muttered, ‘I liked things before I knew them.’

Quietly, Cullen persevered. ‘Dorian, there’s no way to—’

‘Samson could be _lying_!’ Dorian cried, whipping back around to Cullen, to the man he loved more than anything who just couldn’t see… just couldn’t _understand_ that Dorian was not being wilfully ignorant, wasn't being petulant or childish.

He just couldn’t _believe_ it.

‘It could be that he really _does_ want to leave, especially after everything we’ve been through. The Inquisition was formed for a single purpose and that purpose has been fulfilled now. You and I talked about it multiple times, about how we would leave once things were stable!’

‘He said he was sorry.’

‘For _leaving_! For—for leaving without saying goodbye, you don’t _know_ it was him!’

Cole said, ‘It was.’ Dorian stared at the boy, the room spinning. ‘He was never ours,’ Cole continued quietly, sat cross legged in the bottom of the bath, tracing circles into the stone with his fingertips. ‘He was not _our _Iron Bull, but he is not their either. Love is infectious and it corrupts the stability of mountains. A crack and a splinter, light gets in and then the dark will never be soothing again. It leaves the wheel unbalanced and all upon it tumbling, but it will steady again. The river will carve it’s path back to the ocean. It’s… for the best.’

Cullen stepped forward, gaze fixed upon Cole. ‘Would he tell the Qun of what happened with the ritual?’

‘I do not believe he would have told them, even if he still had the memory. He will start a new life, somewhere far away.’

When Dorian looked at Cullen, much against his will, he saw that the man was absolutely rigid, knuckles white.

‘I’ll hunt him down,’ Cullen said and Dorian’s heart lurched painfully then because he knew that voice, that _tone. _The last time he’d heard it was when Lavellan had caught the blade of his sword between her hands to stop Cullen from executing Hawke. ‘I’ll find him and kill him myself.’

‘No, you won’t.’ Cullen turned and Dorian followed. ‘No! We don’t know _anything_ yet, you can’t—’

‘He betrayed us!’ Cullen spat, whirling around. ‘He was sending intelligence to the Red Templars, weakening us systematically, pushing us just hard enough that we could rid the world of Corypheus and ensure we had little to show for it afterwards!’

‘That didn’t _happen_ though!’

‘BUT HE WANTED IT!’

‘We don’t know that!’

‘Damn it, Dorian, how can you be this fucking naive?’

‘He’s my friend.’

‘He’s _theirs,__’ _Cullen ground out, cheeks flushed and breath coming fast, everything about him in disarray. ‘Qunari through and through, no matter what he pretended. He would cut us to pieces if ordered to!’

‘No, I will never believe that.’

_‘Dorian_.’

‘I was _there_ when Gatt wanted him to sacrifice the Chargers on the Coast and he—’

‘He _what_? I read the report,’ Cullen said swiftly, _cuttingly_ and Dorian hated it, hated all his cold, clean logic. ‘He didn’t refuse, he deferred to the Inquisitor’s judgement.’

‘Entrench the liar in a coat of exile, make him one of them, paint him grey. He circles, single eye affixed on our movements, ever watchful.’

‘See?’ Cullen said, looking from Cole back to Dorian, amber gaze flashing, something brittle and dangerous all about him. ‘A _scene_. It’s a play, it’s all been a play by the Qunari.’

‘Maybe he was playing both sides,’ Dorian tried to say, throat catching, voice coming out small. ‘He wouldn’t betray us, you don’t know him.’

‘I know the Qunari, I saw what they did in Kirkwall and whatever else, I know enough about betrayal to recognise it when I fucking see it.’

Dorian closed his eyes, trying and failing to gather himself. ‘Cole,’ he said. ‘Could you leave us, please?’

‘Of course,’ the boy said easily. ‘It will hold, don’t worry. It will always hold from now on.’

Only once he heard the door close did Dorian open his eyes. ‘What you said was disgusting.’

Cullen’s lips thinned, nose furling in barely contained anger. ‘I know and I’m _sorry, _but—’

‘Yes, _but,__’_ Dorian cut across swiftly. ‘I want you to take a moment and stand there and imagine it was Leliana. Just imagine that this, everything you’re accusing him of, was laid at Leliana’s feet.’

‘She would _never_—’ Cullen caught himself all too late, scowling instantly at walking into such an obvious trap.

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, wishing he had anything left inside of him to be smug. ‘_She would never do that._ You believe it, you feel it. You trust her as I trust him.’

‘Dorian,’ Cullen said, making clear effort to speak slow, to calm his temper, hands raised in front of him. ‘I am _sorry_ that you don’t believe it and your loyalty to him does you credit, but this is undeniable. Samson has _no motive_ for lying, none. He has nothing to gain and much to lose by falsely accusing one of our inner circle. We spoke earlier of how I was concerned that Jassen denied being the spy and the rune seemed to confirm it as truth. Bull has chosen to leave, now of all times, without even seeing you. Cole himself said plainly that he is the spy. You’re in shock. That’s understandable.’ Cullen took a step closer. ‘I love you and I’m so sorry, but it was _him_.’

Maybe it was meant to be soothing. Maybe to another man it would have been.

Dorian’s temper, already dangerously frayed, clawed higher.

‘You never liked him.’

‘I had no personal objection to him.’

‘You didn’t _know_ him.’

Cullen’s mouth twisted. ‘Not like you did.’

‘And _there_ it is,’ Dorian said, low and so angry it came full circle back to cold and distant, detaching from the root cause. ‘Are you really in any position to be throwing _exes _at me?’

‘It’s nothing like that.’

‘Oh it isn’t? I’m _not_ the one who _fucked a spy_?’

‘What do you want from me? Am I supposed to just let you wander around with a different version of events in your head?’

‘You’re _supposed_ to see that this—this is impossible for me to accept! You’re supposed to be supportive, not to…’ Dorian waved his hand wildly, ignoring how it trembled. ‘Whatever the fuck this is!’

‘How can I be supportive if you won’t even _listen_?’

‘How can I listen if you’re screaming at me?’

‘I’m not screaming anything, but you’re ignoring facts, Dorian. Cold, hard facts!’

‘Facts had me dead yesterday.’

‘That is _hardly_—’

‘Facts would have had you dead in the infirmary, an incompetent _human_ medic gave you less than a day to live! Time and again your precious _facts_ and logic have come calling with nothing good to offer.’

They were moving closer, small incremental steps that closed distance and crossed boundaries. ‘So you prefer to live in a fantasy?’

‘I’m a _mage! _If I don’t like the reality in which I find myself, I can use magic to change it, or have you forgotten?’

Cullen’s intake of breath was sharp and it caught, a flinch narrowing his eyes, hurt darkening around the edges.

‘How dare you.’

And it wasn’t what Dorian had meant, had nothing to do with Cullen’s loss of magic but everything was heated and twisted and _escalating_.

‘That’s not—’

‘Do you have any idea what it was like?’

‘Cullen—’

‘To feel it die? To feel it smile, to feel how it _loved_ me despite knowing it was about to be destroyed forever, that beautiful thing we made? Throw it in my face like that, _fuck you!_’

‘I _meant_ because I’m a mage, you know, that thing you used to hate?’

‘I never hated mages.’

‘You put on a great show of it.’

‘Not good enough to rival the _performance _of your fucking _friend_.’

Dorian hit him hard, right across the face. It cracked and left his hand stinging.

Cullen’s mouth was open, breathing raggedly. He looked back at Dorian slowly. ‘And _there it is,_’ he echoed, mocking Dorian’s earlier words as the shape of the mage’s hand came through in a pink, blotchy imprint.

‘He didn’t—’ Dorian’s throat caught on something sharp and painful. ‘He wouldn’t.’

Cullen was _almost_ impassive, as close to cold as he could get with Dorian’s slap mark burned into his skin, a fine tremor running through him, eyes all fire.

‘He did.’

Dorian wanted to hit him again, wanted to punch him, throw lightning, drag it down from the skies and raise the fucking _dead_ because all of that, all the destruction and chaos he could inflict upon the world was better than believing, was better than accepting even for a single second that Bull was capable of such a thing.

His fingers itched and static crackled between them, brittle and bright, coloured by his anger, intuitively shaped by his emotions. That second skin, that echo of his own heart, the magic he was born with was angry because _he_ was angry.

And Dorian _missed_ the other then. He missed the magic that would have whispered to him, circled within and brushed it’s coils against the mage, told him to breathe, told him their Cullen was speaking truth. He missed being able to _feel_ Cullen on the other end of the bond, he missed it like the loss of a limb. He was alone in his body, so very _alone_. No blood curse, no blood magic, no Cullen.

Just the magic gifted to him by nature, resplendent and beautiful, but not… _alive_. Not sentient, not like how the other had been.

The sadness was a fracture through his anger, a crack to the struts that held up all Dorian’s disbelief, refusal to even _consider_ the fact that his friend, someone he had trusted almost implicitly, would betray them.

Would betray _him_.

Distantly, he knew he was so angry _because_ he believed it. With Keenan, his denial had stemmed from the very centre of him, strong and calm. He knew that _this_ rage, this physical manifestation existed because Cullen was right, the facts were undeniable and some awful, _Bad Friend _part of Dorian had sometimes looked away from Bull, had sometimes _wondered_ about things. Little things amassing to nothing concrete, but still.

He didn't know what to say, had not the words to make sense of the reality with which he was faced. There was so much about it all that was _wrong. _How could he have just _left_? Dorian didn't understand and now he wouldn’t be able to, would not be able to look his friend in the eye and weigh for truth.

It cut deep, it was a knife to the guts and Dorian was bleeding out.

And what he wanted, more than anything, was to self-destruct. Was to hurt Cullen, to push him away, to be _alone_ and in that aloneness, make a great and gruesome mess of things. Throw a bottle to see it shatter, to see the shards explode. All the time and effort that went into making glass just to see it destroyed. Break the glass, break everything around him, Cullen included because that was the only way he knew how to let loose the pain, the sheer agony of realising his friend had not been his friend.

He longed for it, that oldest coping mechanism. Locked in a room with nothing to do but smash it to pieces. Fucking his father’s friend to get back at him for looking upon him with disgust. Shattering a legacy, crafting a reputation that sought to punish. _Hurt me and I__’ll break all the world,_ vengeful and wild, brittle beauty to cover the pain. _Hurt me and you__’ll know about it_.

And Dorian had been hurting for years, for longer than he could remember. It was an addiction, that mechanism. Felt good in the moment, felt fucking _glorious_ and he was skilled at leaving quick enough afterwards, always had been.

But.

_But_.

Cullen was still there and he was angry too. Dorian knew his moods like passages from _Ambler_, knew him inside and out. Cullen was right there and if Dorian could look away from his own tornado of anguish, he would see just beneath the surface that Cullen… _Cullen_ was hurt too. That he was trying so hard to be cold and detached, to be logical but… it was there.

Maybe Dorian didn’t understand it, maybe he couldn’t understand anything beyond his own pain in those moments, but in his bones, the love he felt for Cullen, complete and total, was enough to slow him. The anger did not vanish, was not crushed beneath the weight of that love.

The two existed alongside each other. That love was permanent, the anger was not.

Dorian closed his eyes and extended his hand, waiting, hoping. He couldn’t make the words, couldn’t think of how to tell Cullen everything he felt, but he _hoped_ that if he was still, if he was quiet, Cullen might feel it.

Cullen’s hand interlocked with Dorian’s own, fingers filling the space between the mage’s, grasping firmly, perhaps too much.

Neither had spoken for a long time and the silence was thick. Dorian kept his eyes closed like a child and Cullen moved carefully, slowly into him, keeping that primary point of contact.

‘I’m sorry,’ he gasped, resting his forehead against Dorian’s. ‘I’m—_Maker_, I’m so sorry.’

Their bodies met, a slow press to erase distance, to lean and cope. That need inside Dorian to destroy, to fucking_ wreck the world_… it crumbled then, succumbed to entropy and the newness of having been brave enough to stand still and ask for help.

It was not satisfying and it was not glorious when they held one another, when Dorian cried. When Cullen thumbed his tears away and tried to offer comfort but his words became stuck too. It was strange and it was _new_.

Dorian had been betrayed, they all had and the truth of it settled over the mage, itching and vile, but he could bear it because Cullen was there, they were together. Dorian didn't have to deal with it alone, didn't have to resort to what he knew best.

It was an imperfect embrace. It didn’t fit the narrative of how Dorian wanted to shape his slow, terrible understanding of the situation.

But it was real and he was not alone.

The mage turned away from old habits, from old addictions, and leaned into Cullen, into the new.

For a while, there was only that imperfect embrace, only Cullen and the sadness in his heart. A small cut-out where someone had been before, a corner of light, now darkened and empty.

Dorian thought of that rumbling voice, of a barking laugh, of generosity and fierce support of his men, of training Krem with pride, of telling Dorian to marry Cullen before they went to war. Of telling Blackwall to embrace _Rainier_. Of always seeming to know things, of carefully keeping to the side-lines. That time he’d literally _burst_ out of his dreaded uniform for the Winter Palace.

Of kissing Dorian and giving him exactly what the mage had needed back then, of hauling him out of the tavern when he’d had too much to drink.

Of how easily he dispatched the assassins sent after him. Of how well he shook it off, becoming Tal-Vashoth. Cullen knew of Qunari from Kirkwall, but Dorian knew enough of the Qun from a lifetime in Tevinter to understand that such a label was worth more than a sigh and a few nights of getting blackout drunk. _He__’d taken it well_, Dorian remembered thinking. _Maybe a little too well. _

‘Sit down,’ Cullen uttered. ‘Come on.’

Dorian was guided to the side of the bed where Cullen wrapped him up in strong arms, held him and kissed his face. Apologetic presses, little touches and proximity that worked like a salve.

Cullen said nothing, but Dorian could feel him for the first time since he’d opened that letter, could truly _feel_ how sorry he was, how tangled up he was, struggling not to blame himself, not to give into his own worst habits. He was trying, just like Dorian was, to be better.

And somewhere to Dorian’s left, the mage sensed a very specific brand of warmth.

‘Cole,’ he uttered quietly, a broken little whisper as fresh tears slid down his cheeks and Cullen kissed his hair.

Softly, like a cat, Cole came to sit on the other side of Dorian, leaning against the mage’s shoulder. Cullen shifted closer and reached out enough to include Cole in the embrace, pulling him closer. Caught between compassion and love, Dorian sighed and let himself feel it, really _feel_ it.

The three of them sat in the shadows of betrayal, making light from comfort, warmth from solidarity.

They stayed like that until reality came knocking on the door, as it was wont to do.

*

There was a meeting, an official one.

The tone was dour.

After dropping by to hug, kiss and tearfully greet every one of his mages who had thought him injured, not dead, they went to the war room with heavy hearts.

To say that Leliana was on edge was… an understatement. Though Cullen never left Dorian’s side throughout, didn’t actually even let go of the mage’s hand, Dorian could tell how much Cullen worried for his friend. Dorian, despite the deep, jagged ache of _betrayal_ that had taken up residence in his chest, couldn’t help but feel the same.

Josephine was very stern in her sentiments about Leliana not blaming herself, that she was only human. Leliana nodded along but Dorian could tell that none of it touched her, that she blamed herself entirely. The Spymaster who had not seen the other spy.

It wasn’t exactly _weird_ to see Fenris, whose invitation into the meeting set his presence in a more official light, standing close to the Spymaster but it was certainly new to Dorian. He wondered if they had been friends before this. There was a whole stretch of time in Cullen’s life that Dorian knew precious little about, after all. From the way Fenris watched her, Dorian would have confidently guessed they were already friends and that he, like Cullen, was equally affected by her steely determination to own the failure.

The meeting was grim and Bull’s absence in the room, the additional space when not being taken up by his enormous shoulders, was glaring. Dorian felt faintly sick, leaned against Cullen when he needed to, Cole close by, radiating his very particular brand of warmth.

Everyone had slightly varying theories, differing logic and reasons. Lavellan’s note from Bull was almost identical to Cullen’s, save that Bull had thanked her for giving him a chance to see the world differently.

No one was arguing, but no one could _quite_ agree on a story either.

It was only when Cole stepped forward and raised his hands that everyone fell silent, bringing an end to the very sad, very hesitant debate about the Iron Bull.

‘I will tell what I can,’ Cole announced. ‘But I need you all to hold your words while mine come out. Does everyone understand?’

They did and when the room fell silent, Cole began to explain.

*

‘Fuck it,’ Lavellan said during a quiet, sullen lunch away from the Great Hall. ‘I’m getting wine.’

‘Which bottle?’ Vivienne asked as the Inquisitor strode away.

‘All of it.’

*

It was a bittersweet affair, getting drunk together. Moving the pity party into Lavellan’s quarters, bringing what remained of the bottles that that determined elf had spent well over a year collecting from all corners of Orlais and Ferelden.

Dorian wasn’t drunk, nowhere near but the others were making great progress, even Cole. All except Cullen, of course.

Cole drinking apparently resulted in Cole _singing_. A constant, melodious stream of musical words, songs about every single thing in the room, an ode to the wonderful everyday items ignored by most, but not by Cole. He sang of the candelabras, of the tabletop, of bedsheets and drawers. Of doors and hinges, of coming and going.

‘And to just take the others too,’ Sera bemoaned. ‘To just—_hic_—snatch the Chargers before they even got back here, not let us even say g’bye! I fucking loved Krem.’

‘Hey, look,’ Varric said, leaning back in his chair. ‘People come and go, like the kid said. I’ve seen it, I know it. He made his choices.’

‘He chose to leave,’ Cassandra said, staring down at her wine glass, sat at Lavellan’s little table with Varric. Dorian was on the bed with Sera, Lavellan and Cole. The others were milling around, standing, walking or sitting on the floor. Cullen and Leliana were out on the balcony, Fenris was sat on the floor with his own bottle of wine, reading a book of some sort while Rainier sat beside him, talking endlessly. Rainier, like many others, was well on his way towards being drunk and Dorian was mildly surprised to discover he was an especially talkative drunk.

Cole lay across Dorian’s lap, head on his thigh while Ellana and Sera sat on either side of him, steadily drinking.

Vivienne and Josephine were immersed in some deeply private conversation in the corner, the subject of which Dorian was not privy to but he suspected it had little to do with the day’s events. Vivienne had not known nor cared for Bull in the slightest. He didn’t hold it against her, found himself envious of such a position. To be untouched by such an outcome, to be _distant_.

‘It was my fault,’ Ellana said for the hundredth time. ‘I was _there_, I should have known. The whole thing was so… Maker, but in hindsight it was so staged! I was just so stupid to believe it.’

‘But like, what would he have done if you’da said to let the Chargers get killed? Friggin’ well just stood there?’

Dorian closed his eyes. He’d been there that day too, had endured Gatt’s passive aggressive vitriol. Had felt the sly, disapproving hunger of the Qun from afar, wanting to see him chained and sewn into subservient silence. He remembered thinking how grateful he was that Bull was so completely different.

It felt… childish, now. That trust, that belief.

And even though Cole had explained all about hard choices, all about having come to love them and respect them in time, about wanting to break away from the Qun and the Inquisition, to start fresh somewhere, it was still hard to come to terms with.

Worst of all, Dorian would _miss_ him. He would fucking miss him.

‘Samson said the intelligence was always vague,’ Varric offered, swirling his wine. ‘Never enough for them to make any headway, just a kind of update about their movements.’

‘We all heard it,’ Cassandra said. ‘And it does not make any difference.’

‘He said that sometimes it was misleading, sent them one place when in fact—’

‘Maker’s grace, Varric, don’t you ever shut up?’ she grimaced. ‘Have you considered that no one _wants_ to hear you chewing over the details just so you can make it more palatable for whatever you’ll write about?’

Varric looked away. ‘I won’t be writing about this, that’s for sure.’

The other conversations lulled, most everyone looking at the dwarf then.

Cassandra blinked slowly, frowning. ‘Why not?’

‘No one likes to read about betrayal.’

In the silence that followed, Josephine left Vivienne and headed out onto the balcony, the sunlight bright and beautiful, the air crisp and cool. Dorian was no stranger to day drinking, especially not having grown up in Tevinter, but it felt wrong to be so sad when it was such a lovely, fresh day.

He patted Cole’s shoulder and nudged him off, Ellana and Sera closing the gap he left as he slid off the bed. Cullen returned to the bedroom from outside.

‘Is she all right?’ Dorian asked quietly, low rumbles of conversation resuming, the sound of liquids being poured into cups. ‘No, that’s a stupid question. Sorry.’

Cullen gave Dorian a brief smile, drawing the mage into a hug. Dorian had never been hugged and held so much in his whole life.

‘She’ll _be_ all right.’

‘Y’know,’ Lavellan said. ‘When I imagined sharing wine with my friends after killing that fucking _bastard _Corypheus, this was really not how I pictured it.’

‘Plus there’s only one bottle left,’ Sera pointed out sadly. ‘The shit no one wants.’ She squinted at the mostly eroded label, muddied and faded. ‘_Abyssal Peach. _Some fucking celebration, eh?’

Cassandra stood suddenly, the table wobbling. ‘We _should_ celebrate.’

Everyone exchanged glances. ‘Uh, sorry,’ Varric ventured carefully. ‘But what the fuck?’

The Seeker’s eyes were shining with determination. ‘We should have a party!’

‘A party?’ Josephine echoed quickly, almost tripping over herself to peer around the balcony doors.

‘Yes! Why should we sit around moping? We saved the world, didn’t we? We’re still _here_, aren’t we? That’s worth _celebrating_!’

Everyone was quiet, uncertain for a moment until Cullen said, ‘A party sounds good.’

Dorian threw him a doubtful squint. ‘You hate parties.’

‘Well, I can just stand there and look pretty, can’t I?’

Cassandra, who was more than a little fired up on _Chasind Sack Mead_, nodded fervently. ‘We need to mark the occasion! Celebrate and move forwards. We should not be the ones left in the dust, clutching wounds and obsessing over what we might have done differently.’ She took a deep breath. ‘_Fuck_ that! We worked hard, we fought and we won. We ended the Elder one, we saved the world and we brought Dorian back from the dead. If that doesn’t warrant a party, nothing ever will.’

The collective gaze of the room moved to Josephine, Leliana behind her, smiling at her friend faintly, knowingly, despite her melancholy.

‘Can you plan a party in less than a day?’ Rainier asked, getting to his feet.

‘We’ll help,’ Vivienne said easily, corner of her mouth curling. ‘I’m sure between the twelve of us, we can throw together something worthy of the Inquisition.’

‘Yes,’ Josephine agreed, shoulders straightening, gaze turning fierce. ‘Yes, I think we can.’

*

‘My finest work,’ Sera declared proudly, hands on her hips. Dorian moved closer to the banner, illuminated by dozens of magical orbs. ‘I did every single one in the castle.’

He tilted his head, trying to see what she’d made of the Inquisition symbol, the large eye now oddly resembling the parts of a woman Dorian had never intimately seen in anything besides anatomy textbooks. ‘Is that a—?’

‘I drew them all in Ellie’s likeness,’ Sera said, hand on her heart, like she was displaying her _magnus opus_ to the world. ‘Made the sword in a tree of tits too, see there?’

It was an image that would forever be imprinted into Dorian’s brain.

‘Yes, I definitely see,’ he said weakly.

Sera nudged him and chuckled. ‘Making you far more queer than before?’

‘I mean,’ he said, gesturing at the banner. ‘This is hardly a lure towards heterosexuality, is it?’

‘It’s pussy power!’ she declared, far too loudly for Dorian’s liking. ‘Inquisitor is a _woman, _not a giant friggin’ eyeball! Now whenever I look at these things, ugly things meant to make little people scared, I’ll see the place I love most. My home in between the thighs of Ellana Lavellan.’

Cole, who was standing beside Dorian, tilted his head as if appreciating a great work of art. ‘What are the squiggly lines?’

Dorian winced as Sera answered excitedly.

‘The squiggly lines are that one time I made her s—’

The Inquisitor appeared as if from nowhere. _‘Sera_!’ Lavellan laughed loudly and forcefully, arm encircling her lover’s waist, cutting her off with a kiss. ‘Don’t make people jealous.’

‘If jealous means _wishing I could scrub my brain, _then yes, colour me jealous.’

Sera broke away long enough to snort. ‘Ah, calm your tits, Ree. No one’s even gonna notice!’

*

‘As if I even need to _ask_ who vandalised all the banners,’ Josephine sighed, moving swiftly past, carrying a hefty platter of delicious things while in the courtyard, all the organised chaos was finishing up, tables arranged, fires lit everywhere, food and wine, music playing and room for everyone, a place for every single person in the castle and as far as Dorian was concerned, the more the fucking merrier.

The music was loud and the air was warm. Dorian and the other mages filled the air with orbs and flames, their natural colours making a rainbow of protective heat and colour, illuminating everything softly as the night descended and merriment finally began.

It had been Dorian’s idea to have it outside, concerned that there wouldn’t be enough room for everyone inside and the suggestion had been met with excitement. After that, everyone else began piling on with little ideas of their own to make the party unforgettable.

And yes, it hurt that there were spaces where others should have been. That Solas had indeed apparently just _gone_ without a word, no note, no farewell. That Bull had collected the Chargers from the armies who would arrive back the following day and gone his own way. That he hadn’t been entirely what he pretended to be, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t celebrate.

It didn't mean that Dorian couldn’t celebrate everything he’d loved about Bull, all the times the Qunari had been there for him, had inspired him. In Tevinter, when someone died, they burned them and celebrated their life. Burned the body in their favourite outfit with all their most treasured jewellery, save for family crests. Going out in a blaze of style and brilliance, fashion and favour.

This was not a funeral, not by a long shot, but there was an element of something familiar about those Tevinter-esque celebrations. Feeling more alive because they _were _alive, not mourning the dead but remembering all the best of them and cheering for it, toasting to it.

The banners were cheerfully obscene and the music was easily becoming raucous, amplified by magic, by the atmosphere in the air as everyone mingled, as they drank and ate and eventually began to dance.

Nalari and Saffy were the first to dance, little Dawn between them, sleeping soundly through the chaos and movement as she had done in her first moments of life. Next to follow were the rest of the younger mages, barring Keenan. A sudden flood of teenage boys, perhaps too giddy with the freedom to express themselves, definitely having snuck a glass or two of wine at some point. Others then followed their example, dancing to jigs and capers far less formal than what Dorian was used to. A kind of _en masse_ thing with a great deal more rhythm than he’d ever truly been exposed to. It was all rather wonderful and quintessentially Southern. Dorian cast a glance around for Halward, but there was no sign of him yet, nor Cullen.

The mage wandered, he meandered and stopped on the edge of the dancing area, standing beside the Seeker who watched also.

‘This was an excellent idea,’ Dorian told Cassandra, raising his voice to be heard over the latest round of cheering and clapping as the song finished with flourish. Cassandra had a cup of wine, not enough glasses for everyone, watching the festivities with a steady gaze and something resembling a smile.

‘I agree,’ she said simply, taking another sip. ‘Too often I see good people left to suffer the consequences in silence and sadness. It should not be the way of things.’ She turned her attention to the mage. ‘You look very… pretty.’

Dorian’s eyes widened. ‘Pretty?’

‘Well, I mean to say—’

‘Did you truly just call me _pretty_?’

She huffed. ‘I said you _look_ pretty, there is a difference.’

With a smirk, Dorian glanced down at himself. He _did_ look breathtakingly dashing, no denying it. Tight cut black leather trousers with all kinds of gorgeous silver buckles that Cullen would play with later. A dark purple shirt, the kind of thing that cost painful amounts of coin and took _months_ to craft, silken satin with buttons of pearl, the whole thing shimmered lightly in the glow of magic and sat on Dorian’s skin like a secret kiss. His left shoulder was adorned with a cloak; lightweight, skinned velvet in dark, inky blue, it sat perfectly. His hair was exquisite, facial hair honed with pinpoint precision, eyes darkened. He looked more than pretty and he knew it. That had been his contribution to the party, after all, looking fabulous. Well, almost. He had helped with one or _two_ little areas as well.

His favourite thing might have been Josephine’s boots, though. The first occasion to actually wear them, they fit like a dream and gave him just an extra inch or so of height. He hadn’t come to stand in front of Cullen while wearing them yet but he really couldn’t wait to.

‘A wonderful idea,’ Dorian affirmed quietly, watching another dance start up. ‘A good memory to mark the occasion.’

‘Precisely,’ she said fiercely. ‘A wound needs attention, the quicker the better. Why should it be any different when that wound is… less than physical? Remedy should be taken when and where it can be found. Maker knows how much time has already been lost fighting this war, countless lives extinguished forever. Time to start _living_, I think. Wouldn’t you agree?’

Dorian smiled into his wine glass, one of the lucky few to have one.

‘I do,’ he said, gifting her a parting wink as he walked away, bowing slightly. ‘I really do.’

*

Darkness settled fully over the skies and the outdoor party was in full swing by the time Cullen joined it. In his absence, Dorian had been mingling and circulating; a process which was wholly familiar to him, but _oh_ what a difference it made when the party was filled with all of the people he loved.

He paced himself in terms of drinking, wanting to truly enjoy the night.

Cullen walked down the stone steps, the air warmed with magic and tinted with varying hues and Cullen…

Well, fuck.

Dorian’s first thought was that someone, Maker bless them, had dressed Cullen. Someone with impeccable taste and knowledge of formal wear and materials had actually _dressed_ Cullen in clothes that were not at all suited for war, for battle. It looked like it was tailored, it fucking _had _to be tailored to sit that well on him.

The black cravat was high collared and embroidered with fine, curling golden thread in a design of swirls. The swirls looked almost like _magic_, like lovely golden vines blossoming over the black material. Beneath that, Cullen wore a white silk shirt, visible beneath the top three buttons of the cravat. His trousers were black too, the design of the cravat running down the side of each leg, giving it the truest effect of vines. Gold and black with his hair styled in a way that Dorian himself would have done, had he the time, had he known Cullen would _let _him tease those curls out instead of slick them back.

All told, it had Dorian weak at the knees.

He watched the blond cast around for Dorian, felt it when their eyes caught across the crowd. Cullen smiled and they moved towards each other with the momentum of two objects obeying gravity.

‘Fucking _void_,’ Cullen growled, taking in the sight that was Dorian while the mage did the exact same. ‘You look… you’re so beautiful.’

‘Just beautiful?’ Dorian quipped, running his hands over Cullen’s shoulders, over the buttons of the cravat, fingertips grazing bare skin where just a few too many buttons were open. No cloak adorned his shoulders but that was fine because truly, Cullen looked like a gift, like something to be unwrapped and absolutely ravished.

‘I’ve not the vocabulary to satisfy the way you make me feel in that shirt,’ Cullen said, smiling rather wickedly. ‘Nor the way it makes me feel that you’re almost taller than me in those heels.’

Dorian couldn’t help but smile in return, all the world righted now he was with Cullen again. They kissed, brief and chaste by their standards for the sake of the crowd, and though desire swirled low in Dorian’s stomach, pooling and simmering, though there would _categorically_ be outdoor sex later (their favourite kind), for the time being it was enough to entwine their hands together, the mage finally feeling lighter.

‘Who did your hair?’ Dorian asked as they walked, hand in hand through the celebrations.

Cullen scoffed playfully. ‘Maybe _I_ did it!’

‘Leliana?’

They were approaching the dancing area, dozens of people moving perfectly with the upbeat music. ‘Perhaps.’

‘And the outfit?’

‘Maybe I just have nice things stored away,’ Cullen demurred lightly, but it was teasing, it was all teasing. ‘I find it highly insulting that you don’t think I can dress or style myself for anything more than the necessity of war.’

Dorian pulled him to a halt, and noticed that… oh dear, Cullen was wearing boots, they went almost all the way up to his knees. Well they were definitely staying on later, trousers pooled all around those pretty leather things, yes, Dorian liked those a great deal. Dorian equally wanted Cullen completely naked _except_ for those boots.

‘Darling,’ he said, drawing the word out, liquid and low as Cullen shivered slightly. ‘I’m only _asking_ so that I can profusely thank this person, or possibly a small team of people, later on. Must I go into incredible depth and detail about how beautiful you are, regardless of attire? I fell for you despite that old fur, didn't I? Loved you even when you tried to pretend your hair _wasn__’t_ like this, wasn’t all golden curls and untamed beauty.’

They were drifting into each other’s space again, hard not to when there was a _pull_ between them, something both tangible and not. Dorian’s magic rustled like feathers, anticipating the contact with mild interest. It mirrored him in so many ways, like it had always done, but there was a definite note of something more _focused_ on Cullen. How interesting.

Cullen’s hand moved around Dorian’s lower back. ‘I wanted to look nice for you, my love.’

‘Believe me,’ Dorian husked, exerting restraint at great cost to his inner calm. ‘I appreciate it.’

A new song started up, something just a little slower and from somewhere, Sera groaned and called it _sappy shite_.

Cullen smirked and pulled Dorian towards the music and the familiar rhythm.

Dorian couldn’t look away from him. ‘I thought you didn’t dance.’

‘For you,’ Cullen laughed gently, playfully. ‘I’ll try.’

*

Three dances later, Dorian needed a drink. His heart was wildly beating, he felt _alive_ and weightless and he had Cullen, the most beautiful man in all of Thedas, attached to him for all of it.

‘I need a drink,’ Dorian said when the song ended and he was a bit dizzy from being spun. He didn’t ask if Cullen wanted one, knew that at best, Cullen might share his. ‘I’ll be but a moment.’

‘I could come with you—oh.’

Before he could speak, he was pulled back into the dancing fray, into the music by Cassandra. ‘You owe me a dance, Cullen,’ she said, grinning widely, more than tipsy at this point. Dorian chuckled and shook his head, leaving Cullen to his fate as he made for the tavern, doors open wide, no one attending the bar as it was a free for all. Cabot was sat atop the bar, drinking what looked to be a very fine mead of some sort and occasionally glaring at patrons who helped themselves.

‘Keeping an eye?’ Dorian guessed, pouring a cup of cider, something he tried earlier for the first time and decided he quite liked. ‘You should be out dancing.’

Cabot’s glare turned ancient and glassy. ‘Making sure they don’t go for the good stuff, the reserves.’

‘There’s good stuff? In _here_?’

Dorian decided to leave when Cabot’s glare threatened to melt his skin off his bones but someone drew his attention from an especially shadowy corner of the bustling tavern. Near Bull’s favourite table where the Qunari had often opted to sit, watching the world go by. How many times had Dorian dropped down beside him and sighed wretchedly.

_‘What shit you got yourself into now, Vint?’_

The mage shook it off when he saw who it was sat there, who was lurking.

The man who lurked best.

‘Splendid,’ Hawke called out quietly, but still audible over the noise of the packed room. ‘Got a minute?’

Dorian looked down at his cider. He didn’t want to give Hawke a minute, not even seconds but _damn it,_ Dorian’s happiness was making him ridiculously soft.

‘I hope this is a _goodbye_ kind of thing,’ he said brusquely as he sat down at the table, Hawke pushing the hood back enough that Dorian could make out his face in the low light that barely reached the corner. ‘Because I have places to be.’

Hawke was without his usual armour, that is to say, his cold, hardened smirk and steely gaze. He seemed… unusually stripped, naked without his barking laugh, his sarcasm and what had barely passed for _charm_ even on a good day.

‘Sort of. I uh. Look, I wanted to offer something.’

Dorian took a sip of the cider. ‘If you’re going to even attempt to apologise—’

‘No,’ Hawke said quickly and quietly. ‘No, I just. That mark on your neck.’

Dorian’s hackles went up helplessly, skin rolling with waves of mild _alarm_ at Hawke even knowing about it, let alone bringing it up. The mark was not something Dorian liked to think about. Though Cullen had been the one to administer it, Dorian had not been _there_ in his body. It had been Jassen, or some diluted form of the man bled into Dorian from the letter. The mark was a reminder of that night, of Cullen’s guilt. It was a brand, a punishment.

‘What about it?’ he demanded through ground teeth.

‘Do you want me to remove it?’

Brought up short for a moment, Dorian surveyed him. ‘You can't, it’s been too long.’

‘Not yet a week,’ Hawke reminded him and Dorian felt _stunned_ to realise that it was true. It hadn’t even been a single _week_ since that night. Astonishing, how much had happened since. ‘But you’re right, to remove the scar the chance would ordinarily have expired by now. Like it—like it did with your cheek.’

Dorian sat back. ‘Are you offering to use blood magic to remove it?’

Hawke was very still, gaze lowered. ‘Yes, I am.’

Three seconds passed before Dorian took another swig of the cider and said, ‘Yes, please do.’

‘What? Really?’

‘Really. It’s the absolute least you could do for me and I’m hardly squeamish about blood magic. Come on, there’s a room back here we can use.’

They moved through the heaving sea of bodies clamouring for free alcohol, Cabot snarling at the daring few who tried to serve themselves anything beyond wine, ale and cider. Dorian was _definitely_ getting into whatever Cabot was guarding later.

He led Hawke into Bull’s old room at the back, ignoring the pain in his heart, ignoring the memories of waking up there with a headache. Hawke pushed the door almost closed and let his hood fall back entirely.

‘It’ll hurt,’ he warned Dorian as he cut his palm.

‘That’s fine,’ Dorian said, facing the man who wore a scar gifted to him by Dorian, a slicing thing that had almost split his face in two. ‘I just want it gone.’

Hawke murmured the incantations, making use of that bodily tribute and the air contracted and stiffened, Dorian’s own magic aware of what was happening, vibrating in low warning.

Dorian pulled aside his shirt collar and the cloak, exposing the mark and waiting. ‘Don’t get blood on me,’ he warned.

‘I’ll try.’

It hurt so much worse than before with his face. In comparison, that had been a mild stinging sensation. This was compacted agony, like having a chunk of skin torn off. It was, however, short lived. Hawke stepped back after barely a minute, healing his own hand.

‘It’s gone,’ he said quietly. Dorian touched the sore, sensitive skin of his neck, Cullen’s favourite place to sink his teeth, to bite and claim… and found nothing. Clear, unmarked skin. Jassen’s _brand_ removed.

Dorian couldn’t help the tiny smile that curled his lips, that shaking sense of _relief, _not only for himself, but for Cullen who would have looked at that mark and been forced to remember things, awful things.

‘I… thank you,’ Dorian said, pulling his cloak and shirt back into place. ‘You didn't have to do that.’

‘Yeah, I did.’

‘Well, yes, obviously you did. It was a drop in the bucket considering what you did here, what you did to us and to the world overall. When someone throws you a bone, take it and run next time.’

Hawke laughed despite Dorian’s cutting tone. ‘I’m glad you pulled through,’ he said, running his thumb over his palm, healing it fully, but leaving the scar. ‘World would have been a bit dull without you.’

‘Are you leaving?’

‘I am leaving the castle, yes.’

‘Off into the sunset, I suppose? Starting over is all the rage these days.’ Dorian couldn’t keep the note of bitterness out, their surroundings finally getting to him, Bull’s scent still faintly imprinted into the fabric of the covers and the pillow of the neatly made bed, now just a guest bed once more. A guest room, vacant.

‘Maybe one day. Fenris, he. Well, he said I could try to help a few people. Thought I might offer my services to the Red Templars who’re returning. I spoke to Samson earlier. He punched me and then said he’d be happy to have me work with him to save as many as possible from the red lyrium.’ He looked down, toeing the ground. ‘Carver always…’ he cleared his throat. ‘He had a lot of respect for the Templars.’

It was probably some big, momentous thing, hearing Hawke refer to his brother as Carver and not himself. Dorian had no idea how to untangle it, how to process it and to own the truth, he didn’t especially care to.

He cared about those Templars though. About men and women who’d fought for them in the Wilds. Cullen did too.

‘That would be a good start,’ he said carefully. ‘I’m sad I missed Samson punching you though. Face?’

‘Gut,’ Hawke said with a flash of something like his old grin. ‘They’re establishing a temporary barracks two miles east. I’ll be there for a bit, helping as many as I can.’

‘Careful,’ Dorian said. ‘That sounds almost decent.’

‘Yeah,’ Hawke said with a shrug. ‘Who knows, eh? Might be my colour after all.’

‘Well, let’s not go crazy,’ Dorian said with a small frown. ‘But if you’re working with Samson to help the red Templars, then I wish you luck.’

‘Really?’

‘I also kind of wish that a strong wind blows you off the bridge the first step you take out of here, so don’t go getting weepy eyed.’

Hawke was silent for a beat. ‘I didn’t expect to survive.’

‘That doesn’t justify any of what you did.’

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I see that. Anyway, you’d better get back to the party. Don’t want to leave your handsome prince waiting for you. Gonna be a clear night tonight, no rain for once. Maybe take a stroll on the battlements, eh?’

Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘Go fuck yourself, Hawke.’

The man who had once been the Champion of Kirkwall laughed, a low rumbling thing. ‘I hope someone puts that on my gravestone.’

*

‘Where were you?’ Cullen asked immediately and predictably. ‘You left me alone and everyone danced with me, even Leliana! At one point, Josie and Cassandra were both—what happened?’

Amber eyes shot right to the left side of Dorian’s neck. Though the skin was hidden by the collar and the cloak, Cullen’s senses were apparently not fooled.

‘What do you _think_ happened?’ Dorian asked, helplessly curious. ‘Can you feel it?’

Cullen’s hand hovered over Dorian’s neck, expression pinched with concern. When he lowered his hand, incandescent rage blossomed in those whisky gold depths and yeah, all right, maybe Dorian was a bit drunk now too.

‘Who used blood magic on you?’

‘Y’know,’ Dorian said, sipping the cider and shaking his head. ‘You really _shouldn__’t_ be able to sense that.’

‘Well I fucking _can, _now tell me who?’ Cullen’s jaw dropped, eyes widening slightly as comprehension overcame him. ‘I’ll _murder_ him!’

‘No you will not.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s gone,’ Dorian told Cullen as a pack of unruly teenagers - _his_ teenagers - barged past, laughing and yelling obscenities as they played some kind of game that involved taking Marcus’s shirt and trousers. Kids. ‘He left, but before he did, he removed the uh. The mark.’

Cullen carefully, discretely pushed the material aside and his keen, sober eyes found the clean skin, the freshly healed and still rather sore spot where his teeth had sunk deep enough to scar last week.

The relief Dorian saw there was momentary, chased away again by even more anger. ‘And you _let _him?’

‘Have some cider, darling. I tested it for you, it’s all safe.’

‘Don’t butter me up with _darlings_. How the fucking void could you just let _Hawke_ of all people perform blood magic on you?’

Dorian shrugged and began walking away from the dance area, Cullen following. ‘It’s gone and so is Hawke.’

Cullen’s eyes narrowed as they moved towards a gathering that included a large chunk of the inner circle, Rainier telling some kind of apparently hilarious anecdote. ‘Hawke is _never_ truly gone.’

‘Well, now you’re just being dramatic,’ Dorian said, all light and breezy. ‘Are you truly so angry at me? There’s a corner behind the tavern, remember? You could take me there and show me just how _mad_ you are, if you really can’t contain it. Show me what a _bad boy_—’

‘Halward!’ Cullen greeted in a jarringly loud voice, meant to warn Dorian of his father’s approach from the side. ‘Good evening.’

Halward Pavus, dressed in relatively modest robes, gave them both a smile, the kind that Dorian dared to hope meant he hadn’t heard his only son spewing all manner of delectable filth to try and lure Cullen out of his grouchy mood or, even better, make good use of it.

‘My son, you look positively radiant,’ he informed Dorian who inclined his head, well aware of the veracity of such a statement. ‘And you, Cullen. Very handsome indeed. You make a lovely pair.’

‘Have some wine, Father,’ Dorian drawled. ‘You’re being disturbingly _nice_.’

Halward gracefully ignored that and looked around at the celebration. ‘This is a wonderful effort,’ he said. ‘It feels almost like home, the air is so warm and bright.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, a little softer. ‘Yes, it does.’

Halward, ever subtle, gave Cullen a very brief once over, gaze lingering for a fraction of a second on Cullen’s hand. ‘Well,’ he said briskly. ‘I shall help myself to what I’m certain will be _delicious_ Southern wine, possibly some ale for the full experience, and then circle back later to torment you both.’

Cullen smiled, a genuine thing. Dorian suspected he _liked_ Halward.

‘We look forward to it,’ he assured the older man.

‘Though I’ve been warned to seek you out only at ground level,’ Halward chuckled, giving Dorian a small emphatic look as he left. Dorian’s mouth fell partially open in indignation. ‘Have a lovely evening!’

‘Fucker,’ Dorian grumbled, watching him go, lightly brushing his hand against his right side pocket all the same, just _checking_ it was still there.

‘I like your Father,’ Cullen said predictably, proving Dorian entirely right.

‘Of course you do,’ Dorian bemoaned. ‘You’re the perfect son-in-law. Dutiful and polite, humble and hard working.’

‘Though without magic.’

Dorian looked at him sharply, the first note of genuine sadness he’d heard from Cullen since they’d left their tower earlier. The mage touched his face lightly, fingertips trailing over his freshly shaved cheeks, over the beautiful pale skin he found there. _‘You_,’ he said, fervent and true. ‘Are all the magic I could even need.’

Cullen broke out into a smile, leaning into the touch. ‘_That_,’ he said, echoing the tone. ‘Was ridiculously romantic, are you aware of that?’

‘Maybe I’m tipsy.’

They were leaning in, closing the gap, bodies brushing lightly, heat seeking heat, near enough to join their heartbeats and synchronise.

‘Maybe you’re just _wonderful_.’

‘Oh, there they are!’

Dorian sighed and Cullen chuckled, nuzzling his nose for a moment before they broke apart. It was Rainier and the fucker was _pointing_ at them.

‘Get over here, you two!’ he boomed. ‘You can fill in the last part of the story!’

The mage narrowed his eyes suspiciously as they joined the gathering. ‘_What_ story?’

*

Dorian would have put good money on Rainier being the kind of man who adhered to the shadows at a party, who clung to the fringes and drank sullenly, possibly throwing out dark comments about people having too much fun now and then before retreating.

He would have _lost_ that money, however, because Thom Rainier was apparently the life and fucking soul of the celebration. Alcohol seemed to have a rather invigorating effect on the man, causing him to explode out of his usually taciturn and gruff shell into a rip-roaringly hilarious storyteller.

The story he’d been telling was, thankfully, not actually _about_ Dorian and Cullen, but a retelling of the fight between Cullen and Hawke in the Approach. Cullen smoothly filled in a few details while managing to tell the story impressively whenever Rainier handed over to him.

After that he moved onto other tales. Rainier had a shocking number of raunchy tales under his belt, some of which had even Dorian blushing faintly around the edges. A good deal of Skyhold’s soldiers wandered over, out of uniform, to greet Cullen and Dorian while Rainier’s voice boomed out over the courtyard, audible over the din of the music. The soldiers expressed their relief that Dorian was well again and they spoke with Cullen happily for a while before moving away. Dorian watched their interactions, saw the love and respect they felt for their Commander, some of it even translating over to Dorian.

When Rainier stopped for refreshments, Varric taking over with a tale of an especially impressive fight in Kirkwall, the former Warden saw fit to hug Dorian around the middle. ‘Ahh,’ he growled, grinning. ‘Can’t tell you how glad I am you’re back, son!’

Dorian looked around pointedly but in truth, no one was listening. Varric’s story involved a great deal of busty women apparently.

‘I am too,’ Dorian agreed.

‘An’ you,’ Rainier said, addressing Cullen, tone suddenly deep with respect, though no less loud. ‘What you did was incredible.’ He nodded as if that made it concrete truth. ‘Incredible. It’s rare to see goodness prevail in this world. Makes it all the better when one actually _does_ catch a glimpse of it, makes happiness all the more worthy.’

‘Thank you,’ Cullen said, running a hand through his curls, mussing them even more. ‘I appreciate that.’

Rainier nodded again, a very _manly_ nod. ‘I’m staying, you know,’ he announced, looking around. ‘Thought about leaving, about doing some good elsewhere but this place… we can do plenty of good within these walls. She’s a good home for those who need one. I’m staying, putting down roots. Ellana said a lot of the mages are too, lot of Templars who want a different life. This place was the start of it, I think. The start of the Inquisition and the good we did.’

Dorian opened his mouth to say something positive and affirming but Rainier let out a loud and undeniably impressive belch, patting his stomach. ‘Time to top up,’ he announced and about turned, headed for the tavern.

‘Well,’ Dorian said, mildly affronted. ‘That was just about the most Southern thing I’ve ever seen.’

Cullen smirked at him, magical light dancing in his eyes. ‘Oh, it’s doubtlessly going to get worse, my delicate Tevinter mage, all ruffled sensibilities and manners. Shall I protect you from such vulgarity? Shield you, my fairest maiden?’

‘You can fuck royally _off_,’ Dorian said with a wry grin, shoving him for emphasis. ‘And stop teasing me in public. I know you’d like nothing better than to throw me down here and now, in the mud with everyone watching, _but_ this shirt is precious and I will protect it with my life.’

Cullen pouted. ‘So I can rip it off later?’

‘Rip it— _Cullen_, this shirt is the most stunning piece of clothing in existence!’

The blonde moved closer suddenly, invading Dorian’s breathing space.

‘No, it’s just a shirt, worn by the loveliest creature in all existence and if I have to rip it off to get to your skin, to drag my tongue over your chest, teeth sinking into your nipples, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.’

Heat gathered and swirled, blooming over Dorian’s skin. ‘You could rip it just a _little_ I suppose.’

Cullen smiled, taking Dorian’s hand in his, the other settling on the mage’s waist as they started to dance to their own little rhythm, heedless of the one the pounded through the air, dancing in a crowd of people.

‘Only a little?’ Cullen touched his lips teasingly to Dorian’s.

‘A very little,’ Dorian allowed, heart moving up into his throat, blood spiralling _down_ in a way that made his legs feel desperately heavy, left him dizzy from wanting the man before him. ‘Oh look,’ he said stopping suddenly. ‘If we stand here, I’m taller than you.’

‘So you are.’

Dorian wrapped his hands around Cullen’s neck. ‘Do you like it?’

‘More than I should.’

‘You like me being a bit taller?’

Cullen swallowed, throat bobbing. ‘Yes.’

‘Mmm, perhaps we should go see about that shadowy corner behind the—’

‘DORIAN!’

‘Fucking _Maker_, I’m going to flash fry the next person who calls my name and _isn__’t_ you.’

His name being yelled by Sera was all the warning he got before the elf threw herself at him, drunk and gangly.

‘I was tryin’a find you!’ she exclaimed, arms and legs wrapped about him like an octopus. ‘Where _were_ you?’

‘Standing here in the middle of the courtyard, sweetheart.’

‘Well,’ she sniffled, moving back and wobbling slightly before Cullen caught her. ‘Ah, Cully _Wully_!’ she squealed, giving Cullen the same treatment. ‘You two!’ she declared, wobbly and fervent. ‘You two are just the cutest. Did’ja know that? _So_ cute. Everyone loves you. Varric told me he heard two soldiers pretending to _be_ you two while banging in the pantry! Isn’t that nice?’

‘Maybe you should have some hot tea,’ Dorian suggested, wincing at the imagery.

‘Fuck _tea_! Y’know the funny thing?’ she snorted, grinning goofily. ‘They were both girls!’ Sera’s cackling finally drew the attention of Lavellan.

‘How’s my princess?’ the Inquisitor asked, rather drunk herself by the looks of things. The pair kissed messily, heedless of their audience and when the entire courtyard cheered, Dorian couldn’t help but grin along with all the second-hand merriment.

‘I’m good, Tadwinks,’ Sera assured her when they drew apart. ‘Was telling them about Atonia and Fleda.’

Ellana burst out laughing. ‘Oh Maker, you didn’t tell them _that_!’

‘Course I did,’ Sera said. ‘I’d be well chuffed if it was us. Sincerest form of flattery, innit?’

‘Out of interest,’ Cullen said, tilting his head. ‘Which soldier of the two was pretending to be me?’

‘More alcohol, I think!’ Dorian declared.

Ellana and Sera parted as the Inquisitor smoothly slipped her arm around Dorian’s. ‘Cullen, may I borrow your mage?’

Cullen gave a respectful, though amused little bow. ‘But of course, your grace.’

‘Don’t worry, Ree!’ Sera called out, leaning against Cullen like he was a tree. ‘I’ll keep him warm!’

Dorian dragged his gaze away. ‘Where are we going?’

‘It’s a surprise.’

*

Dorian stared at the second Eluvian, a slightly darker and deeply discoloured thing compared to the one beside it, the one they’d used to return from the Wilds. The second Eluvian smelled of wet earth and growth, a faint magical hum about it.

‘Ellana, I can’t—’

The Inquisitor smiled. ‘You can and you will.’

‘There’s… this is… I don’t know what to say.’

‘Dorian. You’re my best friend in the world. You’ll take it with you when you go and that way, we won’t have to be farther apart than we need to be.’

His heart clenched then, looking at her as they stood in the small room, sounds coming from outside, Dorian’s faintly glowing orb reflecting endlessly between the two mirrors.

‘You’re staying here, aren’t you?’

She ran her hands over the stones of the walls, seeming so happy. ‘I want to see the world, I want to travel with Sera and now I can do it. How amazing is that? I can go anywhere I want, _do_ whatever I want, but I think I’ll always come back here. That this place is my real true home. I never had one before. Home was always wherever I was, not bricks or wood, no roof beyond what I could make for myself. Home was _me_. Alone and moving. Not anymore. I have mine here and you’ll take this one. With the power of the Well, I can use them still.’

They smiled at each other for a while, basking in the white noise of happiness coming from under the door. ‘I love you,’ Dorian told her.

They moved into each other’s arms, hugging. ‘I love you so much,’ she whispered. ‘Who’d have thought it, eh? Herald of No One and the Tevinter mage.’

‘Herald of the _People_,’ Dorian insisted. ‘Or didn't you hear them cheering for your snogging out there?’

She drew back, wiping her eyes. ‘I couldn’t breathe without you here,’ she confessed quietly, her delicate features crumpling. ‘I tried to be strong for everyone, for Cullen, but I—’

Dorian took her back into his arms, the pair holding each other. ‘Shhh,’ he soothed, stroking her raven hair, feeing her ears poking out beneath it. ‘I wasn’t very far and now, look, I never will be.’

She clung to him all the tighter. ‘Yeah, that’s the plan. Dorian… thank you for coming into my life. Thank you for being my best friend.’

The mage’s eyes stung and his throat expanded, making it difficult to laugh. ‘Don’t go letting anyone hear you talk like that, people will think we’re a pair of sad sacks.’

Ellana Lavellan rolled her eyes and wiped her nose. ‘Dorian, we _are_ sad sacks. We’re the saddest sacks of all time, but we’re also two of the luckiest.’

‘Lucky is the truth of it,’ Dorian said with a crooked grin, hands on her shoulders. ‘I’ll take that, so long as it’s a secret.’

‘Our secret,’ she whispered, laughing quietly.

‘All right then, sad sack. And what a _mushy_ little sad sack you are.’

The delicate rogue smacked his shoulder. ‘Mushy! You’re one to _talk_! Like I don’t know what’s in your _pocket_!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Well, old habits,’ she shrugged unrepentantly. ‘I was always good at cataloguing valuables and what do I find, low and behold!’ She snuck her hand into Dorian’s pocket and whipped out the small glittering thing, encrusted with diamonds and in the centre, a very rare amethyst stone. ‘Who’s mushy now?’

Dorian pretended to glare. ‘How dare you?’

‘Were you seriously going to propose to him and not _even tell me? _Because if so, how dare _you?__’_

_‘_It’s not an especially big deal,’ Dorian waved, trying to get the ring but failing to grab it from her excessively nimble fingers. ‘He already proposed to me in the Wilds.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘What? When?’

‘Can I have that back, please? I don’t want your anchor dirtying it, thank you very much.’

‘Is this your Father’s ring?’

‘Yes,’ Dorian answered, suddenly weirdly nervous, staring at the object. ‘Earlier, I went to him and asked for it and he agreed. The uh. The whole thing was weirdly touching and mortifying.’

Ellana gave the ring back. ‘He didn’t think it was weird that _you _were proposing to Cullen?’

‘Why would that be weird?’

‘Because you’re clearly the girl?’

‘I’m—fuck off, you! Insult my _manly_ greatness like that! I think a dose of static shock is just what your hair needs!’

‘No, _noooo_, Dorian! I take it back, I take it back!’ she giggled, the pair leaving the room and shutting the door hurriedly as Dorian chased her all the way back to the noise and the lights, to the warmth and beauty of that shared night, Ellana’s laughter trailing ahead, Dorian running like he hadn’t for years, happiness making him lightweight, love in every step.

*

When Dorian returned, Cullen was in deep conversation with Nalari and Sera. Nalari was swaying with Dawn, who seemed up and alert. Dorian was startled to see her blue eyes open wider and looking around with _far_ more intellect and acuity than he’d ever witnessed before. She was wrapped in blankets, a darling woollen hat on her head, covering her ears.

‘There you are!’ Nalari greeted brightly, if a bit tired. Cullen turned quickly, smiling to see his love return. ‘We were about to send out a search party!’

‘No need,’ Lavellan said, winking at Sera. ‘He was safe and sound with me.’

‘I was waiting to bid you good night,’ Nalari said when Dorian hugged her.

‘No, you should stay and enjoy yourself,’ Dorian suggested.

‘We’ve had a lovely time,’ she said. ‘But it’s late and the others should be wrangled in too. Maker only knows what’s happening over there,’ she chuckled, throwing a glance towards a gathering of all the young mages.

‘Where’s Keenan?’ Dorian asked, would-be casual, glancing around the crowd, so much movement and dancing that it was nigh impossible to scout for the boy, but he didn't seem to be with the gaggle of wonderfully troublesome mages huddled by the overhang.

‘I’m not sure,’ Nalari said. ‘But I’ll go see. Can someone take Dawn?’

‘Me!’ Sera volunteered. ‘I’ll hold her!’

‘Uh,’ Nalari said, smiling politely. ‘_Maybe_ someone a little less drunk.’

‘Here,’ Cullen, who was stone cold sober, offered in a way that did strange things to Dorian’s pulse. ‘I’ll take her if you like.’

Nalari beamed, handing her daughter over to Cullen who took her with every ounce of care he could visibly muster, holding her as Nalari had done, flat against his chest, her tiny chin propped up on his shoulder.

Dorian stared, fucking _stared_, as Cullen then began to gently bounce her, swaying from side to side, rubbing her back. It was all vaguely Fade-like, a scene straight from a fever dream. Cullen stood there surrounding by soft, flattering mage light, dressed like fucking _royalty_ and bouncing the most adorable baby Dorian had ever seen.

It was _definitely_ not meant to be sexy.

But it definitely fucking was.

Oh, what would _Dorian of the Past_ think of his future self, getting hot under the collar for a man _holding a baby?_

Cullen caught them staring and frowned self-consciously. ‘What? What is it?’

‘Uh, nothing,’ Lavellan said, eyebrows raised, expression vacant with residual shock. ‘It’s just nice to have my gayness confirmed, because I doubt anything will ever test it like that.’

Sera snorted into her ale and Dorian couldn’t help but laugh. Cullen hadn’t quite heard her, his focus went right back to little Dawn who was brightly, widely awake and very interested by all the noise and the lights. Dorian wandered over to the pair, leaving Lavellan and Sera to snicker.

‘She likes you,’ Dorian said, stroking her cheek. It was warm and silky and for how much she was able, Dawn moved her head in his direction, exclaiming in that ridiculously cute way that had Dorian grinning like an idiot. ‘Oh, she’s so _sweet_! I can’t _wait_ to buy things for her!’

‘She likes you more,’ Cullen commented smoothly, hand moving up and down as he kept the momentum going. ‘But Uncle Dorian is just a tiny bit drunk, yes he is, so he can’t hold you. But that’s all right because now you and I can spend a few minutes together, yes we can, baby girl.’

And though Dorian had things he could have said, a steady repertoire of comments for most occasions, he just stood there, stroking Dawn’s face and letting her chomp gummily on his thumb, cooing and occasionally squealing when she bit down especially hard.

‘Oh, she’s hungry, I think,’ Cullen said, looking around. ‘Your Mummy will be back soon, don’t worry.’

Dawn began making little movements, as if trying to shuffle backwards and Cullen adjusted his hold, hand supporting her head as he held her before him, the pair looking at each other.

‘Oh, hello,’ he said, smiling. ‘Better?’

Dorian wrapped his arms around Cullen’s middle, chin over his shoulder as Dawn’s had been moments ago. ‘She definitely likes you.’

Cullen said nothing, just held the baby, Dorian wrapped around him, noise and music everywhere, merriment in the air and the warm air reminding Dorian of Tevinter.

‘Maybe she does,’ Cullen ventured softly after a while.

‘Well, well,’ came Vivienne’s amused drawl. ‘Isn’t this a sight?’

Dorian withdrew and Cullen moved Dawn back to his chest.

‘Vivienne,’ Dorian greeted with a nod, resisting the urge to let loose his snark in her direction. ‘Having a nice evening?’

‘Indeed I am. It’s all very rustic and charming. Getting into Cabot’s reserve was _well_ worth the subterfuge.’

Dawn started shifting irritably, making small sounds of general distress and Cullen shushed her sweetly, swaying them back and forth. ‘I’ll go look for Nalari,’ he told Dorian, dropping a kiss to the mage’s cheek. ‘Vivienne,’ he added respectfully.

‘No, _you_ stay and I’ll—oh, sodding _void_,’ Dorian grumbled and Vivienne laughed, sipping her glass.

‘You wouldn’t be remotely surprised how often I get that reaction,’ she told him. ‘But he’s doing me a favour. I wanted to let you know, personally, that I’ve been offered the position as the new Divine.’

Dorian blinked, brow lifting. ‘You have?’

‘I have indeed, my dear,’ she said. ‘Along with Cassandra and Leliana. They both turned it down but I have decided to take the position.’

_What a shock_, Dorian did not say. ‘A mage Divine? Congratulations,’ he said with a decisive nod because nods were really the way to go for such things. ‘I assume sweeping change is in the winds,’ he added, collecting what he _hoped_ was his cider from a small table nearby with all kinds of identical cups. ‘Or, sweeping return to form for the South.’

‘The Circles are a priority yes. For years now I’ve been compiling plans, the restoration of the Circles. The containment of mages.’

Dorian looked behind her, saw Cullen handing little Dawn back to Nalari, his heart growing heavy at the very idea of them being dragged back into those places. Places like Kinloch, places that had warped Cullen, that had helped form someone like _Jassen_.

‘How lovely,’ he forced himself to comment neutrally, assuring himself that it was no matter because he would just take them all North, every single one of them and—

‘And I’ve thrown it all out the window.’

Dorian froze, cider halfway to his mouth. ‘You… eh?’

‘Well, not _literally_. That would rain down about four hundred sheets of paper on unknowing people coming and going, but I have… hmm, what’s the Tevinter phrase, _mutassis mei canta._’

‘Changed your tune? I’m afraid you may have lost me.’

‘I have been speaking extensively with Leliana, for a long time now. She and I have grown reasonably close, as close as I’ve come with anyone here. She turned the position down for one reason only.’ Vivienne smiled then. ‘Because she trusted me.’

Dorian couldn’t help but wince. ‘I… see.’

‘What I am _saying,__’_ she said, impatiently. ‘Is that I will not be restoring the Circles, not in any capacity. Those that remain, unofficially and hidden, will be swiftly shut down. There will be change, absolutely. Mages need protection, most assuredly but, I have also seen that there are different ways to protect. That perhaps the old ways should be left to die, the new to be born and cared for better than those who came before us.’ She looked as if what she said next required some steel. ‘What I am _asking_ of you, Dorian, is if you would consider collaborating with me to design a model of what I _do_ wish to implement.’

‘Which is what, precisely?’

‘Colleges of Magi, but based on _your_ experiences of them in Tevinter, not the bastardised versions we have here. True Colleges with the truest educational spirit. Protection for those who require it but also education against the risks and safety for all who seek it.’

Dorian stared. ‘You want my input?’

‘Yes.’

‘About Circles in Tevinter?’

‘I would prefer for them not to be referred to as such, the connotations are best dissolved.’

‘Right, but… uh.’ Dorian shook himself. ‘May I ask what’s brought this on?’

Vivienne huffed and sipped, pausing before she answered. ‘Are you fishing for compliments, my dear? Because that is most unbecoming. You’re well aware of what has _brought this on_.’ She fixed him with a look. ‘You have. You and your mages. Seeing them flourish, seeing them exert the kind of control over themselves that comes with confidence, with _trust_. Trust that they are safe, trust that they will be believed. Confidence born of love, one supposes. The older mages went to war for the Inquisition and despite all the stress, all the fractious displacement and fear, not a single abomination.’ She looked around at the party, at the great, messy celebration. ‘Something truly _good_ was started here. I may not be able to quantify it, but I would like to carry a seed of it with me when I go. I have come to greatly care for these children, to truly see their potential and their love for each other.’

She went quiet for so long that Dorian wondered what to say to fill the void, unsure if his _repertoire _had anything worthy of such an occasion but then she spoke again, so low that he could barely hear her.

‘There was much I have ignored in my life, my years within Circles. Much I weighed against the dangers of possession and saw fit to pretend was simply individual cruelty, not systematic. Ostwick is well renowned to be one of the nicer Circles in Orlais but even there, I confess to having turned my back several times when other mages, lesser mages as I designated them in my mind, were in need. Captivity is a strange thing. Those who flourish within walls tend not to see the worse parts of their prison, or even see that it is a prison at all. I might never have realised this, had I not seen for myself what you had built here in four short months with only love, trust and patience. I will not be restoring the Circles. The Colleges will be voluntary, the models based on those in Tevinter. I do not have all the details yet, there are facets that need to be considered, but I will speak with Cullen. The idea was his, after all.’

‘It… _what_?’

‘Yes,’ she said like it was obvious. ‘When he was imprisoned by Hawke, we spoke sometimes. We spoke of Circles, of his experience with them. It was the one time he mentioned you by name.’

The memory returned to Dorian then, standing in the snow of that very courtyard with Vivienne, Cullen unconscious in the infirmary, Vivienne’s fingers frostbitten and damaged as she offered to tell him what Cullen had said of him while chained and being force fed lyrium by that _fucker, _Hawke.

‘What—’ Dorian cleared his throat. ‘What did he say about me?’

‘We were debating the necessity of Circles. He said that while mages require instruction and protection, the will of the Templars had become warped over time, that public perception of mages had turned almost feral. He said it all needed to be undone, started anew. Volunteers only, no mandatory lyrium, trust and kindness. He said that when a mage is caged and tormented, they grow twisted and misshapen, like trees without sun. But a mage who is trusted, whose magic is guided by knowledge and education, nurtured and cared for, he said they can become what they were meant to be. The light of the world, like you.’

‘He said I was the light of the world?’

‘He said you were the light of the world, yes.’

‘Was he delirious?’

‘Very.’

Dorian was somewhat astonished. ‘I see.’

‘I happen to agree with him. Not about you being the light of the world, of course, but the rest of it. Containing magic is not nearly so effective as caring for it. There will be protectors, Templars perhaps, but they will be retrained and their life will not be made miserable either. Locking together two powerful peoples in abject misery and captivity is not the way forward. I find myself… excited, for the chance to truly make the world a better place.’

‘There will be backlash.’

‘I should hope so. Life without assassination attempts is deeply dull.’

‘The Chantry will be outraged.’

‘The Elder One was outraged when we foiled his insidious schemes and prevented him from taking control of the world. That does not mean he was in the right, nor that his fury made him unstoppable.’

‘There will still be possessions,’ Dorian went on, truly unable to stop himself because he actually believed her, he _wanted_ what she was offering, but it had to be real. ‘Mages are people and people lose control.’

‘Sometimes people drown from falling into a river, but we don’t forbid contact with water. We teach people to swim.’

Dorian was impressed, despite himself, despite the cider, despite her words still ringing in his ears that Cullen, even at his lowest ebb, probably cursing Dorian to the ends of the world and back, thought that the mage was _the light of the world._

‘That might be the most astute analogy I’ve ever heard.’

‘So,’ she said. ‘Will you work with me for a few weeks, a month at most, to create a working model of how these Colleges will operate? Both yourself _and_ Cullen, I hope.’

‘I—yes, of course. Of course.’

‘Wonderful. Well, I shall leave you to your merriment. I must pester Josephine with my attempts at convincing her to stay. She will be wasted in Antiva, whereas I would make the most of her ample talent, her underutilised skill. If there’s anyone who could tame the Chantry while we rework hundreds of years’ worth of rotting tradition, it’s her.’ She turned away but paused, throwing a smirk over her shoulder. ‘Oh, and remember if you wander anywhere _high_, that a good dome shield will contain a great deal of _sound, _should you compact it tightly enough.’

*

‘We don’t want to go!’

‘We’re _so_ not tired!’

‘I didn’t even have any wine!’

‘Barely two cups!’

‘I didn’t get to ask Maryden to dance!’

‘I want to ask that broody elf to dance, the one with all the tattoos.’

Dorian heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes, unmoved by the chorus of boyish wheedling. ‘Tough, tough, abject lie, try six, Maryden is playing and also two feet taller than you, Marcus. Christopher, I will _pay_ you to go and ask Fenris to dance.’

His dismissals were met with groans, all but Christopher who took Dorian’s last quite literally and pelted off in the direction of what Dorian thought of as the _Cullen Triangle_; Leliana and Fenris on either side of the blond.

Saffy draped her arm around Landon’s shoulder, breathless and cheeks flushed from dancing. ‘This is the best night ever.’

‘See?’ Marcus whined, pointing at Saffy. ‘C’mon, let us stay a bit longer!’

‘No,’ Dorian repeated, kind but stern.

‘Ahh, please?’

‘No. This is the point at which parties like this start to become less suitable for children.’

He smiled helplessly at the chorus of, _‘WE’RE NOT CHILDREN!’ _because as far as he was concerned, they would be children well into their forties. _His_ children.

‘Yeah!’ Landon added stoutly, hands on his hips. ‘We weren’t _children_ when we helped Cullen do blood magic, were we?’

As if touched by an ice charm, they all froze in perfect, beautiful synchronicity. Saffy groaned into Landon’s shoulder.

Politely, calmly, Dorian said, ‘What was that?’

*

‘You involved _children_—’

‘It was barely a thimble each.’

‘—in a _blood ritual?_’

‘It was to help Rob, the boy from the Wilds.’

‘Are you justifying it?’

Cullen rubbed the back of his neck, looking to Leliana for help but the Spymaster simply shrugged. ‘You’re on your own here. I myself tore you apart for it, if you recall, my friend.’

The gaggle of young mages had followed Dorian over towards Cullen, making all kinds of excuses along the way, shoving Landon for his slip. Nearby, Fenris stood with Christopher, having some kind of _Thanks But No Thanks_ conversation in which the young mage didn’t seem to understand that he had no hope whatsoever of Fenris ever dancing with him.

Dorian was angry in the best kind of way. The way that was justified, the way that was forthright and clear cut. The kind of anger that burned bright instead of emanating a sour glow from a dark place within.

The kind that had Cullen faintly blushing because he knew he was in the wrong.

Despite all the mages defending Cullen, even those that weren’t _there_ for the ritual, Dorian was unmoved. He only had eyes for Cullen, somewhat enjoying the role.

And it was _mostly_ for show, because really, blood magic was not the _Big Bad_ he’d once thought it to be and he knew the persuasive techniques of those kids, especially en masse. But there was no harm in tormenting Cullen just a little, was there?

‘Walk me through that decision, _darling_.’

Cullen’s faint blush darkened and Dorian was immensely enjoying himself, despite the dull glare he was receiving from Cullen.

‘Could we not just skip ahead to the part where I apologise and promise it will never happen again?’

‘I myself would prefer to linger in the grey area where you apparently decided that using four _children _to bleed for blood magic was somehow acceptable.’

‘Yes,’ Leliana agreed. ‘I too would care to tarry in this area.’

Cullen groaned. ‘I was an idiot.’

‘Moron, really.’

‘Yes, I was a moron.’

‘How _much_ of a moron.’

Deadpan was an understatement for the look Cullen gave Dorian then, but the mage did not relent. He crossed his arms and waited.

‘An absolute moron.’

_‘_What usually comes after the _absolute_?’

‘Dorian, not in front of the—’

‘Ah-HAH! In front of the what? The full grown adults? Or the _children_?’

‘WE’RE NOT CHILDREN!’

Defeated, Cullen rolled his eyes. ‘The children,’ he confirmed glumly.

In victory, Dorian was smug. ‘Indeed. No more blood magic for the children please.’

Cullen agreed by way of nodding and Fenris came over, expression amusingly stormy.

‘Did you _pay_ that boy to ask me to dance?’

Leliana burst out laughing before Dorian could either confirm or deny anything. Dorian looked at her with mild astonishment, couldn’t help it. He tried to think of the last time, _any _time he’d heard her laugh.

‘Come, Tevinter mage,’ she bade, still laughing. ‘I will help you return these_ young adults_ to their dormitory.’

*

After rounding up stragglers, something Leliana was surprisingly good at, she and Dorian escorted them back to the tower, dropping Nalari and Saffy off along the way, the pair staying together in what had once been Dorian’s old room. He looked inside the small space.

Nalari had made it quite beautiful. Wreaths of dried flowers on the walls drew his attention to the little scraps of paper here and there, drawings of Dawn, of Keenan, of Saffy. Of Dorian himself.

‘Nalari,’ he whispered, as she laid Dawn down into her small, wooden crib. ‘Did you do these?’

She looked back tying her long, blonde curls up into a bun. ‘Oh,’ she smiled. ‘Yes. They’re just for fun.’

‘They’re… beautiful,’ he said, studying the charcoal lines, the shading, the depth. ‘Tomorrow, I’ll get you proper tools, real paper.’

Her smile widened, blue eyes shining in the glow of her mage light. ‘Thank you, Dorian.’

Saffy was changing clothes, heedless as ever for things like nudity or propriety, but Dorian couldn’t bring himself to care because then Nalari was hugging him again, her arms all the way around his chest.

‘Thank you,’ she repeated in a whisper. Dorian swallowed, feeling the secondary meaning as much as he heard it.

‘No,’ he said, stroking her hair. ‘Thank _you.__’_

When the rest of the mages, all but Keenan, were outside the Dorm, Dorian drew their attention.

‘Because it’s a special night,’ he told the boys. ‘And because you didn’t do anything _especially_ stupid, you can carry on the party in my room if you like. Under one condition!’ he added, yelling to be heard over the boisterous celebratory roaring. ‘That you make minimal mess, you don’t destroy anything that can't be replaced, and please don’t flood the room if you use the bath.’

‘Can we have more wine?’

Dorian narrowed his eyes, assessing. ‘You can have _two_ bottles of wine between you all and Maker help me, if I find out you snuck away to get more, there will be void to pay.’

‘We promise!’ Landon swore earnestly. ‘I’ll keep them in line, don’t worry!’

‘Very well,’ Dorian said, having the distinct feeling he would regret such kindness when he returned later. ‘And use a shield charm if you intend to make noise. I’ll not have you keeping little Dawn, or the rest of the castle for that matter, awake until sunrise.’

They flooded into his room, going straight for the wine collection, Cain opening Dorian’s drawers and helping himself to an especially slutty set of silk scarves which was right about the time Dorian decided to close the door.

‘That was a nice thing you did,’ Leliana commented airily as they walked down the spiral staircase, passing her work area along the way. She was dressed sharply, wearing trousers and leather boots, a dark grey waistcoat and beneath it, a crimson silk shirt opened at the top. Her hair brushed and lightly styled, a short braid tapering off to one side. She was stunning. ‘And at least no one can get pregnant, I suppose.’

Dorian groaned. ‘That was a very stupid thing I just did, wasn’t it?’

‘Well, you’ll find out come morning. Luckily, you’re a mage. Magic fixes many things.’

‘Not all.’

‘Not all,’ she agreed, looking away from her desk, from her ravens and ink wells. ‘But I do not believe that anyone who loves you as much as they do would ever truly break anything that cannot be replaced.’

Dorian threw her a glance as they walked. ‘Did you know?’ he asked conversationally. ‘That I love _you_ very much?’

She laughed again. It was such a _nice_ sound. ‘I did actually know that, Dorian. Thank you. Hard as it may be for me to express myself in such a wonderfully free manner as that, please know that I wholeheartedly return the sentiment.’

‘I feel like it would have been more efficient to say, _love you too, Dorian_.’

Leliana sighed and nudged him as they walked. ‘Love you too, Dorian.’

He hadn’t been expecting it, not really, tried to hide the lump in his throat that it brought about. ‘How far we’ve all come.’

Carefully, quietly, she said, ‘Not all of us.’

Dorian steeled himself. ‘Those that matter. Those that count. Vivienne said you turned down the position of Divine.’

‘Yes,’ she answered briskly. ‘I cannot imagine a less applicable word for myself. Vivienne has my trust, she has true intent to build upon what we started here. She is strong enough to see it through. I believe in her.’

‘You could have done it. We would have all supported you.’

‘You know,’ Leliana sighed. ‘I am tired, Dorian. I am tired of so much. Tired of this avenue of life. This role will kill me one day. With the threat passed, with safety and peace for the time being at least, I think I would like to rest for a while. I should simply like to _be_. Just be Leliana, walk in the sun now and then. Take the time to enjoy what little pleasures the world can offer. I am so very tired, my friend.’

Dorian put his arm around her as they walked. ‘You can sleep,’ he said quietly. ‘You can rest and we will all stand watch. You can be whatever you want, and those who love you will watch over you and keep you safe.’

They made their way back to the party outside, the music still in full swing, showing no signs of dying down.

‘I think I might like that,’ she said, pressing a kiss to his cheek. ‘But it will have to be later. For now, we heal. We celebrate and we take stock of all that is good. Come dance with me, let us truly set the castle astir.’

*

‘You dance as well as ever, my son,’ Halward said when Dorian finished with Leliana, who was apparently something of an expert dancer herself.

‘Thank you, Father,’ Dorian said, stopping his journey back to Cullen and a few others nearby. ‘Are you enjoying the party? I meant to ask, where are the Magisters?’

Halward shrugged. ‘I knocked them out with magic and left them in the guest rooms.’

‘Ah,’ Dorian said nodding. ‘Nicely done. They would only make Fenris uneasy anyway.’

‘Dorian,’ Halward said. ‘You have not yet given Cullen the ring. I am very much looking forward to making some sort of speech, you realise?’

Dorian’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not—_no speeches_!’

Halward seemed displeased. ‘I have several versions planned.’

‘Father, under no circumstances are you to make a speech about _anything_.’

‘But I have anecdotes.’

Dorian sighed. ‘I _promise_ we won’t get married without you there. There is no need to make any speeches here.’

With a sad huff, Halward looked down at his wine glass. ‘I leave for Tevinter in a few days with the others. You are rash, my son. Brimming with passion. I understand the allure of a sweeping, spur of the moment wedding in the South, near a _waterfall_ or something,’ he ventured, gesturing with a small glare as if all waterfalls personally offended him. ‘But please do not deny me the joy of seeing my son married to a good man.’

‘And the joy of a painfully lavish wedding to show me off to all of Tevinter?’

‘That too.’

Dorian smirked. ‘I assure you, Father. I want that also. There is no chance of rushing into a small ceremony. You’ll be there, I promise.’

Halward finally seemed satisfied. ‘Wonderful. Well, I shall leave you to your friends then and save my anecdotes for another, more grand occasion.’

‘Out of interest, _which_ anecdotes?’ Dorian asked, but Halward was already walking away, thus confirming the mage’s suspicions that they would likely be _embarrassing_ ones.

Dorian watched his father sashay away as Cullen, Josephine, Varric, Lavellan, Sera and Cole came over. ‘Your dancing was _most_ exciting!’ Cole declared loudly, his hat gone, his hair combed, wearing a very bright outfit that vaguely gave him the appearance of a bard, the singing kind. ‘I like all the turns! It’s very clever, really. Music and moving, I think I’ll keep it.’

‘It was _beautiful_ dancing,’ Josephine agreed. She herself was wearing an outfit that was positively dazzling. Deep, emerald green, plummeting neckline, satin and lace enough to stir envy in even Dorian, who was beauty personified that night. ‘How I _wish_ we could have showcased the pair of you at Halamshiral. What a stir that would have made!’

‘I mean,’ Varric chuckled. ‘I remember there being _other_ stirring events that night.’

‘Oh yeah!’ Sera laughed thickly, way past normal _drunk_ and on her way to being _absolutely fucked_. Ah, how Dorian remembered that stage. ‘Wuzzon the balcony, wunnit? ‘Member Ellie was all like, _don__’t go out there_!’

‘Oh for Maker’s sake,’ Dorian grumbled. ‘Did you all… _know_ about that?’

‘It was on a _balcony_,’ Lavellan said, patting him on the shoulder with sympathy. ‘The doors were made of glass.’

Dorian looked at Cullen who of course, seemed to give not a single fuck, but he did smile at his love then, a secret kind of smile that made Dorian warm despite the mild indignation he felt.

‘I don’t think I remember that night,’ he commented lightly. ‘Do you, Dorian?’

Oh, the mage would never forget that night. The first time he’d tasted Cullen’s cock, hard and straining, slipping past his lips. Cullen himself all tight, dark, barely _there_ control and then Dorian stepping away, leaving him like that, _taunting_ him, Cullen’s cock slick with his spit, drying in the cool breeze.

No, he would not forget that in a hurry.

‘Hmm, nor I,’ Dorian sniffed, following suit, crossing his arms haughtily. ‘_Anyway_, Varric, regale us with your plans for the future?’

The dwarf chuckled in familiar fashion. ‘Well, Sparkler. I think I’ll be hitting the road soon. Places to be, new friends to make, stories to write. Kirkwall still needs all the help it can get. But I’ll always be there should you need a helping hand from me, or a bolt from Bianca.’

‘You’re not going to write about any of this, are you?’ Dorian asked, while Cullen snorted softly.

‘He probably already _has_.’

‘I may have taken a note or two,’ Varric said, purposefully vague. ‘I’ll change the details, don’t fret. What name rhymes with _Dorian_?’

‘What about you, Josie?’ Cullen asked, before Dorian could open his mouth to rise to Varric’s teasing bait. ‘Back to Antiva?’

‘Perhaps,’ she said demurely. ‘But a true Antivan always has at least three options on the table at any one time. Vivienne is constructing some truly bracing plans for change and I can see a future with her, helping to shape the world in the image of what began with the Inquisition. Family are important, but… but there are other options to consider. It is nice to be uncertain for once.’ She smiled brightly, her lovely eyes shining. ‘Yes, a little uncertainty. I like it.’

Cullen was listening, but his attention was half elsewhere, scanning the crowd. Dorian followed his gaze carefully, while Josephine fell into rapid-fire conversation with Lavellan, who was surprisingly loquacious when drunk, about the policies involved with installing the new Divine.

‘Looking for Fenris?’ Dorian guessed, arm sliding around Cullen’s well-tailored waist.

‘And Leliana,’ Cullen replied distractedly. ‘I just have this feeling…’

‘Feeling of what?’

‘Hmm? Oh, nothing. I just. Nothing.’

Dorian blinked. ‘Oh _Maker, _that’s terrifying.’

‘What is?’ Lavellan looked over, drawing the attention of Josephine and Varric too. Sera was sat on the grass, leaning against Ellana’s knee. ‘What’s terrifying?’

‘Terrifying?’ Dorian echoed, stalling for time. ‘How thirsty I am, _that__’s_ what’s terrifying.’

‘Indeed,’ Cullen agreed swiftly. ‘Let’s go get you a drink.’

They left the other three snickering but Dorian was still mildly shocked about Cullen’s suspicion. ‘You don’t really think…?’

‘No,’ Cullen said with full and complete confidence, before he tilted his head. ‘Well.’

‘Fucking _void_, Cullen, now I’m in a very bad place, mentally and visually. Where are we going, by the way?’

‘Oh, just… over here.’

He led Dorian by the hand, moving through the crowd towards the steps past the front entrance to the Herald’s Rest, a pair of very _annoying_ steps that Dorian knew oh so well, leading up to the ramparts. The mage grinned, heart lurching in the best possible way. As they moved past the door of the tavern, Dorian glanced inside and he stopped suddenly.

‘Hold on, hold on,’ he said, pulling Cullen to a halt. Inside and upstairs, he saw an outline he knew all too well. Dorian sighed. ‘Darling—’

But Cullen looked inside and his expression levelled out instantly. ‘Go,’ he said, kissing Dorian soundly. ‘Find me when you’re done.’

‘Is that a challenge?’ Dorian called out, mouth curled in a half smile despite himself.

Cullen looked back, melting into the crowd. ‘Only if you’re up to it.’

Dorian entered the tavern, heading for the upper floor. He navigated his way through and then upwards. The middle floor was comparatively empty to the ground floor, save for a few people enthusiastically kissing and what seemed to be the very early stages of a threesome. And there, all alone among the rampant, horny celebrations, was Keenan.

The older mage leaned against the railing, the boy facing away from the tavern entrance, his back to all below. ‘Hey you,’ Dorian said.

‘Sorry,’ Keenan said, shoulders sagging. ‘I should have hid.’

‘None of that,’ Dorian said sternly, _glad_ that if Keenan was sad, he’d chosen somewhere that he might actually be _seen_ to lurk instead of truly hiding, like he had done before. ‘Not in the mood to celebrate?’

‘I was, I mean. I did celebrate. There’s a lot to celebrate.’

‘I’m here,’ Dorian told him. ‘Talk to me.’

‘You weren’t before,’ Keenan said, staring down at his hands, at his fingers as they interlocked and parted, a nervous habit that Dorian had only ever seen the boy resort to very few times. Keenan was _rarely_ nervous. ‘You were dead and now you’re back but. But you _were_ gone. The others don’t know what it was like without you here.’

‘That must have been difficult.’

Keenan made a sound, something impatient. ‘I’m not—I don’t mean to make this about me.’

‘It’s all right for things to be about _you. _It’s your life, after all, Keenan. Maybe it wasn’t always, but it is now.’ Keenan remained silent and Dorian suspected he’d found a possible cause for that silence. ‘That’s new, isn’t it? Looking out for yourself.’

‘They were all having so much fun tonight,’ Keenan said. ‘I never gave them that.’

‘You kept them alive. You protected them.’

‘I couldn’t protect Nalari.’

‘You _did_. Do you know why? You trusted me. You came to me. I can’t even begin to fathom what you had to do to keep those kids alive, but you _did it_ and now,’ Dorian looked around and sighed. ‘Now, we’re at the end of one story, a new one about to begin. It’s unsettling, I know. What comes next? Where to go? What to do?’

‘Saffy is leaving,’ Keenan said carefully. ‘They want to go with you when you… when you _leave_. Nalari wants to stay, I think. She loves it here. She wants to build the garden, raise Dawn here.’

‘What do _you _want, Keenan?’

The young man closed his eyes. ‘No one ever asked me that. I know it sounds ridiculous, it sounds… well, but it’s true.’

It was hard to hear. Harder still to see the way in which the boy held himself, guarded and wary like at any moment he might be teased. Progress undone by Hawke’s _interference_, but Dorian would make it all right, no matter how long it took, he would get through to Keenan again, get that trust back.

‘What do you want?’ he repeated patiently.

‘I want…’ Keenan sighed, shaking his head. ‘I want to be needed. To have a family. To be strong for everyone I love.’

‘You already have all those things. What do you _want_ for yourself, Keenan?’

It was a long time before Keenan whispered, ‘To go to Tevinter with you.’

Dorian nodded. ‘You can.’

‘I— Nalari is staying.’

‘You could stay, just for her,’ Dorian said carefully, neutrally.

‘But that’s not… what I want.’ Keenan screwed his eyes shut. ‘I want to go someplace that doesn’t smell familiar, I want to be somewhere new. I want to wake up and feel safe, just once. I want to be with you, to be your…’

He didn’t finish, no matter how long Dorian gave him, but maybe he didn’t need to. Dorian sighed silently, a deep breath as he carefully draped his arm around Keenan’s shoulders.

‘You are,’ he promised quietly. ‘You _are, _Keenan.’

‘Cullen hates me.’

‘He does not. Do you hate him?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know anymore. I just… I don’t want to get left behind. All my life, I’ve known what my purpose was. I _had_ purpose. That kept me alive, kept me going.’ He shook his head, voice cracking. ‘If it’s gone now, if everyone is safe, why would anyone need me?’

Dorian held him close and said, ‘I need you. We all need you. Maybe not as a protector, but as a friend, a brother, a _son_.’

Keenan blinked a few times, no tears, but he was shaking. ‘I don’t know how to be a friend. I don’t know how to be _normal_.’

‘Being normal is overrated and believe me, having friends is no walk in the park, but you can learn, Keenan. You can do _anything_ you want to. You just have to try. And I’ll be there for all of it, for as long as you want me.’

‘Why? I’m not funny, not… not _exciting_ like the others. Like Saffy and Marcus. I just—’

‘Stop,’ Dorian said, shaking his shoulder. ‘Keenan, you are _extraordinary_. Do not ever think less than that. I want you with me because I love you, not because of some quantifiable aspect that you contribute. I love you and wherever I lay down roots, that’s where you’ll have a place to call home.’

‘With Cullen.’

‘With Cullen, yes. With several others too, I suspect.’

‘He said he was going to try to bring you back and he did.’

Dorian hoped it was enough, enough to begin with at least.

‘Whatever you decide, you have my full support. Stay here, come with us, go your own way. Whichever path you take, I will love you every step of the way and I will _always_ be here whenever you need me. It’s a brave new world out there. Time to leave the past behind, I think.’

He sounded so young, that boy that Dorian loved. ‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘Plenty of time to consider it,’ Dorian said, watching people cheer and sing, watching smiles blossom. ‘You should get some sleep.’

‘I will,’ Keenan said, leaning on Dorian’s shoulder very carefully. ‘Just… not yet.’

Dorian stayed very still, as if earning the trust of a wild, untamed animal. Keenan’s head rested on his shoulder, the older mage’s arm wrapped around him and for a while, they stayed there together, basking in the glow from beneath.

*

When Dorian found Cullen, he was engaged in highly charged _debate_ with Samson, Fenris by his side. The debate seemed friendly enough, if indeed one accounted for all the fucking _yelling_.

‘…have taken his word for it without first _consulting_ me, Raleigh!’ Cullen was saying, oh so loud. ‘You know what an absolute prick he is!’

‘Like I said, if he’s gonna help me and the others, it makes no— ah, your mage is back. Dorian!’ Samson called, grinning. ‘Come calm your _Commander_. He’s in a right tizzy about Hawke.’

Fenris laughed bitterly. ‘Anyone not in a tizzy about Hawke, doesn’t _know_ him.’

Dorian stood by Cullen, fingers locking together. ‘That sounds like a _wonderful,_ essential conversation that can abso-fucking-lutely wait until tomorrow!’ he said and without another word, pulled Cullen away.

The blond laughed, letting himself be pulled. ‘You found me, love.’

‘I did, though in all fairness, you _were_ yelling.’

They walked through the crowd, the party slowing slightly now, the area was less packed. ‘You missed Lavellan’s speech.’

‘It was very moving. I heard it from the tavern.’

‘How is he?’

‘Sad, but I dare to believe he’ll be all right,’ Dorian said. ‘I think he might come to Tevinter with us.’ He looked back. ‘Would that be—?’

‘Good,’ Cullen said with a small smile. ‘I’m glad. It will make you happy and that will make _me_ happy.’

Dorian grinned, just couldn’t help it. ‘You know what would make me happy right now?’

‘I do know.’

‘Oh really?’

‘Shall I prove it to you?’

‘Please do.’

It was Cullen’s turn to lead and Dorian, of course, let him.

*

‘You wanted peace and quiet,’ Cullen whispered, his lips against Dorian’s ear as they looked out at the clear, perfect skies, at the two slivers of pink hued moons and the generous smattering of stars above the mountain range. ‘Didn’t you, my love?’

Dorian closed his eyes, inhaling in the clean, cool air from where they stood on the furthest point of the battlements, the place almost directly above the stables. This far away, the party was still audible, but it was distant and muffled. Dorian’s hands rested atop the cold stones, Cullen wrapped around him from behind.

And in his pocket, that small ring _burned_ to be taken out and offered, to be placed upon a finger and left there for all eternity. The question burned too, the one Dorian had never got to ask.

Cullen pressed a light kiss beneath the skin of his ear.

Dorian’s heart was hammering painfully, his fingertips numb. ‘I have something for you,’ he said.

‘You do?’ Cullen burred, voice rumbling against Dorian’s back.

The mage half turned in his arms, bringing their faces close, caught up in an embrace that was determined not to be broken. ‘I do, yes.’

He reached inside his pocket, not knowing any other way to do such a thing, relying on instinct and little else because he was _nervous_. How ridiculous was that? It was warm to his fingers, his body heat having seeped into the metal throughout the night. Distantly, another song ended and applause filled the air. Cullen’s eyes reflected one of the moons, glinted in the cool light as he watched Dorian, as he waited.

Dorian had turned completely, their chests pressing by the time he had it in his hand, unable to contain the small, vibrating tremors skittering through him. Any alcohol from earlier had mostly worn off, leaving him relaxed and yet very awake, terrified but excited.

‘So, before in the Wilds,’ Dorian said in a rush, words tripping over his tongue before he could really process what he was saying. ‘You asked me a question and I said yes.’

He was barely moving, Cullen too. The blonde’s body was locked up, lips parted, hands around Dorian’s back, caught in the stare.

‘Well, further to that, I wanted to give you… this.’

He opened his palm, hand lifting between them, the space small and cramped because Dorian was pressed against the high wall, Cullen’s weight leaning against him.

Amber eyes moved down to the ring and scarred lips parted like he was going to speak, but no words came. He just stared for a full second and then exhaled shakily.

‘Dorian,’ he murmured, reaching up for the ring with slow, reverent movements.

‘It’s—well it’s a nice ring and we don’t _have_ family rings, really. We don’t hand them down,’ he said, rambling nervously, his teeth slightly chattering but not because he was cold, he couldn’t be cold with Cullen pressed against him in such a way. ‘But this one is my Father’s, I asked him for it because I wanted you to have it.’ He took a deep breath, but it didn’t centre him, it just made him dizzy, made him want to instinctively lean into Cullen even more. The night was cold and beautiful, Cullen was _there_, dressed like a dream because he knew it would please Dorian, holding the ring between his calloused fingers. ‘Do you… do you like it?’

What was _wrong_ with him? Reduced to stuttering like a seventeen year old _boy. _Cullen moved the ring carefully, the moonlight glinting off of the main stone, catching the cool rosy hues perfectly in the lilac depths and he swallowed hard, like he couldn’t quite believe it.

‘I love it,’ he said, uttered. ‘I _love_ it, thank you.’

Dorian looked down at the ring. ‘I think I did this wrong.’

‘Why?’

‘I feel like I should have asked you to marry me.’

Cullen moved closer and on flat, even ground, the mage was a _fraction_ taller than him in his pretty boots. ‘I already asked you to marry me, Dorian.’

‘Yes, but you didn’t have a _ring—_’

‘I do now.’

‘—and even though it’s a silly—what?’ Dorian looked up quickly, searching Cullen’s expression. ‘You have?’

Cullen removed his hand from Dorian’s back slowly, sliding it into his pocket and withdrawing something just the same way as Dorian.

It was hard to make out at first, save that it was a ring. A beautiful ring, a dazzling thing and in the centre, a very familiar champagne coloured diamond. Dorian’s breath caught painfully, staring at the gems around the main stone, the setting, the delicate gallery design of the ring, the filigree of the silver and the shape overall.

‘That’s…’

‘Your Mother wanted me to give it to you.’

Dorian swayed a little, eyes affixed to the glittering, beautiful thing. The ring his mother had let him play with as a child, fascinated by the gold rainbows he could make by letting sunlight play with the main diamond, wearing it on his thumb and pretending it was his.

She would have been burned with it, but Cullen had _seen _her, hadn’t he?

‘Cullen,’ he managed to say, his voice coming from very far away. ‘Cullen, I…’

The man pressing him lightly into the wall behind took Dorian’s second to last finger of his left hand and pushed the fingertip through just enough that the metal brushed his skin, but not all the way.

‘I could talk about honour,’ he said in a low, husky voice. ‘I could talk about love and the privilege of knowing you. I could echo everything I said in the Wilds, make it more eloquent. I could beg, if you wanted.’

Dorian’s outstretched fingers were shaking and Cullen was holding both rings, the one Dorian had given him in his other hand. He took a small step back, just enough for Dorian to truly see the ring, see his fingers. To see _Cullen_, to see those boots, to see the four buttons open at the top and to truly, really _see_ every single part of the regard he held for Dorian then, as if it was ever in question.

‘I could do all that,’ Cullen went on. ‘But I think it would be easier just to do this.’

He dropped down to one knee, graceful and fluid, his eyes never leaving Dorian’s. The mage’s heart shot right up into his throat, hit him like a blow to the head and _fuck_, it was just so absurd because they had already done this, they were already _engaged_, but…

‘Dorian Pavus,’ Cullen said, bent down on one knee, holding the mage’s hand, the ring hovering at the tip of that finger, waiting. Dorian felt like he was about to float right out of his body, like he was _dreaming_. ‘Will you marry me?’

And Dorian, of course, burst out laughing. Well, it was half laughter, half _crying_. He couldn’t contain it anymore. It was too much perfection, too much happiness. His body wasn’t used to it. Where was the undercurrent of distant threat? The looming darkness?

But any and all darkness was only night, gentle and blue and the only threat was being interrupted. Cullen was on one knee with a ring that Dorian could never have hoped for in a million years, asking him a question to which they both already knew the answer and Dorian was _laughing_.

Cullen didn’t seem to mind at all, was smiling himself, waiting patiently like he would stay there for years if that was what Dorian wanted.

Dorian knelt down, still laughing, still crying and pushed his finger into the ring, the metal cool to the touch from the atmosphere. It was too small, but it didn’t matter because it sat perfectly between his distal and middle crease and for now, that would be fine. Dorian’s entire being thrumming with a strange mix of things, all of them _wonderful_.

‘I’ll marry you,’ he whispered, like it was a secret. ‘If you’ll marry me too?’

Cullen’s smile was like the sun, a tidal flood of light and brilliance and oh fucking _Maker_, Dorian’s heart was simply going to burst into a million glittering pieces because he couldn’t _take it_, couldn’t be this happy.

They looked down at the other ring, at the ring Dorian had procured to give Cullen. The mage took hold of it and found Cullen’s ring finger, mirroring the gesture, pushing it on only slightly, waiting.

Cullen said, ‘I will marry you, my love.’

Dorian pushed, finding that it slipped on easier, but still not all the way. They would both need to be resized, but that, like everything else in the moment, was completely fine.

The only thing that was difficult, was the process of drawing in steady breath. It was too much, just _too much_. Dorian looked down at their hands, at the rings he saw there, at the broken tradition of all Tevinters, broken for a Southerner, broken willingly by both his parents _for_ Cullen and for Dorian.

It was… acceptance. It was love, wrought in metal, glinting in precious gems.

‘My mage,’ Cullen rumbled, bringing their mouths together slowly, hotly, burning with longing and shuddering, perfect desire. Dorian’s shaky laughter stilled, turned to sweet sobs, turned to moans when Cullen’s tongue brushed against his, when their lips moved over each other’s, when ringed hands clasped and Cullen moved Dorian into his lap, kneeling on the stones of the battlements, of those ramparts where so much had happened, where they would be forever teased about. ‘My beautiful, _magical_, perfect Dorian.’

The words were pushed into Dorian and he couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bear those words like brands, feeling how true they were to Cullen. Utter, bare truth to the man who ran his hand up Dorian’s back beneath that shimmery shirt, but to Dorian, they were the most outrageous gifts, the most expensive things anyone could ever have given him. Five words that shone brighter than any ring, than all the gold and silks, than any silvers or satins. Diamonds and stars had nothing to those words, spoken like a prayer, like a promise and he couldn’t _bear_ it but he tried, for Cullen. Swallowed them down and let them live within as Cullen kissed his way south along the length of his freshly un-scarred neck, kisses with the barest whisper of teeth.

Dorian’s head fell back and he groaned, a broken thing that caught in his throat and shattered, Cullen dragging him down, painfully slow, over the hardness beneath him as it all began to devolve, to turn liquid and basic, complexity melting like metal in a forge.

‘You realise,’ Dorian uttered, opening his eyes to see a sky full of stars, perfect inky blue stretched out like it was the ocean. ‘That we will both be—ahh—wearing Pavus rings?’

Cullen’s voice vibrated against Dorian. ‘I do.’

‘Don’t you… don’t you want—oh, fuck, Cullen—’ Dorian pushed his fingers into Cullen’s curls, moving him away before things went too far, before that point of _absolutely no return. __‘_Darling,’ he breathed, staring at Cullen, lips red and wet, eyes blown dark and wide, cheeks gently flushed. ‘Don’t you want something of your family? Of your name?’

‘I want only you,’ Cullen said, as if it was obvious. ‘I’ll take your name if you want, I don’t care.’

Oh, how _interesting,_ the things that did to the mage, but no, he still had a little bit of lucidity left, just a shred.

‘You want me, I know that, I feel it, Cullen, but I want _you_ too. Do you understand that? I want _everything_ of you too, probably _more. _I don’t care about names, I don’t care about who possesses who. I just want to be yours.’

Cullen growled, surging up to take Dorian’s mouth in a kiss that was more like a brand, had teeth taking hold of that bottom lip and helplessly sinking in. Dorian made a broken off noise, a kind of mewling whine because _how long _since they’d done that? Oh fuck, it was sense memory and pure, intoxicating heat smashing into his nervous system, his body gearing up for all kinds of things as soon as teeth broke skin and that first taste of his own blood, metallic and tangy, hit his tongue. Cullen’s movements stuttered, faltered when he tasted it and everything was going to be too far gone at any second, regardless of interruptions.

‘You are mine,’ Cullen panted, moving beneath Dorian. ‘You’re _my_ mage, my Dorian, don’t you already know that?’

‘Yes, fuck, of course I—oh, oh, please, harder, _please_!’

The music kept on playing, the world kept on turning and above, the skies smiled down benignly. Bodies grinding, mouths clashing, hands grabbing and frenzy in all of it, loving, adoring, desperate frenzy to be closer, to remove obstacles, to _sink_ into the depths of one another.

‘Then I’ll be yours,’ Cullen was saying, clever hands pulling Dorian’s belt out of the loops, his voice breaking with the effort of vocalising even a fraction of what he felt. ‘I’ll be yours and you’ll be mine and that will be enough.’

‘No,’ Dorian said, stilling him with both hands, stopping the motion of their bodies, even though it _hurt_ to do so. ‘No, it’s not enough.’

Cullen blinked through the haze of lust and love. ‘What—?’

‘I have something else for you,’ Dorian told him. ‘I have one more thing to give you.’

They were a mess of need, of want, of pulsing, pounding desire to fit together, to crash and bleed and meld, to make bliss from that mess, to wreck and ruin in the best ways but Dorian had to hold it at bay, had to _wait_ because there was just _one_ more thing.

Carefully, lovingly, he opened the front of Cullen’s shirt. Buttons through holes, one by one, exposing the perfect skin he found there, no trace of any scars, those roadmaps taken by one who meant harm but they would not think of him then, no.

Cullen realised what he was going to do, drew in a trembling breath and held it, lust bleeding into the delicate sweetness of something more like _longing_. Dorian’s thighs tightened around Cullen’s sides, dragging his cock over the man beneath him, just because he couldn’t help it, needed to feel it as he drew his magic down into his fingertips, past the ring Cullen had brought back from another world to gift him.

‘You have to ask for it, though,’ Dorian said, astonished at his own restraint thus far. ‘This time, you have to _ask _me.’

_This time, it has to be done right, _was what he didn’t say, but he didn’t need to. Cullen let out a broken little sob, a thing that threatened to break Dorian’s heart even as it pounded like crazy.

‘Please,’ Cullen uttered in a threadbare whisper, looking up at Dorian, at the mage in his lap. ‘Please, share your magic with me.’

Dorian kissed him, light and almost teasing, offering himself, offering more blood because that was how it would begin. With blood and with love, with consent and understanding, with offering and taking and then… one day _soon_, it would not only be Dorian’s magic, it would be _theirs_.

Cullen took Dorian’s bottom lip and sucked at the warm, salty sweet liquid there as Dorian _pushed_ himself into Cullen, magic slipping inside with the ease of water, with the flow of a fresh river through a dried out stream bed, predestined path, meant for water, for magic, for Dorian.

Magic rushed into Cullen and he took it like he was _born_ for it. Dorian’s magic was made to fit inside him and Cullen was made to take it. It was bright and beautiful, lilac meeting gold, natural and sweet and just the right side of perfect, just enough to hurt.

Dorian had the presence of mind to throw up a shield, one that would hide them, make them invisible from the world and silent to any ears because this was going to be _noisy_ and loud, screaming and pleading, their love reborn into a shared thing, the start of a new thread because Dorian was not going to live without Cullen inside him for a second longer than necessary.

Dorian felt it move through Cullen, the hollows and bends where once something blue had made him strong yet numb. He let out a moan that made him glad for the shield because oh, he could _feel_ Cullen then. A delicate harp-string of vibration, Cullen’s _self_, his innermost sensations and experiences, his love for Dorian, turned to chords, to basic melody of colour and it was all sensation, it was all _magic_.

They became lost to their own rhythm, to sweat slicked skin and the slip-slide of _need_, to words and that most wonderful, messy process of falling into one another, into the place they belonged.

And finally,_ finally_, when Cullen was buried to the hilt inside Dorian and Dorian was in every inch, every _crevice_ of Cullen, it was enough.

*

Solas had always liked sunrises. There was something hopeful about the dawn of a new day, the failures of the previous day and night dissolved in the birth of a new light, or so he had always felt. It was childish, he knew, to ever believe that failure could be wiped clean, that there were new beginnings. Time stretched on, a continuation of existence broken only by light and dark.

Still, he had always like sunrises and this one, the light moving around Skyhold as he watched from a distance, was no exception.

He should have been miles away by now, but he’d been curious. Had wanted to see the first time a human soul had been pushed back inside the body. Curious about the whole thing, in truth. It was… unexpected, what he felt for them. Their determination and emotion, their strength all tied to the weakest parts of themselves, but it was those weaknesses - love, for example - that allowed them to walk that last mile, the mile where others might have given up.

Fascinating.

‘Dread Wolf,’ she greeted him.

‘You did not need to come.’

Aquinea Pavus inclined her head, a kind of shrug as she watched the sun rise with him, watched the castle, the fortress he had led them to back when things were so much _simpler_.

‘I wanted to thank you.’

‘Unnecessary.’

‘Very well.’ After a beat, she said, ‘You allowed him to take it.’

‘It was the Well that decided.’

‘You could have intervened.’

Solas considered. ‘I was curious. He was a Templar, a broken man afflicted by a blood curse, enthralled by a mage in all but heart. It was a strange series of events and I wished to see it play out naturally. He was the kind of man about whom I would have presupposed failure. He surprised me. Many of them have. That was unexpected. He deserved it, the boon. Your son deserved to live and Cullen to bring him back. I do not regret it. There are other sources of power, other places I might seek out.’

‘I agree he deserved it,’ she said, as if they were discussing the weather. ‘He paid the price, after all.’

‘Yes, he believes his old friend to be alive, wandering the world.’

‘It is hard for him to bear, but such is the price. I wonder that you took the trouble to kill Jassen, though.’

Solas’s pursed his lips, eyes sliding sideways onto Dorian’s mother.

‘You imply that I worried for them?’

‘I imply nothing, I simply questioned why. If you truly do not care for them, why kill Jassen? Why help them at all? Why come back? Compassion came calling, but you could have ignored it as you often did in the past.’

Displeased, Solas answered tightly, ‘I killed Jassen because he did not deserve to live.’

‘I think,’ Aquinea said and Solas resisted the urge to roll his eyes. ‘That you simply didn’t want there to be any chance of them running into him ever again. That even though Cullen must ever more _believe_ the man to be alive, such is the price, you wanted to ensure they would never have to suffer the pain of bumping into him. The world is small, after all, when destiny takes an interest.’

‘Think whatever you will. I do not regret it. I only regret the loss of the magic between them. That was a thing of true beauty.’

‘Indeed. But like most beautiful things, while easily destroyed, there is always the possibility to remake it once more. It’s one of the nicer aspects of people, mages or otherwise,’ she said archly. ‘Though prone to failure, they get back up and they try to be better. To begin again.’

Solas closed his eyes in anticipation of a cold, bracing swirl of mountain air, the taste of the world around him for miles in the back of his throat. Oaks and rain, leaves and dirt. Beautiful world.

‘When first I met them, I made assumptions. Those assumptions were not correct. Perhaps,’ he said slowly, frowning a little. ‘Perhaps things are not so dire as I thought.’

‘The great Dread Wolf, lending credence to the idea that he might be wrong?’

Solas stared at the castle. ‘Anyone who believes themselves to be all knowing, who deprives themselves of the opportunity to listen and learn, is a fool. Myself included.’

She watched, the woman he chose to be the guide of the Well. ‘Learning is important, yes.’

‘I may see what else, if anything, in this world may yet surprise my. Though I have a clear path, one visualised and structured through my own plans and belief, I… I find myself subject to doubt.’

‘I like doubt,’ Aquinea Pavus said. ‘Always have.’

The sun was cresting, bringing light to the new day. Solas sighed, letting it fill him with warmth, with energy.

‘You did well,’ he told her. ‘Did you enjoy seeing your son, as I promised?’

Aquinea smiled to herself. ‘I watched him sleep under the stars with his love. It was a worthy reward.’

‘One assumes you _waited_ to look in on him?’

‘I gave him his privacy, yes,’ she said, eyes affixed upon the castle. ‘He is much loved there. How strange the world is. A mage of Tevinter, here in the South, beloved and cherished.’

‘And the Templar,’ Solas agreed. ‘Happiest when filled with magic. They are quite the pair. It was not what I expected.’

‘That’s the thing about this world, Fen’Harel,’ she said, eyes moving onto him as she turned away from Skyhold, from her son. ‘It’s just full of surprises, should one be brave enough to live in it.’

‘Bravery is common.’

‘So is beauty, for everyone perceives it differently.’

Solas smiled softly at her then. ‘I am glad to have chosen you. I regret your passing from this world.’

‘Regret only that which cannot be recalled. All else lives on, in memory or in words. Both are equally precious, both retain love and keep it alive. Both are gifts, never to be wasted.’ She closed her eyes, moving in the breeze. ‘I am ready.’

‘Go in peace, Aquinea Pavus.’

Solas watched her spirit fade, her form ease into the air and move away with the mountain winds, keeping her words in the forefront of his mind.

‘And perhaps,’ he whispered, smiling to himself. ‘I will do the same.’

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 💜💜💜


	32. Oh, Darling

__

_Epilogue_

__

Yes, _all right_, it was a dangerous game, of which Dorian Pavus was completely and totally aware, thank you _ever_ so much.

It was dangerous for several reasons, but not least because Cullen Stanton Rutherford _was_ prone to taking Dorian’s face in his hands and kissing him within an inch of his life when the mage’s public flirting sometimes pushed at what was considered _acceptable_ _boundaries_, at least for them. Life in Tevinter, while requiring much adjustment, had done nothing to cure Cullen’s total inability to give a single fuck about public displays of deeply intimate affection.

Flirting with Cullen in the Magisterium was a _dangerous_ game because Cullen could still be unpredictable from time to time, could still take Dorian by surprise should the mage ever push too far, seeking that predatory glint from honey coloured eyes, seeking to provoke. He might just kiss him if Dorian flirted, but he might _not_. It might not _only_ be kissing and therein lay the true danger, not just in Cullen, but in Dorian too because try as he might, he could never resist when Cullen surged against him, when Cullen’s hands trailed down his robes, fingertips applying pressure wherever Dorian liked most.

A dangerous game, a fun one too.

Dorian did _so_ like the risk of saying secretly lewd things to Cullen in front of others, of seeing how hot under the collar he could make the man.

And no one loved it more than Cullen. The beautiful blond adored it when Dorian pushed, when he tested boundaries, when he ran and let Cullen give chase. They played and they _loved_ it and Cullen didn’t much care what anyone thought, what anyone said, only if Dorian liked it and the mage did, very much.

A dangerous game made all the more fun for the risk, just like the first time someone tried to openly assassinate Dorian.

Dorian smiled and watched Cullen speak with Magister Lucan and three others. The Magisters still adored Cullen, their _saviour_ from Kinloch Hold, official ambassador to the now greatly reduced, though still active Inquisition. He loved what Cullen chose to wear that day. The cooler material beneath a more lightweight, but no less effective body of armour. Cullen still opted to wear armour, despite him not _really_ needing it. He could make a shield strong enough to protect himself and others from most anything, but he wore it all the same. He was still a warrior, still a fighter. His work with the Templars of Tevinter was nothing less than exemplary and he trained every day, continuing to build himself, to make himself stronger.

‘You’re not even listening to me,’ Fenris accused. ‘The _insolence.__’_

Outside the Magisterium in the main city streets of Minrathous, the hot, arid air brushed gently against the bare skin of Dorian’s upper arms. He and Fenris were waiting for Cullen, who was finishing up his conversation, glancing over at Dorian increasingly.

He wanted to leave, wanted to be near to his mage.

Dorian wanted that too. Wanted him out of the _armour_, wanted a great number of things that Fenris would likely appreciate a heads-up for before they got going, though really, he was used to it by then.

‘I am hanging on every word, dearest friend,’ Dorian said distractedly. ‘You were _no doubt_ speaking of how you detest being made to wait and also that Magister Lucan remains someone you are deeply suspicious of.’

Fenris rolled his eyes. ‘Lucky guess.’

They had worried in the earlier days about Fenris. About seeing Magisters who recognised him, about being near people who had contributed to his abuse in slavery, but the concern was mostly unwarranted. Fenris had lived years in Tevinter before, both as a slave and not, and he was at least on par with Dorian in terms of navigating the pitfalls of such a place.

Dorian knew he liked Tevinter. Many a drunken night had had Fenris admitting as much. It was always well worth it, in the months before Magisters learnt to hold their tongues around him, to see someone dare make a snide comment in the hopes of rattling Fenris… to then bear witness as the elf’s markings flared pure and painfully white, to see him glow and phase. To lift his hand slowly, non-threateningly, but _dangerously_ close to the heart of _anyone_ stupid enough to attempt to make Fenris feel small, of anyone who would dare utter the name _Little Wolf_. 

Fenris leaned to the side, peering down the nearby street towards the market row. ‘Your Father is being robbed,’ he pointed out casually.

_‘Robbed_ robbed or _tricked into spending ridiculous sums of gold by the delightful brood of Southerners I hauled up North_ robbed?’

‘The latter.’

‘Ah, well that’s as it should be, then.’

‘Stop _staring_ at him like that, you’re riling him up. I swear by the Maker, if you two think I’m covering for you again while you “_go_ _shopping__” _you’ve a disappointment on the way.’

‘Nonsense, Fenris,’ Dorian dismissed easily, but he certainly didn’t move his gaze away from Cullen who was now half paying attention to the Magisters, half making visual love to Dorian in broad daylight in the middle of the city, surrounded by mages. ‘It’s far too early for such things and we still have dozens of errands to run.’

Fenris muttered darkly and Dorian finally broke his staring competition with Cullen, wrapping his arms obnoxiously around the elf.

‘Oh, come now, my surly friend, my brother-in-love and _almost_ law.’

‘Get _off_ me, mage.’

‘My dearest companion and most trusted look-out!’

‘Dorian, I will poke a hole in your heart.’

‘Nothing would wound me greater than your rejection of my deep and passionate love for you!’

Fenris huffed a wry laugh and neatly phased out of Dorian’s grip, leaving the mage clutching thin air and stumbling slightly. The elf smoothed back his hair, which had been ruffled in the commotion and shook his head with a teasingly disapproving sigh.

‘Now you’ve drawn their attention.’

‘Correction, I drew _Cullen__’s_ attention,’ Dorian said with barely contained glee because the Magisters and Cullen were indeed wandering over. ‘That, and I increased your already stupendous amounts of love for me.’

Fenris sighed. ‘Satinalia makes a child of you.’

‘Dorian!’ Magister Lucan greeted warmly, taking the mage’s hand in the customary greeting, their magics flaring gently, brushing carefully. A kind of _well met_ for their mana. ‘And Fenris,’ the man added in a decidedly more guarded, polite tone of voice, offering a curt nod, his smile still in place.

The three other Magisters greeted Dorian in similar fashion.

‘My _darling_ Cullen,’ Dorian said, simply unable to help himself once he was done brushing magic with the others, fixing Cullen with his most secret smile, his most blatant _Why Aren__’t We Fucking Already_ eyes. ‘I missed you dreadfully.’

Cullen’s composure was a thing of beauty, all the more lovely when there was a crack in it; a hairline fracture, set there by Dorian, like a rivulet through marble.

‘Dorian,’ he said in a voice that could cut glass, eyes only for the mage, his posture locked tight, everything about him held back. ‘Fenris,’ he greeted in a slightly more relaxed way but Dorian had been steadily riling Cullen for _hours_ now, stuck inside the Magisterium with nothing to do beyond press little flashes of hot, curling _love you_ and_ need you_ and _just looking at you makes me hard_ through their bond, through the distance. Distracting Cullen while he’d read through a dedicated report of events in the South that related to the Imperium and their new-born alliance, doing everything he could to elicit a stutter from the man and _failing_, but it didn’t matter because the effort Cullen had been forced to exert to prevent the slip had meant that Dorian was in trouble either way.

Even then, in the temperate, bright streets of the city of Minrathous, Dorian couldn’t resist a little _push_, his heart racing, just to see it affect Cullen, just to see his love manifest within the other. 

Dorian was a little bit obsessed, in all honesty.

Cullen gave nothing away, but _oh _the tension in the air thickened and while Cullen may have _seemed_ relaxed and friendly to a (very) casual observer, in truth he was highly strung, a hunter not wanting to startle prey and Dorian liked being that prey. The kind of prey that _poked_ and _teased_.

Yes, Satinalia had him just a tiny bit hyper, it was true, but he couldn’t be blamed. It was his favourite time of year, after all.

‘We were just discussing with Ambassador Cullen, the subtleties of the Archon’s proposal. What was your take on it, Dorian?’

Dorian’s take on it was that he didn’t give a flying fuck, could barely recall what the proposal even _entailed_ because while it had been read aloud throughout the court, Cullen had been sending sensation right _back_ at Dorian, had been fucking with him in turn, making the game all the sweeter. Making it more difficult to resist simply dragging Cullen somewhere as soon as the session ended and having him fuck him raw and brutal somewhere that everyone would hear them.

‘I find it amusing that you refer to outright attempts to subvert necessary amendments as _subtleties_, but overall the proposal is a reasonable first step.’

‘Indeed,’ Lucan agreed, turning his attention back to Cullen more willingly. Cullen was their golden boy. Lucan had personally never gotten over the fact that Cullen had saved them from months of tormented imprisonment at the hands of Jassen. Dorian understood to an extent. Cullen tended to make an impression.

Dorian wanted the man’s _impression_ in his skin.

‘The Southern Colleges have affected much of the proposal in terms of alliance. Divine Victoria’s sway is legendary, after all, but the Archon’s response _is_ unexpectedly genial.’

‘She has a formidable team,’ Cullen pointed out, pride and strength in his tone that made Dorian sigh like a fawning teenager while Fenris rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

‘No one disagrees,’ Magister Catianus said. ‘Who would have thought the day might come in our lifetime to see a _mage_ bring the Chantry to heel? She is a glorious example for the world over.’

‘Simply put, the Archon is…’ Magister Ephraim gestured, searching for the right word while Dorian delicately sent a burning vibration of _I__’m empty without you_ through the thread that existed between he and Cullen. The former Templar’s jaw ticked, dangerous little smile dancing in his eyes as he likely planned all the things he would do to Dorian as punishment for such teasing.

‘A misogynistic prick?’ Dorian filled in, finding himself impatient with the rhetoric, especially having sat through hours of it previously. It was a hot day, he had places to be, pretty blonds to torment. ‘Yes, he seems to have swallowed his distaste for dealing with women and acknowledged, quite rightfully, that Divine Victoria and the Inquisition are _not_ to be trifled with.’

‘Best kept as allies,’ Cullen agreed smoothly. ‘Much to be gained from both sides of the alliance.’

‘Well said,’ Dorian told him, smiling innocently. ‘Your run down was _impressive_, Ambassador. Quite long, but very well given.’

To his left, Fenris made a small noise of disgust and walked away towards Halward and the doubtlessly rabid pack of young mages, bent on hoarding gifts for Satinalia.

‘Yes, you seemed especially rapt,’ Cullen commented and now the pair were really just eye-fucking in public, some of the most powerful men in the Magisterium around them, Fenris leaving them to it because he’d seen it all before and knew where it was leading.

‘You _could_ say I was enraptured. It was most thorough. All that attention to detail, nothing left out.’

‘Details are important.’

‘I was never good with them myself. Too hard, to _trying_ to maintain my attention. I prefer the big, sweeping aspects of politics overall. The ones that really grab you.’

‘Do you?’

‘I definitely do. Though, in truth, there aren’t all that many aspects even _capable_ of grabbing my attention. Not much that can _hold_ me these days.’

Magister Dewinter smiled and looked between the two, perhaps missing the _nuance_. ‘Yes, I quite agree,’ he added. ‘Such a lot of waffle, these days. You’d think, with war on the horizon, allegiances being forged and treaties in the wind, there would be _something_ more interesting than the latest run down of misappropriated funds from the—’

‘My sincerest apologies,’ Cullen said suddenly, breaking eye contact with Dorian. ‘I just now realise I’ve left my paperwork on the senate floor. Please excuse me.’ He gave a short, respectful bow to the Magisters, slanting an eyebrow at Dorian with a challenging kind of smirk and then about turning, heading back into the Magisterium building without another word.

Oh, the sly _fucker_.

They all looked back at Dorian, Lucan and Ephraim surveying him with curiosity, likely wondering how long he would wait before following. Dewinter smiled blithely. ‘I forget things all the time,’ he said, nodding earnestly. Dorian couldn’t help but _like_ Dewinter just a little.

‘I hear the Black Divine simply _adores_ him,’ Catianus said, tone deceptively light. _‘Despite_ how many positions he’s turned down. It’s only a matter of time before he declares the Ambassador to be a mage in his own right.’

‘The Archon would never recognise such a declaration.’

‘The _Archon_ is outdated and operating on the back-foot of this alliance, Ephraim, you know this.’

‘And you would support it, then?’ Lucan asked, seemingly interested. ‘A man born Soporati, elevated to full mage status?’

‘I support the Ambassador,’ Catianus said staunchly, fervently.

‘Such an offer is pure conjecture anyway,’ Ephraim pointed out. ‘And if he continues to refuse the offers from the Black Divine, I cannot see how he will remain in such favour with him.’

Lucan laughed softly. ‘It’s called playing hard to get, you fool.’

Dorian wondered if they’d forgotten he was there or were simply going out of their way to ignore him, given his lesser status as an Altus.

‘What were his reasons for turning down the last offer, Dorian?’ Ephraim asked politely, as if sensing Dorian’s introspection and generously extending the offer of conversation as one might give coin to a beggar.

But Dorian was far _beyond_ his ability to be polite for another second, let alone show gratitude for the inclusion.

‘I would imagine he turned it down for the same reason he turned down the last five offers,’ he said, beginning to walk away with a wide smile. ‘He’s just _too _busy taking care of _me_.’

Dorian gave no flimsy excuse for leaving, no awkward farewell. Fenris was with his father and the rabble of young mages were distracted for a while. They had time enough for just a few stolen minutes, or so he reasoned with himself.

Once inside the cool, calm interior of the Magisterium, the stones around humming lightly with the magic that held it all together, he exhaled measuredly. With business concluded for the day, the upper floor would be relatively empty, though the lower levels, the Publicanium, would be operating at a busy level throughout the day, providing at least a _little_ bustling noise from beneath to cover what Dorian hoped would be an aria of wanton rapture.

It was unsettlingly quiet in the upper senate. His steps echoed around the halls, moving carefully towards the vast amphitheatre style room, the place where decisions were made and laws could be challenged and amended. Where Cullen had used magic to _incinerate_ a would-be assassin three weeks into their new life in Tevinter before the entire Imperial Senate, the Archon _included_.

It made Dorian’s skin prickle with sweat, made his heart skip a beat just to remember all those eyes on him, the first time that they all truly _believed_ the rumours and stories of the others, those who had been liberated from Kinloch.

Believed that Cullen Rutherford was magical.

The doors of the court swung open, sensing his presence. Magical buildings were so considerate. Within, everything was still and silent, Dorian tensed helplessly, _knowing _Cullen was inside, able to follow the thread, the link between them.

It was a game.

A dangerous game, to be assured and the danger lay in how addictive it all was, how Dorian was never quite certain he would stop things if it got out of hand.

The door closed behind Dorian, quiet settling around him like falling dust. The rows were empty, the three podiums on the lowest level were clear of the apparent missing paperwork, but a quick scan revealed where Cullen was sitting, the highest point, the largest chair.

_Of course _Cullen was sitting in the Archon’s seat. Throne, really.

And of course Dorian was gravitating there.

‘You kept me waiting,’ was Cullen’s greeting, all silk to hide the gentle violence beneath it, that need that Dorian had spent hours stirring while Cullen had to put on a good show, utilise the game face he’d developed specifically for the Tevinter Imperium.

Dorian trailed his fingers over the rows of seats built into the stone, walking at a leisurely pace. ‘I debated whether or not to even follow you.’

Cullen’s smile was dark, told tales of how wild Dorian had driven him all morning with his continuous efforts. ‘I shudder to think of how badly I would punish you for _that_, my pretty little Altus.’

Dorian stopped before the throne, staring up at Cullen.

‘_Try_ to punish me, you mean?’

‘I think,’ Cullen said, just a touch breathless. ‘You should kneel in front of me.’

‘We don’t have time for games.’

‘We’ve time for whatever I say.’

It wasn’t true at all. Fenris, Halward and a bunch of impatient, excitable mages would be looking for them soon, probably already were. Dorian was so hard it was starting to hurt, cock trapped and yearning for freedom, for friction.

But this particular game was _so very_ fun.

So Dorian walked the steps to the throne, to the place where the Archon of the Imperium sat, the most powerful man in all of Tevinter, and when he was close enough to catch Cullen’s scent - honey and sea salt, ozone and leather - he knelt all the way down in front of him, in front of those _boots_, in front of the man who simply vibrated with a burning desire that Dorian had stoked with purpose and intent.

‘Good boy,’ Cullen purred. ‘Kneeling like that pleases me greatly.’

Dorian swallowed hard, lowering his head and exposing the back of his neck, despite the high collar. ‘I am glad of it.’

Cullen’s boot pressed beneath Dorian’s chin, lifting his face with the tip. ‘Address me _properly_, Altus.’

Dorian’s heart skipped several beats. ‘Apologies, your Grace.’

‘Much better. Now, come here, pretty thing.’

The mage braced his hands on Cullen’s thighs, on the well-crafted inseams of the trousers Cullen wore, finest materials and designs that always had Dorian feeling like he would come on the spot just _looking _at him. Gone were the rough spun cotton and linens of the south, gone were drab colours and basic necessities.

‘Undo my belt.’

Some logical part of Dorian, tiny and repressed by the weight of thunderous desire, pointed out in a resigned manner that if they were _caught_ fucking around in the Archon’s seat, there would be absolute void to pay.

Dorian didn’t care and neither did Cullen. Their bond was shimmering, positively _alive_ with energy and love and needy desire, the bodily kind. The mage pulled apart Cullen’s belt, one of his favourites, and took the initiative to open the buttons too. He pushed the expensive material down as Cullen lifted himself to help, one hand sinking into Dorian’s hair, fingers tightening when Dorian took out his cock, freed it from the confines of well-tailored seams.

‘Do you want it?’ Cullen husked.

Dorian nodded and tried to speak, voice catching slightly. ‘I… yes, I do, your Grace. I want it very much.’

‘Beg me for it.’

Dorian winced, letting slip a little whine. ‘Please,’ he begged dutifully, cheeks flooding with what little blood remained in his upper circulatory system. ‘Please, your Grace, let me taste it, please.’

‘You beg so pretty, my mage,’ Cullen praised, cock twitching when Dorian wet his lips, lifting his gaze to the man in the throne. ‘Because I am a gracious ruler, I will grant your heart’s desire.’

Dorian took hold of the shaft, hovering his mouth over the thick, hot flesh, deciding to drag his tongue from root to tip first, to tease just a little. Cullen groaned from behind clenched teeth, pulling Dorian’s hair as his grip constricted. Dorian fitted his mouth sideways over that cock, moving up and down over the thick, prominent vein there, making a delightful mess and yet not _quite_ sucking anything, simply worshipping it, praising it.

Cullen had little patience. His other hand moved to Dorian’s head, pushing him down, urging him to take him deep, to suck him until he exploded, hours’ worth of build-up and teasing but Dorian didn’t _want_ that. Well, he _did_, obviously he did. He was salivating for the taste of Cullen, to swallow him down and make him wild, steal his breath and draw out that litany of dark, dirty praise that had Dorian desperate to repeat each word back to the man, a catechism of filthy promises.

‘Take my cock like a good boy,’ Cullen intoned. ‘Suck me like you love me, mage.’

Dorian’s well intentioned restraint gave out in spectacular fashion, his desire to make the whole thing _last_, to eventually move into Cullen’s lap and have him fuck his brains out while in the throne, teeth marking him up freshly, bruises on his inner thighs from the sheer pounding he’d _earned_ throughout his morning of endless teasing, of distracting, of provocation… it all vanished from the mage’s mind as he took Cullen into his mouth and swallowed him in a well-practised movement, thick head hitting the back of his throat and sinking beyond.

Cullen’s moan was long and breathy, arching up into Dorian’s mouth and the mage braced with one hand on the seat of the throne, pinned Cullen’s hips down with another. He breathed through his nose, lips forming a seal and covering his teeth as he went to work, mildly delirious from the sounds he was drawing out of Cullen, from the _words_.

‘Fuck, yes, so good, so _perfect_ for me, aren’t you? On your knees, servicing your Archon like a good little mage, oh _fuck_, yes, take it just like that, just how I like. Ahhh, _yeah_, deeper, _beautiful_ thing that you are, mouth drives me fucking wild, you’ve no _idea!__’_

His fingers twined around Dorian’s hair, inflicting a dizzying frisson of pain but also controlling the thrusts now, administering his own rhythm, fucking Dorian’s mouth despite the mage holding him down. He moved Dorian how he wanted him, the senate floor filled with simply _obscene_ noises, Dorian’s hardness poking into his abdomen from the deliciously humiliating position he was in, knelt on the cool stone steps before his Archon, before Cullen, sucking him like that was his only purpose in life.

Fuck, he needed to come so much that it was _agony_. Rolling waves of pinprick pleasure, tormenting him as he opened his mouth wider, having to breathe around the cock sliding in and out of his throat, Cullen openly fucking it now. No finesse, no clever tricks with his tongue. It was all gorgeous, loving violence, all clashing, messy _need_ and this… _this _was what Dorian had wrought and he was so incredibly proud of himself.

Cullen’s pace sped up, coiling like a trebuchet and Dorian was fucking _lost_, was going to come untouched if this carried on. He was desperate to free himself, to touch himself, fucking _anything_, but Cullen stopped abruptly, taking his cock in hand and held Dorian’s face there. With a bitten off kind of _growl_, a snarling, crazed thing that tore from his throat, he came all over Dorian’s face. Hot, wet spurts of come over cheeks and lips, aiming for the mage’s mouth towards the end and Dorian tasted it, opened his mouth and let his tongue bathe in it as Cullen worked himself through the orgasm that had been _hours_ in the making.

Dorian stared at his cock, crimson and slick, spurting it’s last and Cullen’s pleasure was a chord struck deeply within that part of Dorian that they shared, magic between them vibrating gently, flaring brightly but…

It wasn’t enough to come untouched.

‘Oh, that was _good_,’ Cullen sighed, slouching bonelessly into the throne for a moment, his cock showing no sign of softening, but at least partially _relieved _and temporarily sated. ‘So fucking good.’

Dorian wiped the rapidly cooling come from his cheek, swallowing what was on his tongue. ‘Glad I could be of service, your Grace.’

Cullen opened his eyes, staring down at Dorian with lovestruck adoration. He moved forward and took Dorian’s face in his hands and _fuck_, even that small point of contact had Dorian’s skin singing in anticipation. All he needed was a touch, the ability to _grind. _

‘You were,’ he told Dorian, licking a streak of his own spend from the mage’s face with the flat of his tongue. Dorian’s eyes crossed slightly, pushed right to the edge, but _still_ not enough to tip him over. ‘Is there anything you would ask of your ruler in return, pretty little Altus?’

Dorian was shaking with it, positively cracking apart with how much he just needed Cullen’s hand. ‘Yes,’ he panted. ‘Yes, _please_.’

Cullen kissed him, sharing the taste of his come back and forth, revelling in it, teeth dragging over the tip of Dorian’s tongue and the mage was openly panting now, on the verge of losing consciousness, was ready to beg properly, beg in whatever language Cullen wanted.

‘You were so, _so _good for me,’ Cullen murmured, words distorted by the kiss. ‘And because of that…’

‘Yes?’

‘Because you were so good…’

‘Cullen, _please_.’

He used smaller, brief kisses to punctuate. ‘I’m going to give you…_mmm_, exactly… what you… deserve.’

Dorian stumbled when Cullen got up suddenly, releasing the mage completely, leaving his lips tingling, his body severely in need, mind impaired and reeling. His face was mussed with saliva and come, cheeks red and flushed.

‘Wh-what are you doing?’

Cullen tucked himself away, adjusted his belt and gave Dorian his most lovely, stunning smile. ‘See you outside,’ he said. ‘_Darling.__’_

Dorian watched him go, jaw slack, face etched with disbelief, cock weeping and not in a good way. Cullen’s strut was undeniably _smug_ and at the doors, he looked back and winked before he vanished, leaving Dorian alone in the Magisterium, on his knees, dripping with come.

Dorian let out an incredulous, breathless kind of laugh, not sure what else to even _do_ in such a scenario. He wiped the rest of the come away with his sleeve and growled to himself, ‘Oh, it’s like _that_, is it?’

*

‘You were _ages_!’ the fourteen year old mage whined, laden down with all manner of pretty, expensive things. Fenris sighed and plucked a few of the heavier items from his arms and stowed them away in his satchel. Pick had forgotten his yet again. ‘Why were you ages?’

‘By comparison, _that_ was relatively quick,’ the elf muttered and Cullen, who was exceedingly cheery, laughed and playfully punched his friend on the shoulder. They were waiting outside _another_ shop where Halward, Saffy, Marcus, Christopher and Aldis were inside buying _secret_ things. Dorian couldn’t help but wonder what they were purchasing inside a spice trader, but he didn’t question it. Shopping, _despite_ the heat and the awkward, prickly state of his unsatisfied body, was still one of his favourite things. Cullen wasn’t especially fond of it, but in his good mood, he seemed to be taking it in his stride.

Cullen offered Pick his waterskin. The boy was the youngest of those who had travelled North with them and Cullen had a tendency to be just a _tiny_ bit overprotective of him. Dorian was privately sure it had something to do with Keenan’s instructions to him before he’d left a few months ago.

Dorian swallowed and shook himself. Keenan was returning tomorrow, had promised multiple times that he would be there for Satinalia. Returning from the South with the others via Eluvian. He just had to be patient, just a little longer.

‘Why can't we go in?’ Cullen asked, peering through the glass, scanning the market street. He was never _uneasy_ in the town, the city, the markets. Just watchful, just observant and cautious. Protective.

There was reason to be. Attempts had been made on their lives. The Imperium was dangerous, after all and together, they were the instigators of change. Contracts had been taken out, subtle and untraceable and though all had failed, that didn’t mean there was any unguarded moments while out with the children, with those Dorian knew Cullen would die to protect, even though they were not his blood kin.

With Fenris in tow, the three of them made a formidable team in terms of protection and anyone stupid enough to attempt an attack when together would thoroughly deserve the gruesome death they’d bought and paid for.

‘Because they’re buying gifts,’ Fenris suggested lightly. Dorian saw him take over where Cullen left off in terms of scanning the perimeter, a seamless action that required no communication between the two. ‘One supposes.’

‘They’re not,’ Pick said with a light, carefree scoff. ‘Saffy’s boyfriend works in there, she just wants to see him without you two knowing it.’

All three of them swivelled to look at the boy, smirking and unrepentant.

Dorian’s mouth dropped open. ‘What _boyfriend_?’

*

Saffy was rather mutinous, sat at the marble dining table helping Dorian to shell peas. She seemed ruffled and rebellious and Dorian loved her all the more for it.

Cullen was helping Marcus to hang the fresh flower garlands, grown from their own garden. Dorian knew he was listening just in case the mage required backup, but otherwise the atmosphere was pleasant and informal, or so Dorian hoped.

‘I just want you to be honest with me,’ Dorian said, hands busy with the shelling of endless peas in preparation for the second day of Satinalia.

Of the three day celebration, that first night would be the most relaxed before the parties and the gift giving, not to mention a rather _secret_ event that Cullen and Dorian had planned. But for now, it was all about peas. ‘And know that you can always come to me for anything. You shouldn’t feel you have to hide such things from us. Was there a reason you didn’t tell me?’

Saffy sighed, nimble fingers shelling the peas with skill. ‘Because I thought you might murder him, I suppose.’

Dorian didn’t glare at the mere mention of this _him_. The tall, reasonably well-built laetan son of a merchant who had been respectful in tone and greeting when Dorian had burst into the shop to find Saffy leaning over the counter, the pair of them _practically_ kissing.

‘Not at all.’

She smirked at that, gaze slipping towards Cullen and back again quickly. ‘You looked like you were going to fry his eyeballs.’

‘I was simply…’ Dorian cast around for the word. ‘Curious.’

‘Look,’ she said, leaning forward and tossing aside a pea-pod. ‘I’m not even having sex with him so I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.’

And still, even a year later, it always made Dorian just a little bit sad the way some of the older ones spoke about sex; casual and hardened, like it was nothing. Dorian knew all too well such a sentiment and he wanted so much better for them.

‘If it’s important to you, I would positively _love_ to know about it, regardless of subject.’

She frowned a little. ‘I would have told you in time.’

‘You’re not in trouble,’ Dorian reiterated, tone friendly and _very_ laid-back. ‘At all. I’m just trying to make it clear that you can always come to me, to either of us, for anything and everything.’

‘Did you like him?’ she asked, watching Dorian carefully, sharp eyes cataloguing his reactions, something _speculative_ in her amused gaze.

‘Yes,’ Dorian lied and lied _well, _thanking the Maker for the endless supply of peas in front of him. ‘I like him because _you_ like him.’

‘I liked him,’ Cullen put in, finishing up with the flower garlands, Marcus setting a delicate chilling charm over them to keep them fresh and cool throughout the dry heat over the next few days. The dining room, _ballroom_, whatever one wanted to call it, was a room they rarely used in all truth. Most times, they ate in the kitchen at what Dorian thought of as the family table. The dining room was only for formal occasions or parties. Cullen dropped down into a seat at the end of the long, glittering surface carved from blue sandstone. ‘He had lovely manners.’

‘That _would_ impress you,’ Dorian said, restraining an eye-roll with effort. ‘So,’ he added, looking back at Saffy, interested and non-judgemental. ‘How long have you been… seeing him?’

‘A month?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

‘He writes me poems.’

‘Well, that’s nice.’

‘They’re very sexual.’

‘Oh.’

‘I think we might be kindred fuck-spirits.’

‘Right, well, while I’m happy to listen to anything you want to tell me, there _might_ be—’

‘Sexual compatibility is important,’ Cullen contributed sagely, reaching for a portion of Saffy’s peas, starting shelling. Dorian shot him a mostly concealed scowl, perpetual _good guy_ and hero whenever Dorian had to even remotely assume the stance of _concerned parent_. ‘Isn’t it, my love?’

And Dorian, who was still sore in more ways than one from being _abandoned_ in the Magisterium without the slightest hint of relief, smiled sweetly at Cullen, the man who were his engagement ring, the amethyst depths glittering lightly beneath the candelabras as evening began to descend.

‘Agreed,’ he managed to say, left eye twitching. ‘But _moving on_—’

‘His poems indicate that he might want me to fuck him up the arse.’

‘Ah, wonderful.’

Cullen leaned forward, his best _listening_ pose. ‘With your fingers or…?’

‘I wanted to ask about something actually,’ Saffy went on, clearly not caring that Dorian was dying. ‘That shop you both sometimes go into.’

Oh, wait, _now_ he was dying.

‘Would they make something like that? Something I could wear?’

And despite how much Dorian wanted to interrupt, wanted to change the subject, wanted to move swiftly _along_, he knew how important it was to be heard out all the way, even if she was testing boundaries just a little bit. They had agreed long ago never to stifle curiosity, to always listen, to always (_almost_ always) be honest and be _open_. If Dorian couldn’t just then, Cullen would.

But Maker damn it, Dorian _could_, he just had to push through it, pun most definitely _not_ intended. ‘Yes,’ he told her, forcing himself into the conversation once more. ‘It’ll be made of glass.’

Cullen smiled at him, pleased. Fucking Cullen and his total _inability_ to ever be embarrassed about anything sexual.

‘See how it goes,’ the blond suggested, having shelled twice as many peas as Dorian throughout the whole chat. ‘Imagining and actually _doing_ can sometimes be very different things.’

‘Thanks,’ Saffy said, giving Cullen a sweet smile and then looking at Dorian, having saved the best for him. Her _I Do So Love Turning Your Hair Prematurely Grey_ smile, the one that let Dorian know he was doing a pretty decent job, that she was still and always would be his darling girl. ‘I have something else to ask you.’

Dorian steeled himself, determined to be ready for anything this time. ‘Of course.’

‘Can I invite him to the big party in two days?’

*

‘You’re completely overreacting. He’s a good lad from what I gathered and Saffy has well-honed intuition, you know that.’

‘It is not an _over_reaction to be protective. That’s a natural instinct which I will indulge so long as it does not infringe upon the freedom or happiness of whoever I’m protecting.’

Cullen sighed, shaking his head with a wry grin. He slid his arms around Dorian’s middle, the pair of them alone in the kitchen, overseeing the pea and mint soup, a Rutherford family recipe which Dorian was quietly unsure about, but it was important to Cullen and his family, so they were making it ahead of their arrival the next day.

‘You’re not like it with the boys.’

‘The boys are horny animals who’ll chase anything remotely pretty!’

Cullen shrugged. ‘So is Saffy.’ Dorian crossed his arms and Cullen chuckled, kissing his neck. ‘I’m teasing.’

‘Yes, lot of _that_ going around today.’

‘Oh,’ Cullen purred, pulling him closer, tongue dragging in a neat little trail up the side of Dorian’s neck from his shoulder to under his ear. ‘Are you still _grouchy_, my pretty little mage? Do you need to be placated?’

‘Get off,’ Dorian said with no desire for him to actually do so. ‘I need to stir.’

But Cullen was, as usual, in a playful mood. He moved around in front of Dorian, putting himself between the mage and the _Rutherford_ soup, lifting Dorian up around the middle, clean off the floor. ‘How about I stir you instead?’

‘That makes zero sense,’ Dorian complained, hands on Cullen’s shoulders, but the corners of his mouth were curving helplessly. ‘And put me down immediately.’

‘Not _immediately_,’ Cullen said, looking up at Dorian. ‘Not until you kiss me.’

‘I’m not falling for that.’

‘Kiss me and I’ll let you go.’

‘Liar.’

Cullen’s smile turned positively wolfish because they both knew that was true; if they started kissing, things would get out of hand. Between them, their magic swirled, excited at the potential prospect of the energy brought about during sex, though Dorian fought to quell it.

‘But you’re so _beautiful,__’ _he uttered in a deep voice, a dangerous voice.

Dorian moved his hand over the blond’s face, fingers sliding into golden curls. Cullen was tanned; his skin no longer pale, no longer _grey_ from lack of sleep, dark circles beneath his eyes banished. Across his nose was a smattering of light, extremely adorable freckles and he radiated health and happiness. The ocean air and the sunshine agreed with him. His eyes were bright and glittering with dark adoration, with playful need and a love that still took Dorian’s breath away sometimes because, _fuck_, but Cullen could be so _intense_.

So Dorian kissed him. Arms around his neck, suspended by strong arms, he pressed their mouths together. The contact sent a velvet jolt of lightning straight to his heart. Cullen groaned softly, licking into his mouth. Dorian wrapped his legs around Cullen’s thighs, bringing them closer, letting him feel the growing hardness there, brushing against his own.

‘Say you love me,’ Dorian murmured, one hand pushing beneath Cullen’s shirt, finding warm, golden skin to play with, fingertips trailing over the thin line of hair that led down, circling his bellybutton a few times and taking Cullen’s bottom lip between his teeth for a moment, suckling, playing.

‘I love you,’ Cullen moaned and it resonated in Dorian’s bones, the _truth_ of it. A sensation both felt and heard and the magic flared brightly, seeping into their blood, into their being, hoping to be shared. ‘I fucking _love_ you.’

‘You do?’

‘You _know_ I do.’

Dorian’s hand palmed the clothed cock he found there, heel of his hand grinding down just the way Cullen liked. ‘You love me, Cullen?’ he breathed, their lips still touching and Cullen’s grip around Dorian was almost painful as he shivered, brow creasing. Dorian knew how to draw pleasure from him as well as he knew how to cast, rarely one without the other.

‘Dorian, _fuck_.’

‘Tell me again, darling, let me _feel _it.’

Cullen tried to kiss him, tried to get closer but in this position Dorian had the advantage, the high ground. ‘Say it.’

‘I love you, Dorian. I love you, I _love_ you.’

The mage squeezed around Cullen’s thighs, nuzzling his nose lightly against the blond’s, still not giving him what he wanted, _needed_.

Cullen made a noise of impatience, a sound that ordinarily might have meant Dorian was in _trouble_, was about to be slammed into the nearest wall and fucked until he cried but there were too many people around. People who might walk in at any moment.

‘Dorian,’ he whined, angling his mouth for a kiss but the mage was wise to his tricks. If they kissed now, all would be lost and Dorian would have to bar the doors with magic and hope for the best. That was _not_ his plan, however, so he kept himself away just enough to tease, to drive Cullen that little bit wild.

The mage’s hand was purposefully slow; all the right pressure, the perfect friction, just not fast enough.

‘Now tell me,’ he whispered into Cullen’s mouth, tongue trailing the lines of those pretty lips, dragging a feral snarl from Cullen whose patience was fast evaporating. ‘What do I deserve?’

‘Let me show you, let me _give _it to you.’

‘I would.’

_‘Please_.’

‘I would love to.’

‘Dorian, don’t tease.’

‘I know you’d fuck me so good, wouldn’t you? Maker, I want you inside me, darling. I want you buried inside me all the way, I want you deep enough that I’ll feel you for days.’

Dorian laughed when his back hit the wall, hard enough to wind him, hard enough to rattle the nearby shelves of pots and pans, rows of dried herbs. Cullen threw a graceless, formless _locking_ cast towards the door, clumsy but effective. Dorian smiled down at him, fond and smug because if Cullen thought he was getting _anything_ after what he did earlier, he was—

‘Let me fuck you like I will when we’re married.’

Oh, fuck. No, _no_, he was strong. He was being strong.

With Dorian braced against the wall, Cullen moved his position, supporting Dorian by holding fast to one thigh, lifting the other so the mage’s legs were locked around his back and this was all happening very fast.

‘Let me love you the way only I know how,’ Cullen said, taking Dorian in a bruising kiss, the kind that asked _nothing_, but took everything. Messy and wet, Cullen panting like he was in fucking _heat. _‘Let me take care of you because you need it, don’t you?’ He was shoving Dorian’s waistline down, biting the mage’s earlobe. ‘You _need_ me to take care of you and I didn't earlier. I’m so bad, _so_ bad for neglecting you.’

‘No, wait,’ Dorian said, frowning for a moment before his eyes crossed because this was all going very wrong, very _fast_. ‘No, I—’

Cullen freed the mage’s cock and pressed into Dorian even harder, able to keep him upright against the wall and stroke the freed, hard length without dropping him.

‘Kiss me, my love, and I’ll make you come so hard you see stars.’

Cullen didn’t wait for it; he crushed Dorian into the wall, plundering him for the kiss, all tongue and teeth, perfect mouth taking ownership of Dorian’s, grip around his aching cock enough to drive a sob from the mage and Cullen drank it down, took everything the mage had to give and then some.

Pleasure was coiling again, tightening in his gut just like earlier, heart pounding harder and making him positively writhe with desire, with the sheer fucking need for release. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, like he was going to _die_ and it had all turned around so fast despite his very best laid plans for revenge.

It was very hard to care about things like revenge when Dorian was right on the ragged edge of an orgasm that would surely shatter him. Almost impossible to care about things like the weird soup that probably needed stirring or the fact that while the door was _barred_, it certainly wasn’t soundproof.

Cullen drove him on and on, pushing pleasure deeper into him with each stroke, kissing him like the world was about to implode at any moment, making all kinds of delicious, desperate little noises, saying all kinds of crazy things. How he couldn’t live without the mage, how they were one soul in two bodies, how he would do _anything _for Dorian, he had only to ask, didn’t he know that by now?

And Dorian was a mess; a gasping, panting _wreck_ which had _not _been the plan at all, but he was past caring, past rational thought when teetering on the verge of an orgasm he badly needed.

‘Beg for me, Dorian.’

‘Cullen, please, _please_!’

‘Are you going to come for me?’

Dorian thunked his head back into the wall, teeth ground hard, eyes tight shut. ‘Fucking _kill_ you unless you make me come!’

‘Beg prettily and I’ll give you anything you want.’

Dorian was far gone, _so_ far gone when he looked back at Cullen, slightly dazed from hitting his head so hard but also from all the excess adrenaline and dopamine and drenching chemical need, his heart reaching out for Cullen’s, magic hitting the high notes of their song, pastel colours turning autumnal and dark with every second it built and could not release.

Cullen was holding back, not letting the magic crash between them as it was made to. He held the dam, he held it all together including Dorian, hand slowing over the hot, desperate length, weeping head painfully sensitive as a calloused thumb swiped over it and Dorian jolted, eyes rolling all the way back, arching against the wall.

‘Cullen, I’m _begging_ you,’ he growled, tears in his eyes. ‘I’m fucking begging you, please, please, _please_!’

Cullen smiled as his hand sped up, _finally _applying the rhythm and pace that Dorian needed, would _die_ without and the pleasure began to crank, began to crest.

‘Good boy,’ he panted harshly, the endearment half goading, half perfectly intoned praise. ‘Come for me, beautiful.’

The pace hit the mark, speed and pressure triggering that flood of _bliss_, of rapture that felt more like a rock-slide, that had Dorian almost screaming, that had Cullen’s hand over his mouth, riding the blond’s hand for every droplet of pleasure as he came hard enough that his vision whited around the edges. Cullen removed his hand and replaced it with his mouth, kissing all the moans, all the lovely, desperate noises into oblivion. Drank them down for himself, possessed Dorian’s mouth and gave no mercy, his hand slowing, slicking Dorian’s cock with its own come and causing a few additional pulses, extra shudders as finally, _finally_ Dorian’s whole body exhaled in relief.

The soup was burning, Dorian was sticky and covered in his own spend and Cullen was, if possible, even more smug.

‘I love you,’ Cullen said, pressing a sweeter, lighter kiss to Dorian’s lips. ‘You’re so very _welcome.__’_

Dorian laughed, couldn’t help it. ‘I’m going to fucking _ruin_ you, do you realise that?’

Cullen stepped away, carefully lowering Dorian, whose legs were shaky, and licked Dorian’s cooling come from his hand.

‘Why?’ he asked, all faux-innocence. ‘I gave you what you deserved.’

‘Just wait,’ Dorian said, his breathing still a long way from returning to a normal pace. ‘Just you _wait_.’

‘Did I interfere with your schemes for revenge?’

‘_Ruin_ you. You’ll see.’

Dorian lifted his hand to unlock the door, but Cullen stopped him.

‘Let me clean you off first, _darling_,’ he purred, dropping to his knees.

*

‘This is not good.’

‘That’s because it still needs chicken and various other ingredients.’

‘Cullen, you can’t have _chicken_ and mint! What _is_ this concoction?’

‘I’m afraid I have to side with my son,’ Halward agreed, peering into the huge crock pot.

‘For _once_,’ Dorian muttered.

‘You’ll see when it’s done,’ Cullen argued primly, dropping Dorian a wink. ‘Anyway, leave me to the cooking. You still have to wrap all the gifts.’

Halward and Dorian walked past the lounge area. Saffy, Marcus, Cain, Finn, Christopher and Pick sat around on the furniture or floor, speaking animatedly and excitedly. In the hearth, a fire made of ice brightened the room; Saffy’s own creation, a clever magic designed to cool a room rather than heat it. Her blue magic glistened like crystals, the flames like liquid diamonds and Dorian felt the cool breeze as they passed.

‘Shall we go out onto the veranda?’ Halward asked and Dorian thought he did very well not to narrow his eyes and demand why.

‘If you like,’ he said, wishing Cullen was there. Things were always drastically less awkward with Cullen as a buffer.

Together they stepped out onto the veranda, the slightly cooler air a balm to all Dorian’s small worries about what this _talk _would entail. Honeysuckle and jasmine grew in delicate vines all around the veranda, garden furniture nearby and ahead, past the stretch of grass, past the gardening area, past the water feature maintained by magic, was the Nocen sea. The moons sat high in the darkening sky, the water stretching endlessly.

It was perhaps the best thing about their home in Minrathous.

Dorian tasted the salty sweet brine playing around the soft breeze, heard the waves in the distance as he and Halward headed towards it.

‘I have a theory,’ Halward said and Dorian sighed, his father linking arms with him. Here they went.

‘Tell me your _theory.__’_

‘My theory is that this Satinalia may be even more special than most anticipate.’

‘Oh for—did Cullen tell you?’

Halward chuckled. ‘No. I do actually possess the intelligence to _notice_ things like your favourite flowers and two separate visits to the best tailor in all of the Imperium. Was there some reason you wanted it to be a surprise?’

Dorian huffed. ‘Aside from the novelty of it being an actual _surprise_, safety is the priority. A spontaneous event with everyone being here already is far safer than some long, drawn out process to give our enemies time to plot and plan how to ruin it. Plus,’ he added, tilting his head. ‘Cullen said he didn’t want to murder anyone on our wedding day.’

‘Dorian. I wanted the chance to rain upon you luxury and delights the likes of which you’d never seen!’

The mage half smiled. ‘Please feel free to do so, simply under the guise of an especially excessive Satinalia celebration.’

It was a gorgeous night, as most were in Tevinter. Dorian felt at ease, he felt _home_ but that was because Cullen was nearby, almost always nearby. He felt safe, he felt perfectly, wonderfully contented.

Even if a tiny part of him _did _miss the snow sometimes.

‘Lucky for you,’ his Father said. ‘I’ve been preparing for such an occasion.’

‘Of course you have.’

‘I’ll say nothing to anyone, my son. I just have a few little… treats planned, if that sits well with you?’

‘If it doesn’t compromise the safety of the event or alert anyone outside the family to what’s happening beforehand, then please feel free.’

There was a moment of quiet between them. Dorian struggled with the decades old urge to withdraw his arm from Halward’s, put space between them as there had always been, but he made the effort. They stared at the ocean until Halward sighed and said, ‘I’m very proud of you. He nodded. ‘Very proud.’

*

Dinner was a relaxed affair as it was most nights. Though the kitchen was buzzing with low level excitement for the next few days, for the arrival of old friends and beloved additions, everyone was at ease. Saffy sat with Halward, the pair exchanging stories of casts gone wrong. Cullen was cutting up the bread while occasionally tasting his family soup and stirring it, now set to a low simmer. Pick was helping him slice the bread and showing Cullen how to use magic to stir the pot sometimes. Cullen chuckled when the spoon went flying across the stove, sending a thin shower of pea-mint-chicken _stuff_ that sizzled when it landed on the flames. Marcus and Christopher laid the table while Fenris was showing Finn, Aldis and Sedrick how to knock someone unconscious with one punch. They were listening raptly, Christopher looking over every now and then, his crush on Fenris still palpable even after a year.

Dorian stood in the doorway, leaning, watching the scene with utmost peace in his heart. Cullen was laughing, genuinely _laughing _and Pick was absolutely cracking up though Dorian couldn’t tell what the cause was. He watched it play out, he let himself feel every part of it.

Every precious part of that happiness, born of the ordinary.

As if by magic, Cullen’s gaze sought his, creased with laughter still and he beckoned Dorian over, shaking his head and wiping his eyes to remove the tears brought about by such strong laughter. Pick was almost bent double and Dorian felt the contagious pull of such humour the closer he got to them. The others, seeing Dorian, greeted the mage with friendly smiles.

The table was set, dinner was ready.

Cullen wrapped one arm around Dorian’s middle, still shaking with laughter.

‘What’s so funny?’ the made asked, adoringly.

‘He thought…’ Cullen gasped, caught in the throes of hilarity. Pulling Dorian into him a little more, the mage’s arm sliding around him in turn as Pick took a deep breath to let loose another cackle. ‘My soup was a cleaning solution!’

*

The mansion, though really it wasn’t a _mansion _by Dorian’s standards, housed fifteen bedrooms. Aside from the location on the seafront, it was the main reason Dorian had purchased it. Plenty of room for everyone, for anyone who ever wanted to come and stay.

After dinner there were games and funny stories, everyone sat about on the veranda, the heat of the day cooling gradually into something more bearable, waves crashing nearby. Saffy sat on Dorian’s lap in the swinging chair, night blooming flowers all around. There was a kind of energy in the air, making everyone a tiny bit restless. The kids practised various kinds of pretty, unnecessary magics on the grass between the beach-front and the house, filling the sky with colour, with swirls and lovely things. Cullen and Fenris performed a demonstration of what Fenris had been attempting to explain earlier and everyone clapped when Fenris caught Cullen on the chin, punch having only been half pulled. Cullen pretended to be indignant, but Dorian knew he didn’t care, was only playing it up for the laughter as Fenris shrugged and said he should learn to dodge better.

When it was late, far later than usual for their normal routine, Dorian insisted it was time to sleep and escorted the younger ones upstairs, the night-time rituals beginning anew. He supervised here and there, mostly with Pick. Dorian changed into more relaxed clothing; a bare armed vest top and a pair of floaty, thin harem pants, the marble of the floors pleasantly cool beneath his bare feet.

And though there were fifteen rooms, they still all slept in one room, together. Sometimes he would nonchalantly suggest that if anyone wanted to take a certain room for themselves or to share, he’d be delighted to move things around. Always under the guise of an already existing project, like he was moving things around for fun and, yes, sometimes he did.

But thus far, no one ever took him up on it, not even Saffy. They slept in the biggest room, the boys in stacked beds, Saffy in a single one under the window.

They felt safe that way, he knew. Had slept in one big dormitory for so long, for most of their lives. Dorian never questioned it, never pushed. Every few months, he would offer but so far, no takers.

Whatever made them happy.

That left a large amount of guest rooms. Halward was staying for the duration of Satinalia, no point in going back and forth between the Pavus family estate in Asariel. He would return home after the final day, the day after the _event_ that had Dorian’s stomach all tied in ecstatic, somewhat frantic knots.

Fenris stayed now and then. He had his own place, a small, mostly hidden house a quarter mile away that sat directly on the beach-front, but he stayed with them about half of the time, unless Leliana was in town. Then he could be found at his beach house and she, also quite _mysteriously,_ did not stay at Dorian and Cullen’s house.

Dorian snorted gently just to think of it.

The other rooms were for anyone who wanted to stay as they often did. For Sera and Ellana, their room facing the ocean. For Cassandra and for Rainier, the pair usually taking turns to visit, one of them always stationed in Skyhold, safeguarding the place they worked so hard to take care of.

Two rooms in opposite wings, not guest rooms, not interchangeable, currently sat unoccupied.

Keenan’s room and Cole’s room.

Both were in Skyhold, both had been absent for months. Both were sorely missed.

But both were also returning tomorrow and Dorian breathed a little easier to believe it, to know he would see them soon.

Sometimes he felt Cole’s presence, his _spirit_ presence while his physical self was rooted in Skyhold. Sometimes he felt the sensation of compassion and kindness whenever Dorian especially missed them.

Ellana was back from her most recent bout of travelling and therefore, able to activate the Eluvian, stored carefully in a dedicated room in the basement. Tomorrow, the rest of the family would be coming home for Satinalia and Dorian simply couldn’t _wait_.

He missed Landon and Nalari more than words could say, missed that delightful, darling baby Dawn more than he could even understand. Their decision to remain in Skyhold and continue to build a life there for those in the South as well as themselves was one Dorian understood completely, but he couldn’t help wishing they were with him always, that he didn't have to wait for Ellana to see them.

Sebastian had been reunited with his Mother only months ago. She’d been searching for him ever since her Circle was dissolved. It still brought tears of happiness to Dorian’s eyes, thinking about the message the boy had sent to Dorian explaining that he was leaving, that he was going with her, but that Dorian was his family too and that he would write always.

‘Sleep well,’ he said, kissing Saffy’s cheek. He watched her pad over to her bed beneath the window, hair arranged in a messy bun. Christopher hugged and kissed Dorian good night, the slow procession of night-time farewells coming to a close, Pick last as always because he usually had a sneaky request.

‘Goodnight Pick,’ Dorian said, biting down a smile as the boy took a breath, about to launch into what Dorian guessed was a proposal for why he should be allowed to stay up late, but that wasn't what came out.

‘Maybe you could call me Sam,’ the fourteen year old boy said. Behind him, the others went about their bedtime business as if they heard nothing, but Dorian knew them all too well to believe such a thing. They were always hyper aware of each other, always knew where the other was, especially the youngest of them. ‘I might like that, to be Sam.’

Dorian blinked, the master of reigning in any reaction that would give away surprise. ‘That sounds great,’ he said. ‘I like that. _Sam_. It suits you.’

The boy bit his lip and smiled. ‘Yeah?’

‘Of course, it’s short and sweet and full of mischief!’ Dorian laughed, yanking the boy into a tickle-hold.

*

Halward, who was older and therefore needed more sleep than even the kids, had retired to his room while Dorian had been settling seven excitable mages into something resembling a relaxed sleepy state. They still loved to be read to. Dorian wasn’t sure if that was normal at their age, but he didn't give a fuck about _normal_. He read to them every night and as they showed no signs of losing interest, he wouldn’t stop until someone complained loudly.

Cullen and Fenris were waiting for him in the dining room, wrapping gifts now that the kids were not around. The paper was thin and elegant, ribbons of all colours. Fenris was surprisingly good at wrapping presents. Cullen was not.

‘How the bloody void are you meant to wrap shoes?’ Dorian heard him complain while Fenris snickered. The mage entered the dining room, both men sat at the long, grand table surrounded by organised chaos of paper, strings and ribbons, labels and _gifts_. So many gifts.

‘Did they go down all right?’ Cullen asked when Dorian dropped heavily into the chair beside him, the pair sharing a brief, perfunctory kiss of greeting.

‘Pick wants to be called Sam from now on.’

Cullen smiled. ‘I like that name.’

‘That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’ Fenris said, tying a magenta bow over bright orange paper with flourish.

‘Yes, I think so.’ Dorian reached for a set of books he’d bought for Saffy - _Compendiums of Lost Magics - _and began to wrap them. ‘Them wanting anything for themselves, moving in a direction of their own choosing is good.’

‘I wonder if he’ll want to attend the College soon,’ Cullen mused, tying his ribbon in a knot instead of a bow. Saffy, Marcus, Christopher and Finn attended a local College by day three times a week. Sedrick and Aldis expressed no interest in such a thing and Dorian always had the impression that Pick was a little afraid that if he went into such a place, they might never let him leave. But after months of seeing Saffy and the boys return day after day, excitedly babbling about all the new things they’d learnt, Dorian hoped Pick - _Sam_ \- might want that for himself. It wouldn’t matter if not. He would continue teaching him from the safety of their home, would go at whatever pace was required.

‘I think he will,’ Fenris said. ‘I see him watching the others, Marcus especially, when they talk about meeting others, making friends.’

The three of them fell silent for a moment, but Dorian suspected they were all thinking the same thing. That Sam, the youngest of them all, had the best chance of leading a normal life. Of experiencing things like friendship and attraction without the backdrop of intense fear and perpetual threat. Dorian wanted it for him, wanted the very best for all of them but Sam had a real chance for it.

‘Did you speak to Finn?’ Cullen asked, pulling another present from the pile and making a complete mess of wrapping it.

‘No,’ Dorian sighed. ‘I’ll do it soon.’

‘The offer will still be there in a few weeks.’

‘No, I know. I just wanted to gauge his reaction first.’

Finn, who was freshly seventeen, had been offered an apprenticeship from a reputable and _reasonably_ safe Magister, one of those rescued by Cullen from Jassen’s imprisonment. The mage was respectful and he was by no means someone Dorian considered a problem. Finn showed promise as an exceptionally skilled necromancer, more so than even Dorian at that age and it was only a matter of time before an offer was made to him, as there had been for the others. While the oldest three - Saffy, Marcus and Sedrick - had turned their offers down, Dorian was not so sure about Finn. Deep down, he suspected this might be an offer that Finn would actually accept.

And that was wonderful. It was a good thing, great even. They had opportunities, their natural talent was coming through, but…

But Dorian would miss him. Miss him like he missed Sebastian, like he missed Nalari and Keenan, Landon and Dawn.

Cullen wrapped an arm around Dorian, dropping a kiss to his shoulder. ‘Help me?’

Dorian chuckled, banishing the sadness and took over with the disaster that was Cullen’s wrapping. ‘My Father clocked it, by the way.’

‘I’m astonished you kept it from him this long,’ Fenris drawled. ‘Man is sharp as a rogue blade.’

‘He has _plans_,’ Dorian grumbled. ‘He’ll make a speech, I guarantee it.’

‘Father of the groom, I’m hardly surprised.’

‘I bet it’s a wonderful speech,’ Cullen teased, grinning widely.

Dorian shot him a withering look. ‘Oh shut up, _favourite_.’

‘I’m not the favourite.’

‘I’m surprised he didn’t offer to walk you around the circle.’

‘That’s Leliana’s job,’ Fenris pointed out, distracted with perfecting his ribbons. ‘If she comes, of course.’

Cullen and Dorian shared a mostly hidden smile. ‘Oh yes, Leliana.’

‘Hmm, she’ll be staying _here,_ I would imagine, _if_ she comes.’

‘She might, but then, she _does_ usually tend to stay elsewhere.’

‘I’ll never understand it myself, we’ve _so many_ spare bedrooms.’

‘Very strange.’

Fenris glared mildly.

‘Well, _I__’m_ really looking forward to seeing her,’ Dorian went on, light and teasing. ‘What about you, Cullen?’

‘Oh yes,’ Cullen played along perfectly. ‘What about you, Fenris?’

Fenris narrowed his eyes at them, grinning wryly. ‘You’re like a pair of excitable _twins_, honestly. Plus, I hardly think you’re in any position to tease me when you both absconded _twice_ today for the purpose of highly unsubtle, annoyingly blatant sexual escapades.’

‘Oh, it was obvious then, with the…?’ Dorian gestured towards the kitchen.

‘Was it obvious when I tried to open the kitchen door and found it locked? Yes, mage. Yes it really _was_.’

Cullen snorted and then accidentally tore the paper he was trying to wrap around the sharp edges of yet more books. ‘Right, I give up,’ he growled, shoving the books away.

‘There, there, darling,’ Dorian soothed, rubbing his knee.

‘Well, anyway,’ Cullen said, a little mischief returning to his smile. ‘Shall we make up a guest room for Leliana, do you think?’

‘Of course,’ Fenris said neutrally, finishing off yet another gift, perfectly wrapped and colour-coordinated with a sense of style that shamed Cullen’s disastrous attempts to wrap blue paper with _red_ ribbons. ‘She likes her space.’

‘Hmm, true,’ Dorian said. ‘And as _you _agreed to stay for the duration, I’m sure she would also want to stay here. Y’know, friends sticking together and all that.’

‘Cease with your endless fumbling, the both of you. _Yes, _I’m looking forward to seeing her,’ Fenris relented quietly, a smile playing about his eyes. ‘Of course I am. I… missed her greatly.’

Leliana spent much of her time moving between the places that required her assistance and in seeking out the experiences she had thus far had to deny herself from the world. When not helping Vivienne, or Divine Victoria as Dorian knew he _should_ refer to her, and when not spending weeks at a time in Skyhold, seeing to matters that Rainier and Cassandra struggled with, she travelled.

She and Cullen always wrote to one another, though. A letter every week, no matter what, and she came to visit them once every few months too.

Lately, her absence had been mostly due to something that she was undertaking at Dorian’s behest. He didn’t _worry _about her, exactly, because a more capable woman there had never been, but he was still eagerly anticipating seeing her. He missed her. Fucking void, he missed _everyone, _even Samson. Having a family and being _happy_ had turned him positively soft. He just hoped that she’d received his latest letter.

‘Though not, I suspect, as much as you missed the others,’ Fenris added. ‘How long has it been since the last visit?’

‘Three months,’ Dorian said, though really it was more like thirteen weeks and four days, not that he was counting.

‘I can’t wait to see Dawn,’ Cullen sighed happily, no longer burdened with wrapping and now able to lean on his elbow and watch Dorian. ‘Nalari said she’s walking now, can you believe that? _Walking.__’_

‘Maybe we can convince Nalari to stay here for her first birthday, it’s only two weeks away. Think of the party we could throw!’

‘Or, if Ellana isn’t off travelling right away, we could go to Skyhold.’

‘That’s a good idea. I do sometimes miss the snow.’

‘Do you really?’

‘_Sometimes_.’

Cullen shrugged, swiping a grape from the bowl of fruit in the centre of the table. ‘I don’t especially miss it. I like the sun.’

Dorian and Fenris shared just the smallest little smile, both pleased for Cullen, for his easy relaxed nature, despite so much in his past.

‘The sun likes you back, amatus. Look at your gorgeous _tan_.’

‘Oh, here it comes,’ Fenris mused, sighing.

‘And those freckles.’

‘I’m sitting right here.’

‘Not to mention your hair, how much _lighter_ it is from all the sunlight, and so _long_. Long enough to tie back at the top. Long enough to tangle my fingers in.’

Cullen laughed, gifting Dorian a brief kiss, the brevity all for Fenris’s sake, and fed Dorian a grape as the mage’s hands were occupied with wrapping.

_‘Behave_,’ Fenris warned playfully, the long suffering sigh affected by his trademark noise of affectionate disgust.

*

The tower, as they called it, was not a tower at all, but more of a cloister. An elevated room in the east wing with a stunning domed glass ceiling and a balcony that overlooked the ocean. Dorian was sure that Cullen called it the _tower_ out of nostalgia for their room back in Skyhold, missing the inbuilt bath, missing a great many thing sometimes, no matter how big of an improvement their mansion was.

Their room, their safe space, their little world together.

It was well past midnight by the time the gifts were wrapped and Cullen’s weird _soup_ was apparently done, stowed away in a cast iron cauldron and left over a low flame until tomorrow.

‘I’m so tired, I don’t even think I can fuck you,’ Cullen said, wrapping himself around Dorian and nuzzling his neck while the mage chuckled and undressed. ‘Though I would be happy to try,’ he added, rubbing his lips along the side of Dorian’s neck all the way down to a light, silvery pink scar put there some eight months ago. ‘All right, I’ll try.’

‘No,’ Dorian laughed, turning so that he was fully in Cullen’s arms. ‘No, I’m tired too and we have a big day tomorrow.’

‘But I love you,’ Cullen whined, slowly dragging his mouth _up_, hands curling around his back. ‘And I’m lost without you.’

It was all teasing, all playing, but all _true. _

‘Mmm, you can wake me up that way, if you like,’ Dorian countered, nudging Cullen’s nose gently like a cat, angling him the way he wanted for a kiss and _only_ a kiss because he really was tired.

But Cullen’s breath caught before they kissed and Dorian felt the atmosphere shift, felt the thread tighten to better connect them, to slide the feeling back and forth like beads of dew, little glimmering sensations they shared.

‘You’d like that?’

‘You know I would. Slick me up while I’m sleeping, put two fingers inside me and open me up while I’m dreaming of you and then push inside, fuck me awake.’

_‘Maker_, what you do to me, Dorian.’

He lifted the mage’s hand and placed it over his own heart which, despite the fatigue of a _long_ day, was pounding wildly. In their blood, magic began to rustle and move, pulling on the thread, making ready with hopeful anticipation because it _loved_ when they were inside each other, simply adored it.

‘I know, darling,’ Dorian hummed, bringing his other hand to rest against Cullen’s bare chest, against the skin that had acquired a few new scars, one dangerously near to that most precious organ. A scar that Dorian didn’t like to think about because it had come _close_ that time. A well trained assassin from a distance, a dagger flung without warning and just an _inch_ to the right would have had Cullen instantly dead. Tevinter was dangerous, their lives were dangerous and they’d both known that going forth, but that scar… it served to remind them both of why their wedding wouldn’t be announced, why the mansion had constant shields around it. Why Dorian wanted everyone he loved under one roof, within arm’s reach.

Cullen looked down and saw Dorian’s fingers tracing the thin sliver, that deceptively small scar, gifted not long after their arrival in Minrathous. Back before people knew how dangerous Cullen really was, how fucking lethal he could be when threatened, when provoked. They’d never found the assassin, but they _had_ uncovered the man who’d taken out the contract. Not a Magister, not even a mage.

The brother of a guard from Skyhold, a relative of one of the men Cullen had executed in the cells beneath the castle. It was worth the coin spent to track him down, to find him and bring him to justice without ever resorting to violence. He’d been expecting a fight, expecting to die a martyr. Instead, he lived out the rest of his days in jail.

‘I’m here,’ Cullen said gently, lifting Dorian’s chin. ‘I’m here, love.’

It had come close, too close. Blood and metal, Cullen’s blank surprise, not even _shock_, just a benign kind of, ‘_Oh, what__’s that?’_ as he looked down at the thin, sly dagger buried in his chest right beside his heart. Dorian would never forget it, but that didn’t mean he had to think about it just then.

The mage nodded and swallowed, fanning his hands out across the breadth of Cullen’s chest, light dusting of perfect golden curls, skin tanned from training shirtless most mornings. His palms moved and they roamed higher, sliding over muscled shoulders, down to biceps that were rounded and full even when not tensed. Dorian looked at the left one, smiling a little.

He traced his fingertips over seemingly blank skin, making the familiar pattern and beneath his ministrations, colour and lines shimmered to life, magical ink drifting to the surface revealing the hidden tattoo there. Cullen sighed deeply, doing the same to Dorian’s left shoulder, repeating the pattern that would reveal the beautiful design.

The mosaic of dark colours, of swirls that covered the whole of Cullen’s upper arm was identical to Dorian’s. The ink reached as high as halfway up the neck, stretching out in water-like tendrils. Those aspects were identical on both men, but in the centre of the dotted design, of the swirls that moved with all the intuition of the ocean, swaying and waving, were the parts that varied.

On Cullen’s arm, on the exterior of his bicep, sat a winged serpent, a kind of dragon who more closely resembled a snake. Upon contact with Dorian’s finger, it uncoiled and stretched its wings wide; the shades of iridescent blue, stunning teal greens and in between the shimmers, lavender and gold. Dorian watched, always enraptured to see it come to life, that thing that he and Cullen had designed. On his own arm, the counterpart rumbled to consciousness, he felt the tingle of the ink, of the magic there in his skin and blood.

He looked down at his arm, the magnificent beast shaking it’s mane, fur glowing in the shade of burnt gold. It was a kind of manticore, a winged lion. The fur was shiny and thick, the wings dark scarlet and black. Every time it moved, the fur glinted gold, sharp claws extending when it stretched and yawned, eyes brightly blue, the colour of oceans beneath the sun. The swirling mosaic of dots circled and extended, reaching Dorian’s arm like veins, like trickling water, twirling around his wrists and over his palm into his fingertips, seeking _connection_.

Cullen’s hand found his, fingers clasping, the ink touching and upon that contact, both creatures shivered, the colours of the dots matching, glowing, glistening.

‘I never tire of seeing it,’ Cullen whispered. ‘Our secret mark.’

‘Our _beautiful_ mark,’ Dorian corrected, letting the tattoos become reacquainted. Marks of their choosing, of their own design, he loved them dearly, loved that they counteracted the scars put there by others, given by those who meant harm as opposed to love.

They watched for a little while before Cullen pulled Dorian over to the bed; an enormous, plush thing with a _very _sturdy headboard. He used magic to open the balcony doors, the tattoos shining a little brighter for the use of magic.

Covers drawn back, they slipped into the cool, silken sheets as all that ocean air drifted inside and Dorian exhaled, body settling into the ease of peace, of relaxation.

They lay atop the pillows, hands still connected, magical tattoo moving and swirling, creatures becoming reacquainted as they faced each other. With his free hand, Cullen pushed Dorian’s hair back and out of his eyes, his gaze soft, the heat from before reduced to a low, gentle ember.

Everything was calm and perfect, the sounds of the sea filling the room, a lullaby of white noise. Dorian stared at Cullen, swallowing over the lump it brought about in his throat, so much happiness, _too_ much happiness, really. People probably weren’t meant to be this blissful, this in love, this _loved_.

He could feel the pull of genuine tiredness, of the need to sleep and sleep _safely_, with Cullen right there, to slip into the Fade like a warm bath and find Cullen there too, their magic keeping them close and connected always, the thread strong and unbreakable.

Cullen stroked his face with the back of his fingers, blinking slowly, a hazy smile in place.

‘I can’t wait to be your husband,’ he told the mage in a toneless whisper, a secret little thing between them both even though it had no reason to be a secret.

‘And I, yours,’ Dorian promised. ‘Two more days.’

‘Two more days.’

Their magic settled between them, not disappointed by the lack of sex. There would always be more, was _always _plenty more sex to be had. Restful sleep was important and it would be a busy Satinalia, after all. They would need their energy.

‘Sleep, love.’

‘All right,’ Dorian said, smiling slightly. ‘Only if you come too.’

Cullen pressed an undemanding yet deep kiss to Dorian’s lips, nuzzling his nose.

‘Always.’

*

Cullen opened his eyes and broke from the dream, left the Fade behind and settled himself in the real world, in their tower, in their bed with Dorian in his arms. Dorian was still dreaming, he could tell by his breathing. He felt the lingering traces of their connection, one half still steeped in that place of illusion and magic, of dreams and things not shaped by reality but instead by will. Like being half in and half out of water, Cullen watched him sleep for a time.

Dorian’s hair was mussed by movement and friction against the pillows, covers around his thighs, laying on his front. Cullen surveyed him, took in every aspect of the man he so loved. The feel of him beneath his hand, the smell of his skin, the sensation of his hair and the gentle rushing sighs of his breathing.

It marked the first time in many weeks that they’d fallen asleep without the gentle glow of a nearby floating hourglass, but Satinalia was a holiday taken very seriously in the Imperium and though they had many things to do that day, Cullen wanted Dorian to sleep a little longer than usual.

And he was so fucking exquisite like that. Restful and relaxed, vulnerable and perfect. Strong and powerful, even in repose. Cullen loved him, he loved the bones of him, heart and soul. It was a tangible thing; a sensation within, a colour previously unknown to him.

He watched Dorian’s tattoo, the winged feline curled in a ball as it breathed in perfect synchronicity with the mage. His own was awake, gently travelling across his skin in search of its counterpart. Cullen smiled down at it, the magic never quite ceasing to amaze him, to make him feel _safe_ and happy. He touched his fingertips to the lion and watched it shiver, his dragon snake travelling down over his wrist to meet and greet the other.

Dorian slowly began to wake.

He made all kinds of adorable little noises, deep little grunts and huffs, mewls and thick, throaty swallowing that had all Cullen’s love colouring red, turning hot, venturing south. It was hard to resist Dorian at _any _point in time, let alone when he was near naked in their bed, surrounded by satin and silk, the ocean in the air twined with delicate birdsong as the sun rose steadily higher.

Dorian looked at him, still half asleep, and he smiled.

Who could have asked for more, really?

‘Morning, darling,’ the mage rumbled, gorgeous voice stripped and bare, dry mouth and unused throat giving it a rough edge that did strange things to Cullen. ‘You’re up first,’ he observed, reaching for water from the nightstand. After a few refreshing gulps, he turned back, eyes a little clearer, opening his arms and inviting Cullen into them. ‘That’s rare.’

‘I’m too excited to sleep late,’ Cullen confessed, moving into the mage’s arms, into the space offered. ‘I wanted to watch you.’

Half laying atop Dorian, Cullen bent low and kissed him. The kind of kiss that was all softness, sweetness and slowly encroaching _depth. _Cullen wanted to drown in him, he wanted to lose himself in Dorian and he knew he could, he _knew_ he could because Dorian would always put him back together again, would make him right, make him better. It was absolute, perfect trust and it was _dizzying_.

He revelled in the feel of Dorian’s arms locking around his neck, strong thigh tightening around his own to bring them closer, scissoring their lower halves and Cullen let out a little gasp when his hardness rubbed just _right_ over Dorian’s, tiny little shockwaves of pleasure skittering through him; a delicate offering, a temptation to follow that feeling to its deepest, darkest treasure trove.

To lose himself in the mage, in the magic, and resurface only when Dorian decided.

It had been a long time since they’d played it that way. Times when Cullen wanted to bottom were few and far between. Their dynamic, though fluid, had become so finely tuned and perfected, each one deeply and intensely rooted in the other. There had not been much _need_ to switch, to indulge in that flip-side.

But Cullen wanted it, he felt it coiling in his sternum. He felt it in his heart-song, in the way Dorian’s touch did new things to him, reached a part of him that was usually dormant and sated. Oh he _wanted_ it, he did, but he would wait. He would wait until he was _sure_ that the occasion, that the _gift_ he was planning for Dorian was entirely safe first. He was patient, always had been. 

He pushed his arm carefully underneath Dorian’s back, rolling him so they were side by side and then the mage lay half atop him, their positions reversed, but it didn’t mean _that. _Dorian often topped from the bottom, was a bratty, beautiful creature who always had his own _way_ of being that could not be restrained or tamed.

Cullen’s wild thing, his mage.

‘I missed you,’ Dorian told him, raking blunt fingernails down Cullen’s chest, catching on his nipples and sending a whole-body jolt through the ambassador, the Soporati who knew magic, the man who was joined with a mage.

Who would be Dorian’s _husband_ come tomorrow.

The raven haired man sat up to straddle Cullen properly, bringing friction where it was needed, but not _connection_, not flesh.

He ran his hands up and down the mage’s sides, thumbs brushing over dusky nipples in turn, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth.

‘I was there with you,’ he pointed out, nothing _logical_ in his tone, nothing conversational about it when Dorian started to grind out a gentle, breath-taking rhythm, riding Cullen like an especially impressive steed in a parade. ‘I’m always with you when we dream, Cullen.’

His eyes flickered a little at that, just at Dorian saying his name. At the _perfection _of what they were creating even though it wasn’t quite enough, was _never_ really enough because he just wanted to rip his skin off, shed it like clothing and meld into Dorian, smash them together and revel in the reverberation of that crash.

He made himself look up at his mage, saw him back-lit by pale, cool sunlight, by the rays of dawn. Saw him messy and imperfect, saw him sleep softened and his eyes without kohl. Fuck, it hit like a gut punch, how much he _loved_ him, how strong it was.

‘Love you,’ he couldn’t stop himself from saying. ‘I love you, oh _fuck_, baby, I love you so much!’

And it wasn’t what he’d intended, not what he’d planned, but what did that matter when their hands linked together, when their magical ink touched and rippled? What did the _method_ really matter when Dorian bent low once more, rhythm turning urgent and frantic, pace increasing as warm, liquid heat and pressure began to build and Cullen’s cock was steadily leaking pre-come, straining and throbbing wildly against Dorian’s, even through the fabric of their Tevinter style clothing… what did anything matter when Dorian hovered his lips over Cullen’s, plush, perfect bottom lip settling lightly in offering and he whispered, _‘Make me bleed.’_

Cullen let out a kind of sob, a wrecked thing that burst free as he bit down on his mage’s bottom lip, tasting salt and iron; mana and magic laced with lavender. As all that was Dorian touched Cullen’s tongue and the magic between them hit a high note, colour turning to pure light, the spectrum absorbing all else and Cullen came so fucking hard he lost his breath, felt it punched from him, tasting Dorian, feeling him all around, in all the cracks, in all the pores and scars. Dorian, Dorian, _Dorian. _

His cock spasmed against the mage’s, the angle of the grind too perfect not to feel every inch of the man above him and he bit down harder, giving the mage what he knew he _needed_.

The excess pain triggered it and Cullen wrapped himself all around Dorian as he came seconds later, turning the gentle, shallow bite into a kiss, into a wild, wet thing that was all tongues, all primal lust and heartfelt possession. One inside the other, it was always the way, no matter _which_ way_, _no matter the method.

He felt Dorian’s orgasm as if it was his own, blood between them strengthening the magical bond enough to permit the sensation. It was bittersweet, almost painful, his cock spent and still coming down but that didn’t stop him from feeling every part of it anyway.

Their bodies rocked through it, the duality of mirrored pleasure and that feeling of _too much_, touching each other everywhere, everything intense and raw, stripped bare.

And though they were always connected, though they might be hard pressed to find two men on the whole planet _more_ connected than they were, it was still never quite enough. Cullen hoped it never would be.

‘I love you so much,’ Dorian panted slowly, their mouth’s touching as his aftershocks began to ebb. He tangled his fingers in Cullen’s hair and angled him for a kiss, the slight demand for control sending cool frissons of excitement down Cullen’s spine, making him shiver helplessly. He felt Dorian smile as they kissed and Cullen was helpless but to smile back, to give in to the feelings and let himself simply _be happy_, be ridiculously, stupidly, _impossibly_ in love with his fiancé in their home, their family soon to be all around them, their magic adoring and pleased, the living ink moving over their skin like water, the creatures crafted there glowing and exultant.

Cullen let himself feel all of it with Dorian above him and so the day began.

*

‘We don’t have time,’ Dorian said regretfully as they dressed.

Cullen knew it was true, looking out wistfully at the ocean. Though there was no _official_ business to be attended to, they still had at least a dozen things to oversee and implement that day, one of which made Cullen distinctly anxious; a dread, dull feeling he did not usually experience. 

‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘I just miss it.’

‘We’ll swim in the ocean tomorrow, my darling,’ Dorian promised, pulling him into his arms for a quick kiss before then turning Cullen around and tying his curls back, his hair now _just _long enough to do so. ‘After we’re married.’

Cullen smiled, couldn’t help it.

‘All right.’

‘There, perfect. Are you ready?’

The last thing to do was turn their tattoos dormant. A small pattern drawn atop the skin had the dark colours and the beautiful creatures shimmering like a mirage, fading entirely after a few seconds.

‘I’m ready, love,’ Cullen said and they went out to face the day ahead.

*

Fenris was already up and making breakfast with Marcus and Finn by the time Dorian and Cullen made it into the kitchen.

‘Morning,’ the elf greeted, frying eggs and stacking toast.

Cullen returned the sentiment and Dorian went about making tea, chatting pleasantly with the boys. Saffy was likely still in bed, fond of sleeping in as she was. Sat at the kitchen table was Pick - or _Sam_ as he wanted to be called - quietly filling a page with writing. Cullen dropped down beside him.

‘Morning, Sam.’

The kid looked up with a sleepy grin. ‘Morning.’

‘Still working on it?’

‘It’s nearly done.’

‘Really? It’s been a month, that’s impressive.’

‘He was up all night working on it,’ Marcus added and Dorian frowned slightly, ever the fretful, worried parent.

‘Sam, sleep is important.’

‘So is this!’ the boy argued cheerfully. ‘I’ll make up for it tonight, promise.’

Cullen looked down at the writing and the diagrams. It seemed very complex, magical theory. He didn’t understand most of it himself, though Saffy and Marcus were highly adept at explaining basic elements to him in ways he could comprehend, Cullen generally tended to steer clear of the theoretical aspects of magic, preferring to use instinct.

‘It seems so complicated.’

‘It is.’

‘Do you want to tell me about it yet?’

‘No.’

‘Oh, that’s fine.’

‘No, it’s…’ Sam leaned closer. ‘It’s a _surprise_!’

‘Ah, I see,’ Cullen whispered back, winking. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

‘You can still sit with me, if you want,’ the boy added quickly. ‘You won’t understand it anyway so it won’t ruin the surprise.’

Cullen and Dorian shared a brief look, a swift meeting of their eyes. Dorian was pleased, always loved it when there was what he liked to call _progress_.

‘That’s very true, Sam. Thank you.’

*

The others trailed down for breakfast when called, Fenris and Finn finishing up with the last few apples that needed peeling and slicing. Breakfast was not often such a relaxed affair; usually a highly charged experience when most everyone had places to be. Halward had already left that morning, stating that he had _business_ to attend to. Cullen privately hoped that he was finishing up with the research they’d secretly been conducting in regard to the _gift _he wanted to give Dorian tomorrow. 

Of everyone, it was Cullen whose life was arguably the busiest in terms of work outside their home. As Ambassador to the Inquisition, there existed an entire range of responsibilities - some interesting and challenging, some inane and soul-crushing - that required his time. The alliance with the Inquisition was fragile and young, it stood on shaky legs and had to be protected at all costs. There were those who despised it, who vied for war with the South regardless of the coming war with the Qun. Cullen did everything he could to keep it in place, regardless of his sometimes quite _lacking_ ability to play nice with people he patently despised.

It had been a learning curve, to say the least. He had two dedicated assistants who were extremely patient with him and their help was invaluable, especially when it came to interpreting Tevene which he was still a little rusty with.

His professional time was split between the Imperial Senate, where he held an official office, and the Templar main barracks. The barracks were a place where he had no _official_ position, but was very much involved regardless. The Chantry, under Divine Victoria’s careful suggestion, were simply thrilled to have a Southerner take charge of a branch they had long since considered corrupted and lost.

Though the Northern Templars were indeed corrupted, they were not lost. Their corruption stemmed from having nothing to do, from being made into glorified guards and well-paid henchmen, or at least they _were_ until Cullen had taken an interest.

Removing most of the upper ranks did wonders for the corruption. He personally worked with as many of the soldiers as possible, getting to know them, learning about Templar life in the North and about what they wanted from the role when surrounded by mages. He installed new people, people he trusted as Knight Lieutenants, Knight Captains and Knight Commanders. He worked hard to bring a level of trust and transparency to an arrangement that had been little more than muscle for hire.

It was endless work. Every day he received reports of some new plot to undo any and all good they’d started. Plots to undermine the recent amendments, to trivialise their efforts, to scrub them completely. Assassination plots were frequent. Cullen had not told Dorian about the number of threats he received at first, had kept it to himself but Dorian being Dorian had sensed it.

_Don__’t keep things from me, amatus,_ he said one night, watching Cullen like he could see all the way through him. _We face it together or not at all. Trust me to be strong. _

So they faced it together. Every threat, every risk.

Dorian was busy too, often had work in the inner city and in the Magisterium senate but Dorian was an Altus and in many ways, that restricted his ability to be involved in the same way Cullen was. Though he was permitted far greater reach than any mage of the same stature, a kind of glass ceiling existed for Dorian. Cullen hated it, detested the mere _notion_ that Dorian was in any way lower than him and knew it to be untrue with every fibre of his being, but Tevinter was a strange place. The Magisters were duplicitous in the extreme and while they could genuinely have interests that fully aligned with theirs, while allegiances made sense and benefited many… Cullen knew they still took pleasure in seeing Dorian put lower than them, than _him_.

‘Fenris,’ Dorian said, stacking emptied plates and placing them beside the large, open sink while Cullen helped. They had no servants, nothing resembling slaves, but they did hire several people to come and clean once a day due to the sheer size of the mansion. They would arrive around noon. ‘Are you still free to stay here today?’

The elf nodded, gathering cutlery and clearing away the last evidence of breakfast. ‘Yes, of course. We can work on the decorations.’

‘Yeah,’ Saffy agreed, smiling at Dorian over her tea while Cullen watched, amused as always by their interactions. ‘Among other things.’

Dorian narrowed his eyes at her, grinning at the tone. ‘What _other things_?’

‘Surprise things.’

‘Well, so long as they aren’t _hole in the wall _things.’

‘_One _time,’ Sedrick muttered.

‘Oh,’ she added casually, ‘And can I send word to Myles about tomorrow?’

Cullen brushed past, effortlessly taking over where Dorian faltered. ‘Of course you can,’ he said just as Dorian opened his mouth. ‘But we’re heading into the city anyway, why don’t we call on him?’

‘Would you mind?’

‘Not at _all_,’ Cullen insisted, taking Dorian’s hand in his own.

Fenris glanced over. ‘They’re arriving in the afternoon, remember.’

‘We’ll be back in plenty of time,’ Cullen assured his friend and Fenris, having ascertained that Cullen seemed to be in a good frame of mind for what the morning would entail, nodded and put his focus towards the younger ones. ‘Have a good morning everyone.’

And he pulled Dorian out before the mage could make any comments he might possibly regret.

*

‘I don’t like him.’

‘Of course you don’t.’

‘He seems shifty to me.’

‘Oh yes, incredibly shifty; hardworking lad with perfect manners who almost broke his spine in half bowing to you. An absolute _rogue_.’

Dorian sulked. ‘You need to be more upset about this.’

‘I don’t understand why you’re upset at all, Dorian. Saffy is a smart girl and she’s very independent. The boy seems nice. Not as nice as Landon, obviously, but that wasn’t meant to be.’

They talked as they walked, heading through the streets of the inner city walkways of Minrathous. Cullen watched as Dorian absently trailed his fingers over the jet stone of the buildings, the shade of the mineral reminding Cullen of the Well of Souls.

‘Well, I don’t like him.’

‘Yes, love, you said that already.’

‘Oh, will you stop being the favourite? The kids aren’t even _here. _Imagine if it was P—Sam!’

‘_Sam_ is far too young for a partner.’

‘Sam is only three years younger than Sapheria.’

‘Oh, she got her full name rolled out, did she?’

‘I just…’ the mage shook his head as they stopped outside the bakery. ‘I don’t know why.’

‘I know. It’s natural.’

‘Men can be awful. Part of me hoped she might lean the other way.’

Cullen gave an exaggerated sigh, scanning up and down the street, taking in the upper levels, windows and rooftops before they went inside, the smell of pastries, fillings and cream simply overwhelming. ‘They can’t all be queer, sweetheart.’

*

They were two thirds done with their errand list, the majority of it involving more dreaded _shopping_ which Cullen never truly came to like, no matter the fact that for Dorian, coin was no object. Shop after shop, placing orders for all manner of delicacies, for decorations, for services.

They had three things left on their list when their magic stirred suddenly. A kind of _bristling_ sensation shooting up Cullen’s spine and alerting every single one of his senses to the fact that something _bad_ was about to happen.

The attack came in the open street. It was a woman, running towards them with a pair of daggers in her hands, expression contorted with rage.

‘Dorian,’ Cullen had time to utter, placing himself in front of the woman and drawing on their magic to cast a thick, dense dome shield that had her running into an invisible wall, a barrier that sent her reeling back. The people of the street scrambled away, ducking inside shops and down alleyways as the woman screamed, righted herself and then threw her daggers at the shield which failed in appalling fashion.

Cullen allowed the shield to drop, determining that she was no threat without her sad little weapons. Dorian easily dragged lightning down from the sky, great thick spears of white hot lightning, purple and pretty and he caged her inside it.

_‘Don’t_ kill her,’ Dorian warned, both hands controlling the magic and successfully containing her.

Cullen rolled his eyes but obeyed, dampening the fire that had been building in preparation for the one who had _dared _run at his beloved with ill intent.

They approached with caution, people staring and peering around the side of where they’d hidden themselves. The woman in the cage of lightning screamed and writhed, voltage running through her painfully, but not strong enough to kill her.

‘That’s rather sexist,’ Cullen pointed out as they stood over her, Dorian narrowing the cage. ‘Were she a man, you’d have let me turn her to ashes.’

Dorian clucked irritably. ‘It’s not _that_,’ he said, like Cullen was a moron. ‘Look at her robes.’

Cullen blinked and did exactly that. ‘Southern.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said. ‘_Obviously.__’_

He was right, it _was_ obvious once Cullen had looked beyond the danger she posed. The woman’s clothes were hand sewn, roughshod and dully coloured. The lack of any and all fashion, despite Cullen’s admittedly hindered knowledge of such things, made it plain.

It was easy to see why those in the Imperium often referred to Southerners as barbarians and savages. The reason being that Tevinter was so much more _advanced_ in many ways than the south. From aqueducts that offered the easy flow of clean, running water, to clothes made en masse instead of stitched by hand and that was without mentioning all the additional aspects provided by a country that valued and prized magic.

Cullen would always be a Southerner at heart, would always be the boy from Honnleath, raised in Ferelden, trained by the Chantry and born naturally acclimatised to the snow.

But Tevinter was their home now and he loved it. For all its flaws, for all its seething corruption and cruelty, smiles masking hatred and poison in so _many _drinks that Cullen might have been reduced to a nervous wreck, had he not long ago learnt to always drink from his own flask.

Tevinter was their home and this woman, this sad excuse for an assassin, was not of Tevinter and it was plain, even to Cullen.

‘Who are you?’ Dorian asked, kneeling by her writhing form.

‘FUCK YOU, MAGE!’ she screamed. So _Southern_.

‘Call the Templars!’ someone yelled and Cullen made no move to stop them.

‘One more time, _politely_,’ Dorian pressed on with a hint of steel. ‘Who are you?’

When she spat at Dorian, Cullen’s temper frayed. He raised his hand, magic thrumming in his blood and the woman levitated into the air, vines of lightning following her. He widened his fingers and her skin began to give off steam and she began to slowly, painfully _cook_.

Her screams turned wild and when she begged for it to stop, Dorian asked his question again. This time, she answered.

*

‘So very _dull. _Just once, I’d like an original tale of revenge, of a vendetta born of jealousy for my incredibly good looks, for my stunning charm.’

‘Dorian,’ Cullen chastised lightly. ‘I think we’ve had enough of complicated vendettas for one lifetime.’

The mage huffed and faced the Templar, Erland, who stood guard in front of the Southern mage’s cell in the Templar outpost.

‘What would you have us do with her, Altus?’ the Templar asked.

Dorian looked to Cullen, effortlessly deferring to his expertise.

‘Have Haynes continue the investigation when she returns from patrols,’ Cullen said, turning his gaze towards the cells. ‘Though I expect it will simply confirm the story. We made more than a few enemies in the South and this will not be the last time someone comes at us in the streets.’

‘Such a quaint method,’ Dorian mused. ‘Running at someone full on, screaming, _die mage, die_.’

Cullen’s mouth quirked. ‘She didn’t scream that.’

‘She may as well have.’

‘We will attempt to verify her identity also, Ambassador,’ Erland said, clearly determined to prove himself, despite his young age.

‘I appreciate that, Knight Lieutenant,’ Cullen said, gaze lingering only a fraction on the woman in the cell behind the man, visible over the shoulder of his familiar armour. ‘Though I do not expect there to be much more to the story. Exercise caution at all times and do not permit any visitors.’

Erland straightened. ‘Yes, Ser.’

‘Excellent,’ Cullen said, exhaling and letting the last of his unnecessary tension go with it. ‘We have business in the Embassy of the Chantry, so we’ll take our leave now. Give Haynes my regards.’

‘Very well. Bid you good Satinalia, Altus, Ambassador. Enjoy the festivities.’

*

They walked to the Embassy, only a short distance from the Templar outpost. Post-attack, Cullen might once have been itchy and hot, unsatisfied and perhaps even agitated. As it was, he felt peaceful, relaxed, as if having completed a vigorous work-out regime. He walked beside Dorian, ignoring the looks they occasionally received.

‘So, someone in the Magisterium hired her?’

Dorian smiled at him. ‘Of course. Painfully obvious. May as well have dressed her up as a Mabari and had her speak the Chant of Light while she tried to kill me. Ridiculous.’

‘Any ideas who?’

‘Dewinter, I think.’

‘But he’s nice,’ Cullen said. ‘You like him.’

‘I do and he likes me. This is a warning, a very large, very obvious smoke signal to me that once again, someone in the Senate is plotting my gruesome and untimely death. I must remember to thank him.’

Cullen kept his mouth shut, deferring to Dorian for his knowledge of such matters. The thought of someone planning to harm Dorian was neither new nor unique, but it always hurt, always affected him the same way. Made him want to find them and rip them apart for even _thinking _of hurting his mage.

‘Don’t be glum, darling,’ Dorian said, nudging him as they walked. ‘I’m sure someone will want to kill _you_ again soon enough.’

Cullen laughed and shook his head, their journey slowing as they arrived at the gates of the Embassy.

*

The archivist was a tiny little old woman, a thick plait of grey crowning her hair as she walked ahead of them both, slow and careful. ‘It arrived yesterday,’ she told them. ‘With strict instructions as to the care of the entries. The courier, a most dedicated man, will return to collect them this evening.’ She looked back, squinting. ‘You must be well liked within the Chantry for them to even unseal the records, let alone ship them to Tevinter for you to observe first-hand.’

At the slow pace led by the archivist, Cullen took the time to look around. Though it still felt and smelled like Minrathous - hot air, the stones beneath his feet, the vague smell of sweetened spices and honeysuckle - the waved symbol of the sun hung on every single flag, save for over each door, which bore the gleaming eye of the Inquisition.

‘Charming place,’ Dorian said, looking around.

Cullen thought of the archives in the South, of how they were run by drooling, juddering echoes of what had once been warriors. Men and women whose minds had been consumed, like moth-eaten material, their memories lost and their selves no longer preserved. Templars in the North did not take lyrium and as of two months ago, those in the South were no longer forced to either. Still, it would be a long time before the South saw an older Templar like this, someone whose memories were relatively intact, despite their age.

‘We keep it how they like,’ the archivist said. ‘Not that they care. Not heard a word from the Chantry proper in over four years. Your delivery was the first thing from the South I’ve seen in a decade. Like I said, you must have some clout.’

Dorian and Cullen glanced at each other and then away again quickly.

‘Ah, here we are.’

She led them into an incredibly musty room, a kind of library with a selection of extremely old books. The room was dark, likely to prevent sun bleaching, and the sour tang of old paper lingered in Cullen’s mouth, but she led them with purpose towards a crate and that was all he cared about then. A favour that had been six months in the making, finally come due.

‘I’ve not opened it,’ she said, looking at Dorian expectantly. ‘I would think magic is the best way of doing so delicately.’

Dorian used a precise and measured amount of force to remove the lid, which had been nailed shut. Inside, the box was filled with fresh straw to package and protect the contents.

‘Here,’ Dorian said, prompting Cullen to take a step closer. ‘You should take it out.’

Cullen’s fingers dipped into the straw, softly seeking resistance. He found the box at the bottom, well cushioned. He withdrew it and set it upon the table nearby. The box was extremely secure looking, thick dark metal containing what he wanted. It was sealed with three dials, mechanisms that needed to be rotated in a precise way. Dwarven lockbox, by the looks of it.

‘Ah, here,’ Cullen said calmly, looking to the archivist. ‘It requires an official Chantry member to open it.’

He waited, nerves curling like vines as the woman blinked, watching him.

‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘I see. Very well.’

Cullen and Dorian gave her some space to move the dials as was needed, turning them in a way only she would know how, being an archivist and all. Dorian subtly grasped Cullen’s hand, thumb rubbing soothingly over the back of his fingers and through their bond, he sent love and strength, every bit of it _needed_.

They heard the sound of tiny gears falling into place and the box clicked open. ‘Here you are,’ she said, stepping away. ‘I shall give you some privacy, but I’ll be nearby should you require anything.’

It was only once she’d left that Cullen took a shuddering breath and looked inside the box.

A thick leather-bound book lay inside, all kinds of numbers branded into the cover; dates and references which indicated time and place.

‘All right?’ Dorian prompted gently, standing by his side.

Cullen nodded and took out the record book.

It made for incredibly dull reading, especially at first. Cullen was almost glad for the methodical, factual way the Circle Tower uprising was recounted because it kept his own emotions well and truly at bay. When he came to specific accounts, however, he found his fingers trembling to turn the pages.

Dorian read beside him, arm about his waist.

Greagoir’s account was detailed and grim, but there were glaring omissions. Cullen had known he would be angry to read what was left out of that Maker forsaken time, he _knew_ there would be details missing, but the accounts painted the incident as something… almost like an inconvenience. There was no mention of witchgrass of course, no one had believed Cullen.

His own name was written several times. As the sole surviving member to have been trapped on the fourth and fifth floors, as the Templar who had met with the Hero of Ferelden, raving and half mad from fear. As the Knight Lieutenant who reported the grisly deaths of the surviving mages from the fifth floor and filled out the incident report about a remaining demon.

There was nothing, _no mention whatsoever_, of Jassen.

Greagoir’s account went into detail about the roles of others, about the battle with Uldred, about First Enchanter Irving and especially about Cousland.

It was as if Jassen had never existed.

On the final page of the incident report, it noted that there _were_ several irregularities about how the uprising had begun and that per concerns from other Circles, additional protocols were put in place afterwards to prevent such a thing from happening elsewhere, including locking down all doors and stricter punishments towards mages suspected of blood magic.

It also noted that in years following the uprising, Kinloch Hold attempted to re-establish itself as a fully functioning Circle, but that it was plagued with smaller incidents and non-stop reports of _activity_ including, but not limited to, localised earthquakes, wall tremors, massive temperature flux and mages being unable to control or even use their magic. The Tower had consequentially been abandoned and the mages transferred far and wide, separated and shipped away.

Dorian made a soft sound of disgust as he finished reading.

There was just _so much_ missing, so much that prevented it from being a true account.

‘I’m sorry, darling,’ the mage whispered, pressing a delicate kiss to Cullen’s shoulder. ‘Do you still want to change the same part? We can’t alter too much.’

‘No, I know. I still want to do it.’

Dorian nodded, delicately drawing a very precise form of magic that he’d been working on for a while now into his fingertips. Cullen went back through the pages, returning to the entries of how the uprising had begun; paragraph after paragraph of senseless detail, of things that didn’t matter. Names of Templars who’d reported sounds, who’d come to Greagoir. The mysterious sickness that had been slowly killing them one by one was absent entirely.

‘This bit,’ Cullen said, finger hovering over a thin paragraph about what protocols Greagoir _apparently_ went through in locking down the lower floors. ‘This bit is untrue.’

‘Let’s remove it then.’

Dorian rubbed his fingertips together and the magic came lightly, precisely. He touched the smallest part of his index finger to the writing and Cullen watched, fascinated as bright, pure light erased the decade old ink, leaving the page blank where once false words had existed. The mage carefully, painstakingly removed each letter until there was a small space left there.

A space to be filled with something real.

Cullen picked up a nearby quill and dipped it into the well, ensuring there would be no droplets or splodges.

And then he began to write.

_Upon realisation of the uprising, a Knight Lieutenant took charge of several Templars from the lower floors to attempt a rescue for those trapped above but also to protect those beneath. He died fighting bravely for his brothers and sisters. His name was Jassen Ivan Emory. _

It was unexpected, the way Cullen’s eyes stung, the way his throat was suddenly very full. He stared down at what he’d written, at the addition to history by his own hand. At the name that had once faded from memory, might have faded from the world entirely as if he never existed, had they not been able to utilise Sera’s _Red Jenny _contacts to secretly steal this portion of the archival accounts.

‘Jassen Ivan Emory,’ he said aloud, shaping the name for the first time in well over a decade, perhaps longer. The name was there, it would remain there forever, attached to perhaps the one good thing Jassen had ever truly done, his entire existence in ink attributed to a vague act of heroism. It was more than he deserved, but Cullen wanted… he wanted to honour the man he’d once been. Honour the boy he’d loved and the aspects of Jassen that had not been mired in hatred and spite. It was the only way Cullen knew how to even attempt to put the name behind him, to not carry it alone anymore.

He longed for some amount of closure. Jassen would always be a part of him, they’d been too tangled for too long for anything else, but now… _now_ he hoped that if Jassen’s name sat upon a page in history, then maybe Cullen could close that book, set aside their story.

He had not been able to bring himself to attend the levelling of Kinloch Hold months ago, nor go to Lake Calenhad afterwards. That place would always be the worst place in the world for Cullen and even when flowers and vines covered the torn down stones, even when wildlife returned to the area and it was reclaimed as a part of nature, he would never be able to go there.

This was as close as he could ever come to laying Jassen to rest.

Dorian very gently plucked the quill from his fingers, putting it away and drying the ink with a warming spell. The handwriting was a little different than the rest, but not enough to be glaring. Cullen let Dorian take over, watched as the mage carefully stowed the records back in the box, sealed it and then nestled it safely within the straw inside the crate.

It was fully sealed by the time the elderly archivist returned.

‘All finished?’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said, taking Cullen’s hand and kissing the back of it. ‘Finished.’

*

There was time enough to walk home, to go by the scenic route along the coast. It wasn’t even noon yet, the sun still low and determinedly bright as it always was in the mornings. They walked in silence, Cullen leaning slightly against Dorian now and then, wrapped around one another.

It was a complicated feeling, comprised of so many elements.

‘I did the right thing, didn’t I?’

‘You did what you needed to,’ Dorian said firmly. ‘That makes it the right thing.’

Cullen laughed weakly, tears spilling for the first time and he wiped them away quickly. ‘Thank you.’

‘Of course.’

‘I know you didn’t want to do it.’

‘I want what you want.’

‘I _know_, but—’

‘Cullen, stop. Did I believe that Jassen deserved to have his name in the archives? No. But I didn’t know him, not like you did and ultimately, you were the closest person to him his whole life. This was your choice to make and I stand by your decision, completely and without qualification.’ He tilted his head and added a hint of a grin. ‘_Plus_ stealing from the Chantry made the whole thing much more fun. Sera’s friend will be collecting the box tonight?’

‘Masquerading as the courier again, yes. It will be returned slowly and carefully, put back without them ever noticing.’

‘I still say I could have unlocked the box myself.’

‘You couldn’t. It’s specifically made to prevent magical tampering and the combinations on the dials are all different. Only archivists know how to unlock them.’

‘Well,’ Dorian sighed, looking out at the glistening, gleaming body of water. ‘It’s done now.’

Cullen followed his gaze. ‘Yes, it… it _feels _done.’

‘That’s a good thing. One door closes, another opens.’

Around them, a balmy breeze tasting of salt and brine drifted over their bare skin. The sun beat down and even this far from the central parts of the city, Cullen could feel the ever-present thrum of constant magic.

‘We should get back,’ Dorian said reluctantly after a few indulgent minutes on the shore. ‘I don’t want to miss their arrival.’

Cullen smiled, Dorian’s excitement lifting his spirits and half tangled together, they made their way home, following the curve of the beach, following the ocean. ‘Can’t have that.’

*

The Eluvian shivered to life, the glass surface turning to a grayscale rainbow, moving like ripples and then, came _family. _

Dorian took Nalari into his arms and turned her on the spot, their hug lasting long enough that Cullen thought perhaps Dorian would cry before he’d even had a chance to greet the others, but no. The mage drew back, smoothing her hair, a familiar gesture he repeated often, especially with Saffy.

Sera came next, bouncing up and down, babbling things that Cullen didn’t understand. When she hugged him, she seemed especially hyperactive, even for her. They came rapidly after that.

Landon, Keenan carrying Dawn, followed by Cole and then finally, only Ellana to come through.

‘Just friggin’ _wait_,’ Sera said, bouncing up and down and Dorian looked to Cullen, as bemused as he was for what had Sera in such a fit of sheer excitement.

Ellana Lavellan stepped through the mirror and in her arms, was a baby.

*

In the delighted, somewhat frenzied commotion that followed, Fenris suggested that they go for lunch and catch up there. The dining room was the only table big enough to accommodate them all, including the newest addition.

It was _chaos_ and Cullen didn’t quite know where to put his attention, so many people to greet and kiss and hug and oh, little Dawn was _indeed_ walking now, toddling around and leaning against the furniture when unsteady. She was wearing one of the dresses Dorian had sent them back with after their last visit and her bright blonde curls were long enough now to touch around the top of her ears.

‘No Leliana,’ Cullen observed quietly to Fenris when he followed him to the kitchen, momentarily leaving the cacophony of jovial laughter and squeals of delight, of uproar and joy. ‘Have you heard from her? Is she to be late?’

Fenris shrugged, making a superb effort to be casual. ‘I don’t write to her as you do.’

Cullen frowned, staying his friend’s hand as he reached for the bowl of sliced bread. ‘She told me she would see us for Satinalia, but… Fenris, I need her to be here. I can’t…’ his throat closed up a little, worry strangling him. ‘I can’t get married without her here.’

The green eyed elf looked up at Cullen and offered a small, comforting smile. ‘I think we should both know better at this point than to doubt her. Perhaps she’s travelling with your family.’

Cullen nodded, but the reassurance didn't touch him. His last letter from Leliana had come in only six days ago and his family were already on their way by ship - having set out before he could tell them about the possibility of travelling through the Eluvian - and he was certain she would have mentioned being with his family.

‘You’re right,’ he said, forcing himself into a confidence he didn’t feel. ‘Let’s get back out there. Brace yourself, eh?’

Fenris grinned and handed Cullen two jugs of orange juice. ‘After living with you two, it’s my default state.’

*

‘We found him in the Frostbacks, can you believe that? He was wrapped in blankets and his whole clan were all slaughtered, poor little thing. We took him to the other clans, but they’d been on bad terms with them and didn’t want to raise him.’

Sera, who was leaning against Ellana’s shoulder, both of them staring down at the chubby little baby with raven hair and a button nose, sighed and said, ‘Told us to leave him on a rock under a rainstorm. Lovely, innit?’

‘Avvar have some unusual customs,’ Dorian said, bouncing the older baby, Dawn, on his knee, while she stared up at him with fascination. ‘So, you’re keeping him?’

Ellana looked up, her smile soft and permanent. ‘He’s our son. We named him Tarasyl’an Carnesellan. Taras for short.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘Well, Tarasyl’an means _sky_ and Carnesellan means _red_,’ she added, her gaze sliding onto Sera. ‘A bit of us both, really.’

‘Red sky,’ Dorian mused happily. ‘It’s perfect. How old do you think he is?’

Beside Cullen, Nalari and Saffy were conversing deeply about Saffy’s new _boyfriend, _who would indeed be attending the celebration tomorrow, and on Cullen’s right, Landon sat with Marcus, speaking about a girl he’d met in the Ferelden College of Magi he sometimes visited, one of the first to be fully functioning in the vision laid out by Dorian, shaped by Vivienne and upheld by Cullen.

‘All the mages send their love,’ Nalari told him, turning her attention to him when Saffy was pulled away to speak with Keenan. ‘The older ones. Not too many left there, spread across the Colleges as they are. Tommur is still there, he’s very good friends with Rainier now. They’re both sorry they didn't come, but they never like to leave the castle unattended and Cassandra is in Orlais helping Divine Victoria. They sent a gift each for the last day.’

‘We missed you so much,’ Cullen told her, not troubling to hide his affection; not the depth of it nor the tone. When she leaned against him a little, he was taken aback by the sensation it stirred in him. ‘I should warn you ahead of time that Dorian is planning on begging you all to move here at least ten times during your stay.’

She laughed sweetly, watching Dawn play on a thick, plush rug, mashing her wooden dragon into the floor over and over while Cole sat with her, cross legged, matching her movements with a similar toy.

‘If we couldn’t visit so easily, we probably would,’ she sighed. ‘But Skyhold is blossoming. You must come and see the garden, see how our apple trees have taken to the earth there. Keenan has been helping us to build a kind of retractable roof for them in the winter, but in the summer - or what passes for summer in the South - they bear the most beautiful fruit. I made you a few of my own apple flips and brought them for the party tonight. They’re not as good as Joy’s but rather tasty, if I say so myself.’

Cullen kissed the top of her head as the bottom half of the table erupted into laughter. ‘I’m sure they’re amazing.’

*

‘Why not leave it for the cleaners?’

Cullen looked back over his shoulder, hands covered in suds and hot water from scrubbing plates and bowls in the kitchen sink. Keenan was leaning in the doorway, expression aloof but not unfriendly. Controlled, perhaps. Held at bay as he so often was with Cullen.

‘They’re busy with other things, the upstairs bedrooms I think right now. I don’t mind keeping on top of it.’

‘Sure you’re not hiding?’

Cullen chuckled and turned back to the plates. ‘Maybe.’

‘Bit overwhelming, I suppose.’

‘No, it’s not that. I like to give everyone time with him. I know how much you all missed him, which is still not half as much as he’s missed you.’

It was difficult to wait, to be patient and let Keenan go at his own pace, but Cullen did his best.

‘So,’ the young man said after a while, coming to stand close by, rolling up his sleeves. ‘What did I miss?’

Irrationally pleased that Keenan was helping him wash up, Cullen kept his tone light. ‘We were attacked in town today.’

‘A serious attack?’

‘No. Barely enough to warrant the use of magic. Dorian thinks it’s a warning, a kind of heads-up that someone at the Magisterium is plotting against us.’

‘Not unusual for this place, I suppose.’

Keenan was entirely correct.

‘Other than that, we’ve been making ready for Satinalia. How have you been?’

Shifting the focus on to Keenan was risky. It could result in the boy turning away, refusing to talk, maybe even becoming angry. Instead he took a deep breath and placed a freshly scrubbed plate on the wooden drying rack.

‘I’ve been travelling. Just around Ferelden, here and there, on my own.’

Cullen nodded, not even willing to risk a non-committal noise.

‘I uh. I went to the place. You know. What used to be the Circle Tower.’

Cullen swallowed over the lump. ‘I see.’

‘I don’t know what I expected to feel,’ Keenan went on quietly. ‘All I saw was rubble. Didn’t feel anything of my Father. Silly, isn’t it?’

‘Not at all. People sometimes leave traces of themselves in places,’ Cullen said. ‘It’s just that that place… already had someone else’s mark branded very deeply into it.’

‘Yeah, I suppose so. Before that, I spent time in Skyhold with the others. It’s incredible what they’re doing there. It’s bustling and full, constantly got something going on. New people arriving, changing the function of rooms, working in the garden. Nalari trains people in the Nook sometimes. I had a go too, once or twice.’

Cullen slowed his movements, half dreading that Keenan was about to say that he preferred it there, that he wanted to stay in Skyhold from now on. Dorian would be heartbroken, even if he would not show it.

‘But it never felt like home,’ Keenan said under his breath. ‘And I missed him so much.’

Steadily, Cullen hid his relieved exhale by chuckling. ‘I guarantee he missed you more.’

‘So, you think it’ll be all right then?’

‘What?’

‘If I come home?’

He looked at the young man Dorian loved so much. ‘Keenan, this is _your_ home. You never need to ask.’

‘Is it all right with _you?__’_

‘I want you to come home.’

‘Do you mean that?’ Oh, but he was discerning beyond his years, able to detect any level of a lie which was why Cullen was glad he spoke only the truth, only what was inside his heart.

‘I do. You’re family, Keenan. You don’t need to like me for that.’

‘I don’t _not_ like you,’ he grumbled, turning his attention back to the plates. ‘You killed my father, but I never knew him and you had… you had what you thought were reasons. You kept us locked up, but you never touched anyone and I know for a fact the few times you caught someone messing with us, with the girls, you had them transferred, you changed their shifts at least. I’m not singing your praises,’ he added sharply. ‘I’m just saying, the reasons I have to hate you aren’t enough for me to sabotage the life I could have here.’

Keenan sighed, gathering himself before he spoke again.

‘Dorian is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a Father.’ Cullen could hear how much that cost him to say aloud, could practically feel how tightly wound the boy was. ‘You and I will never have that. But maybe. Maybe we could be friends.’

‘I would like that very much.’

‘Yeah, well,’ the boy rolled his eyes. ‘It’ll make Dorian happy.’

‘Would it make _you_ happy?’

‘You know how love is,’ Keenan said, sage beyond his years as he stacked yet another plate. ‘Their happiness is yours.’

*

After lunch, the younger mages retired to the gardens while Dawn napped upstairs and Taras slept on Ellana’s chest, wrapped in a kind of sling. With time to catch up, Dorian sat on Cullen’s lap in the huge, squashy armchair in the upstairs study that overlooked the gardens, balcony doors open.

‘He’s absolutely darling,’ Cullen told Ellana.

‘Isn’t he, though?’ she whispered, stroking his head. ‘How scary the world has become, how dangerous everything seems.’

Dorian sipped a small glass of red wine which Fenris had poured for him as he walked past. ‘Wait until he’s a teenager.’

‘So, your family are coming later?’

‘Their ship docks today, we have a carriage there on standby,’ Cullen answered while Dorian played idly with his hair. The reassuring weight of his mage above him was one of Cullen’s favourite things.

‘How long since you’ve seen them?’

‘We visited them before we left for Tevinter,’ Dorian answered. ‘And they’ve not been able to travel until recently, so almost a year.’

‘Will they be bringing babies too?’ Ellana asked quietly.

‘My older sister Mia, she has three daughters,’ Cullen said, smiling. ‘But none of them are making the journey. My brother, Branson, has a son but he too isn’t coming along this time.’

‘Mmm,’ Dorian agreed. ‘The journey by boat is _atrocious_, let me tell you.’

‘And Tevinter isn’t _especially_ safe,’ Cullen conceded. ‘My baby sister Rosalie has no children of her own yet. Just the three of them, this time.’

‘Why are they travelling via ship?’

‘I… may have neglected to tell them about the Eluvian when I invited them here,’ Cullen grimaced. ‘They wrote to us via ship to let us know they were on their way and there was nothing we could do then.’

‘At least they’ll be able to return with us,’ Ellana laughed softly while Dorian shook his head despairingly. ‘Are you coming back with us for a few days, do you think?’

‘Hmm, maybe,’ Dorian said. ‘It _would_ be nice to drop by and see everyone.’

‘I would love that,’ Cullen agreed. ‘To see how the castle is progressing.’

Fenris sat down on the loveseat nearest to the balcony, watching the young ones out in the garden below. Cullen could hear the sounds of their playful enjoyment, of Sam being made a fuss of. Cole was down there with them, happily playing and making up games that had contradictory rules.

‘How do you like it here?’ Sera asked Fenris.

The white haired elf considered her question, watching over the mages below. ‘There are always slavers to make examples of. Most of the people I care about are here. It’s fine.’

Dorian rolled his eyes and Taras began to stir.

_‘Fine_,’ the mage scoffed. ‘You love it here!’

‘There are things I enjoy, yes.’

Ellana smirked, handing Taras over to Sera who got to her feet, the pair swapping the baby, sling and all, with careful movements. ‘And here I thought Leliana wasn’t in the Imperium yet?’

Fenris pursed his lips, expression deadpan, but Cullen detected a hint of amusement. Though his friend was still subject to an anger that would likely never fully dissipate, that rage had faded over time. There were good days and there were bad days, but they took them one at a time. Fenris was and always would be fiercely independent so it meant something, it meant a _lot, _that he chose to stay with them sometimes, that he spent most days with them.

‘I’ll walk him around,’ Sera assured Ellana. ‘Stay, gossip, talk about sex. I’ll be off raiding the cupboards.’

Ellana leaned back into the deep, soft chair, sighing as she watched Sera go. ‘She’s amazing, isn’t she?’

‘She is,’ Cullen agreed, while Dorian started to draw idle patterns on his palm, half of them letters, half of them shapes. ‘You’re both lucky to have found each other.’

‘_Venhedis_, some of us are single here, you know?’ Fenris grumbled in his usual good natured, dry way. ‘Perchance we could speak of anything _else_ beyond the deep and ceaseless romance in which you find yourselves?’

Cullen bit down a smile while Dorian said, ‘Do you mean to tell me, Fenris, that you’re _not_ a fan of big, showy displays of affection and love?’

Fenris muttered something in Tevene and Dorian gasped, hand on heart. He replied with mock outrage in his mother tongue, slipping effortlessly into a language that Cullen still struggled with when spoken rapid-fire and fluent. Though he was improving daily, it would take a while yet before he could understand what was said between the pair when they elected to converse in such a way.

He liked their banter, though. Their relentless back and forth, of Fenris pretending to be anything but quietly thrilled for Dorian and Cullen and of Dorian’s over-exuberant affection, of his targeted teasing.

While they spoke still, Cullen turned his attention to Ellana.

‘How are you finding life as a parent?’

She smiled, eyes closed, sat in the chair as if sleeping. ‘Tiring,’ she said. ‘But rewarding. _Wonderful_, really. It was so unexpected. It changes things, changes so much. We have to think about every little thing now. Have to be doubly careful.’ She raised her hand slowly, opening her eyes as she thumbed the palm of her hand which bore the still active anchor. Her smile faded somewhat. ‘Very careful indeed. He’s a gift from the Creators, I can feel it in my bones. My boy, _our_ boy.’

‘And he’ll grow up in good company within Skyhold.’

Her eyes sparkled when she said, ‘Very true. Though he is well acclimated to travel, I am glad that he has an array of aunts and uncles in Skyhold and elsewhere. Ameridan’s trail is proving a challenge, even _with_ my gift from the Well.’

‘Our offer to help still stands,’ Cullen said as the slipstream of their conversation shifted. ‘Whatever you need, you know we’ll be there.’

‘I intend to pursue it in a few months, would you both be free to accompany us then?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Thank you, my friend.’

‘Of course. Have you had word of Samson?’

‘Rainier debriefed me yesterday and said he travels still with his merry band of former Templars.’

Fenris looked over, deceptively neutral. ‘Hawke still among them?’

‘Yes, Hawke with them.’

Cullen half rolled his eyes, but made no comment. It would never make Hawke trustworthy, the fact that the Champion had near bled himself dry day after day for months until he had saved every single one of the Red Templars whose corruption was not past the point of recall. Ever since Hawke cleared Samson of the substance, the pair became what might _loosely_ be described as comrades and instead of returning to Kirkwall with Varric, Hawke and Samson now roamed Ferelden and Orlais with a few others, doing good wherever possible.

‘It will never sit well with me,’ Dorian said quietly.

Ellana sighed. ‘He is still the Champion of Kirkwall.’

‘He doesn’t even use the name anymore. I know they are doing good,’ Dorian added evenly when Ellana sat forward. ‘I know that. I know they’re helping Templars and mages alike and that’s good. I just.’

She nodded. ‘I know. Believe me, I know.’

‘If they’re saving people, I suppose that’s all that matters. I am glad for it, for what they did for those still in our ranks, like Haynes. Hawke will always be a prick, but he did what he did for love, I suppose.’

‘Hmm,’ Cullen said, not trusting himself to say anything that would not launch him into an angry diatribe about the fate that _Garret_ _Hawke_ deserved. He knew it was still complicated for Fenris, who sometimes received letters that he took with him on his occasional trips to Asariel, whenever he visited his _healer friend. _Cullen wondered if Fenris _knew_ that Cullen was very much aware of who this healer friend was, but he supposed it didn’t matter. He would not interfere. Fenris was his best friend, alongside Leliana, and Cullen would never judge him, not for anything.

‘So,’ Ellana said, reaching for her iced water. ‘Tell me of your efforts towards the anti-slavery movement.’

‘We are making progress,’ Cullen said. ‘But it must be _slow_ progress. Each step taken must have a complete bedrock of support and we must allow time for it to sink in. Too much too soon would be quickly undone, not to mention the attempts on our lives would likely increase dramatically.’

Cullen thought of earlier that morning, of the woman running towards Dorian in the street. Of how easy it was for Dorian to dismiss people hired to murder him and how each one stayed with Cullen, marks and notches on a slate that he kept steady track of.

His fingertips felt hot whenever he thought of it, especially the first time someone had tried to kill his mage on the Senate floor. How easily the assassin’s body had turned to fine ash, the way the whole room flooded with Cullen’s heat, with the fire wrought of his pure, unstoppable fury that someone _dared_ to harm Dorian.

Fenris looked over, sensing their discussion. ‘Tevinter is built upon slavery,’ he added. Dorian slid delicately off of Cullen, retrieving wine from the table between them and when he sat, he sat beside his best friend. Cullen didn’t mind. ‘All changes to the system must be performed slowly as Cullen said. It is more than merely systematic. The Imperium would collapse if slavery were abolished tomorrow. Countless thousands would die, it would be chaos, war.’

‘So what is the first proposed amendment?’

‘To prevent bodily mutilation,’ Dorian said seriously. ‘And to make such an offence punishable.’

‘How will that be received in the Senate?’

‘It will be rejected,’ Fenris said calmly. ‘The first time. We will then counter with a proposal to make all physical harm, beatings included, punishable by law. They will acquiesce on the mutilation front by the third time we propose it, I feel confident.’

‘After they try to have us killed,’ Dorian added, smirking.

_And they will burn for it_, Cullen thought, his mage’s gaze finding his and locking on as if Dorian had heard the thought.

‘Such a dangerous world,’ Ellana sighed.

Cullen looked out at the ocean, at the young mages playing in the garden as the sun shone down on them from above.

‘But beautiful too,’ he said. ‘Very beautiful.’

*

Halfway through tales of the Frostback Basin, Halward returned.

‘May I borrow your better half, Dorian?’ he asked smoothly, after greeting them all, Ellana given an especially formal, respectful bow. ‘Just for a moment?’

Dorian, who was regaling Fenris with the epic tale of how Ellana had gone around asking everyone for ideas on what gifts to get for Sera, narrowed his eyes with mild suspicion. ‘Why?’ he asked slowly.

‘Oh, just because he’s my favourite,’ Halward reeled off easily as Dorian huffed.

‘Bring him back soon,’ Dorian said leaning up as Cullen gifted him a quick, chaste kiss.

‘But a few moments, my son, and you’ll be reunited.’

Cullen felt Dorian’s eyes on him as he left, felt the mage’s passive curiosity even after he resumed the story which faded as Cullen followed Halward out.

The mansion was quiet, though the sounds of joyful yelling could still be heard from outside. They walked down the stairs together.

‘So?’ Cullen asked in a low whisper.

Halward threw him a small smile. ‘I am _now_ one hundred percent confident.’

Cullen’s heart leapt. ‘You are?’

‘My tests have proved conclusively that while it _would_ affect Dorian and his connection to the Fade, because you have no such connection yourself, it cannot be corrupted, even when shared. If you are the origin, the creator, then it is safe, I am sure.’

Cullen let out a breath; a tremulous, delighted thing because while he had not let himself truly believe it would be possible, at least not in time for tomorrow night, he had _wanted_ it so much for so long. To give Dorian this one gift.

‘Thank you, Halward,’ he said and meant it.

‘You’re very welcome. Now, if you’ll excuse an old man, I require a small nap before the festivities of the evening. I do so look forward to meeting your family, son. Southerners are always a rare, rural delight.’

_Son_. Sometimes Halward would call him that. Cullen wondered if it meant what he thought (_hoped_) it meant, or if it was simply a mark of seniority, the way Rainier had sometimes called Dorian _son_.

He watched the older man leave, mage robes trailing after him and Cullen looked around at the decorations, at the lovely flower garlands that stayed fresh, at the centrepieces, at the streamers hanging from the candelabras, at the dozen other detailed pieces that went towards making their home resplendent and welcoming for such a special time.

Cullen took in every part of his surroundings then, grateful for all of it, for the ability to _feel_ where he was; for every sensation, smell, taste and sound. Grateful to be there in Tevinter, in the city that had birthed civilisation, beside the ocean where every living thing had begun. Grateful for so much and Dorian, his Dorian, right in the heart of it all.

He closed his eyes and allowed himself to smile.

*

To think, there had once been a time when the mere _mention_ of a celebration had Cullen’s skin crawling, his head aching in anticipation of what was yet to come. Celebrations meant obligation, forced smiles and being made to endure polite society while wearing clothes he despised.

Dorian dressed him for the party; chose something perfect and helped him despite Cullen being fully able to dress himself. It was a near thing, Dorian’s fingers brushing over the bare skin of his chest, musicians commencing downstairs. Always a near thing, just from Dorian’s fucking _proximity_.

‘There,’ his mage declared, stepping back. ‘Perfect.’

‘Careful, love,’ Cullen warned, unable to wrench his gaze away from the man who stood before him, who was everything he loved in the world. ‘My control is finite and it’s been _days, _you know.’

And because Dorian was a wild thing, was Cullen’s beautiful, complex, fucking _dizzyingly_ intelligent creature of magic and mysticism, he gave Cullen the kind of slow, adoring smile that usually spelt trouble. The kind of smile that might see them vanish for a day or two, Fenris always content to take over with the children for that time when they needed more than just a bed and a room and a decent shield.

The smile held, the space between them lightly charged with a strange mix of _want_ but also contentment. Something in Cullen had loosened since that morning; a pressure slowly easing off and it just made him grateful, yet again, for Dorian. For their life, for their friends.

‘Do you have any idea how much I love you?’

‘Later,’ Dorian said. ‘You can show me.’

*

The party had already begun when Cullen’s family arrived.

He saw Branson first, hurrying inside and looking around with wide eyes, great big smile plastered across his face. Though Cullen had been expecting them, it didn’t stop the jolt of surprise he felt, turning around and seeing his younger brother standing there.

He ran to him then and they embraced, Branson backslapping him with the kind of _male_ enthusiasm Cullen hadn’t been subjected to for a while. Tevinters shook hands, they brushed magic against magic. Branson, whose brown hair and brown eyes reminded Cullen vaguely of their mother, looked around and grinned widely.

‘Fucking _void_, this place is incredible!’ he announced to the whole room. ‘You look… Cullen, to say that you look well would be an understatement, brother.’

‘And you, Bran,’ Cullen replied. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. You remember Dorian, of course.’

Branson rolled his eyes. ‘No, I completely _forgot_ all about your fiancé! Dorian, so good to see you!’

Dorian was yanked into a deeply Southern hug, much manly-backslapping ensuing, as Mia came next, casting her gaze around while excitedly biting her lip.

‘Cullen!’

‘Mia, it’s wonderful to see you!’ The two oldest Rutherford’s embraced and Mia, who was already tearful, drew back, laughing and wiping her eyes when those tears spilled over her pale cheeks.

‘And you,’ she said, chuckling wetly at her own perceived silliness. ‘Maker, it’s been too long. You know the girls ask about you non-stop, when are you coming, how long will you stay?’

‘Ah, not even fully in the room and already the guilt begins.’

Mia lightly slapped his shoulder. ‘I have the right to inflict guilt. As the eldest and the most long-suffering, it’s my cumbersome duty to—_Dorian_!’

‘Darling Mia!’ his mage greeted. ‘Oh, you look simply ravishing, even after your trip, how _does_ one obtain such perfect rosy complexion? It’s the snow, isn’t it?’

Cullen looked towards the door, waiting for his little sister. Rosalie came last, even after the coach-driver had brought in their luggage. She entered slowly, looking around where the entrance opened up into a grand foyer, to the right of where the party was being held.

He went to her as soon as she saw him, wasting no time in lifting her up into his arms, sweeping her quite literally off her feet. ‘Rosie.’

‘Cullen,’ she whispered, clinging to him for a few seconds before he set her down. ‘Oh, _look_ at you,’ she gasped, hands over her mouth. ‘You look… Cullen, you look so _well!__’ _

It hurt to swallow over the lump in his throat, to see how happy it made his baby sister to see him well. He’d missed so _much_ of her life, of her growing up.

‘Thank you,’ he said, taking both her hands in his and kissing them. Her long blonde curls were swept back into a rather messy ponytail, indicative of the journey they’d suffered to be there with him. ‘You’re just as lovely as ever, Rosie, look at you. How was the trip?’

‘It was awful,’ she confided, laughing as she entwined her fingers with his own. ‘But worth it, well worth it to be here with you, big brother. I can’t believe this is where you _live_! It’s bigger than our local Chantry!’

‘We have your room all ready,’ he told her. ‘You can freshen up, change, eat, even sleep if you like. Tevinter parties tend to run late.’

She smiled at him, gaze drifting over his shoulder as Cullen felt Dorian approach.

‘There she is, oh, I’ll never get over how _similar_ you two look!’ Dorian said, hugging Rosalie, truly in his element with Cullen’s family. ‘Come in, come in! Let’s get your things upstairs, standing in the doorway like a bunch of _Southerners, _we simply can’t have that!’

*

It was what felt like endless introductions; his family to his other family. It was smiling so much his cheeks hurt. It was lightweight happiness, air-born and free. It was excitement at having the people they loved around them.

It was a _party_, the first one that Cullen could honestly say he was loving every moment of.

It was Mia and Dorian ganging up on Cullen with ruthless determination. It was Branson introducing himself to young Sam as, _‘your uncle Bran.’_ It was Rosie making the biggest fuss over Dawn, hopeful smile in place as she asked to hold her. Cullen watched his younger sister walk Dawn around the room, pointing out little things here and there as Dorian had once done. It was seeing them all _integrate_ and be happy while doing so, seeing them surpass his expectations for how they might get along with the others; with Fenris, with Keenan.

It was Mia discovering the Rutherford family soup, heating charm keeping it perfectly hot at the table in a sturdy cauldron among the other, admittedly more aesthetically pleasing dishes.

‘I can’t believe you made it!’ she said, ladling herself a bowl of the green goop. ‘Oh Maker, it smells just like Mother used to make! Bran, get over here, look! It’s _the_ _soup_!’

Cullen crossed his arms, flashing Dorian a smug _told you so_ kind of look which had the mage rolling his eyes. It was Dorian’s effortless charm and loving attentiveness to those with whom Cullen shared blood. It was Halward pouring wine for Fenris while asking Mia about a typical Southern wedding ceremony and what it entailed.

When Cole offered to sing, there was no hesitation to applaud and cheer excitedly. His other-worldly, sweet voice filled the room and everyone listening, huddled together, as he contributed with chords and tone what he could not otherwise.

And especially, most wonderfully of all, it was Leliana’s sly, level voice when she spoke from behind Cullen and said, ‘So tell me, Ambassador, what have I missed?’

*

Dorian watched Cullen whirl around, watched Leliana’s expression positively light up. They embraced in unusually emotive fashion. One might have been forgiven for thinking Cullen would be _hugged out_ by that point, but Dorian knew the man inside and out. He knew what Leliana meant to him.

The mage’s eyes slid over to where Fenris was standing nearby, his conversation with Rosalie, Nalari - both of whom were holding chubby babies - and (the ever hopeful) Christopher coming to a pause so he could look over at the newest commotion. Dorian watched him smile, looking away again after a beat. 

‘Knew she’d make it,’ Sera said, nodding sagely, scoffing another olive from the bowl she’d taken full control of. ‘Like fuck she was gonna miss something so import—’ Ellana nudged Sera sharply. ‘—_OOWW_, elbows like an arrowhead, babe! What the… oh. Shit.’

Sera grimaced while attempting to smile innocently at the same time.

‘You _know_?’

‘Know what?’ Ellana said, looking around. ‘The flowers are really beautiful by the way, are they grown natively here or…?’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. You both know, don’t you.’

Sera sighed, draping her arm over Dorian’s shoulder. ‘We figured it out, yeah.’

‘To be fair,’ Ellana added in a quiet, consoling whisper. ‘It _was_ a bit obvious, but probably only to me. We are best friends, after all.’

‘Nah, it was obvious to me too,’ Sera added, now free to express herself without the failed restraint of her beloved. ‘You literally put _please be here no matter the cost_ in your note. S’evident, innit. _But_,’ she added when Dorian opened his mouth with full intent to be indignant. ‘We _are_ rogues. Proper sneaky an’ shit. We _discern. _So excited to see you get married, Ree!’

‘Bloody void, keep your voice _down_. It’s meant to be secret.’

Ellana seemed uncertain. ‘I mean, is it?’

Cole appeared beside Dorian. ‘Did you like my song? It was blue at first and then green, but I added stars and wings because they’re both so lovely when moving.’

‘Your song was _wonderful_,’ Dorian told him. ‘I absolutely loved it.’

‘It was my gift for you both,’ Cole said. ‘I know I got the day wrong. Proper gift giving is for the day _after_ you get married.’

Dorian sighed and cursed gently. Sera snickered and Ellana bit down a smile.

‘Yes, well, _Satinalia _gift day is, indeed, two days away still, though there may be… a small event tomorrow that may see people wanting to give Cullen and I gifts a little earlier than planned.’

‘I asked the dread wolf if he wanted me to bring you anything. He said he was busy but will send along some rain.’

Dorian snorted. ‘We’re not getting married in Ferelden.’

‘I am happy to be able to see it, but after that I have to leave for a few days.’

‘Oh, why do you have to leave?’

‘There are things that need attention,’ Cole said, looking around the room. ‘Small details that are coming larger, but do not worry. I’ve made it clear that the earth is not to come calling. Dues are paid and ribbons are tied, it will all be fine, I’ve told her that.’

Dorian listened intently. ‘Cole? Do we need to go and talk somewhere?’

‘No, no,’ Cole said, looking back at the mage, smiling. ‘I’m simply letting you know ahead of time, as you like. It’s always best to tell you in person. I will return when you’re in the South and show you from high places where I marked the moments.’

Dorian took Cole’s hand and squeezed gently. ‘That will be lovely, thank you.’

‘Then I’ll come home with you,’ Cole added. ‘I’ve missed my room and helping Fenris to make breakfast.’

‘It’s waiting for you, whenever you like.’

Leliana and Cullen drifted over to them. 

‘My friend,’ the former Spymaster greeted the mage, looking every bit the part of a heart-breaking assassin. From her full leather get-up, black and scarlet, to her hair which was now long enough to brush against her shoulders, one side shaved above the ear-line. ‘_You_ are not surprised to see me, at least.’

‘I doubted nothing,’ Cullen insisted, visibly gathering himself, though Dorian noticed he was still holding her hand. ‘I simply _hoped_.’

‘Your optimism has paid off,’ she said, smiling slyly. ‘I’ve been nearby for a week or so.’

‘Nearby? You should have—’

‘Well, in Seheron,’ she clarified quickly, her gaze lingering meaningfully with Dorian for just a split second. ‘But I wouldn’t miss such an _occasion_ for all the world.’

And Dorian wanted to ask what she meant by that, he really did, but Fenris was coming over now and the others too. Nalari offered Taras to Ellana and Sera.

‘I think he wants his Mummies,’ she said while the hefty baby named Tarasyl’an wriggled and tried to look around. Sera swept in and took him, lifting him high and turning him to face her. Taras let out a shrill squeal of joy and Sera devolved into playing the nose bump game, laughing and stopping every few seconds to make sure everyone was looking at how cute he was.

Cullen’s sister Rosalie was still holding Dawn and by the way she rubbed her back, Dorian guessed the one year old had fallen asleep.

‘He’s clearly staked out his favourite,’ Ellana chuckled, watching Sera and Taras. ‘Are you all right with him if I go grab something to eat?’

‘Course! Go, get me some of that weird soup.’

‘Leliana,’ Fenris greeted.

‘Hello Fenris,’ the redhead replied while the pair mirrored one another’s impressive ability to act like they _weren__’t_ glad to see each other. ‘You look well.’

‘As do you.’

Dorian rolled his eyes. ‘Honestly, a bit of adult communication wouldn’t go amiss.’

Fenris shot Dorian a dark, withering kind of look. ‘I’ve not quite your _talent_ for it, believe me.’

Ellana drifted over towards the feast table, smothering a snort of laughter as she went.

‘I thought Cullen was the talker,’ Sera said, still deeply immersed in the game with her son.

Cullen shrugged, gracefully untouchable. ‘Sometimes,’ he admitted like they were discussing something mundane, _anything_ but what they were actually discussing. ‘Leliana, you’re staying here?’

It was subtle, that little flick of her eyes in Fenris’s direction, but Dorian was sharp and he caught it. ‘Perhaps. I am as of yet undecided.’

The hired musicians finished another song and the sudden absence of noise gave little Dawn a sudden start. Rosalie shushed her sweetly and rubbed her back, but it had woken her.

‘Oh, don’t be sad,’ Nalari said, opening her arms. ‘Here, I’ll take her. Thank you.’

‘No, thank _you_, it was lovely. She’s a wonderful little thing.’

Dorian could _feel_ how much Cullen loved that the two of them were getting along so well.

‘Why don’t you let me take her?’ Dorian offered, desperate to hold the darling little toddler. ‘I’ll walk her around for a bit.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course, I haven’t held her all day.’

‘You held her all throughout the first three songs,’ Fenris pointed out.

‘And while you and Cullen danced earlier.’

‘And—’

‘Yes, well, I require more.’

Nalari smiled fondly and Rosalie handed Dawn over to Dorian. ‘Hello beautiful,’ he said, slipping helplessly into a higher, softer voice. ‘Did you just wake up? Look at this lovely party, isn’t it pretty?’

‘Right, I’ll get something to eat too then. Rosie, come with me. Tell me more about your farm.’

Dorian watched them go, grinning at Cullen while Dawn played with his moustache. ‘Your face.’

‘I’m just happy they’re getting along.’

‘Happy is an understatement.’

‘Who’d have thought,’ Fenris sighed dryly. ‘That a party in _Tevinter_ held by a mage and a former Templar would be quite so saccharine?’

‘Oh, shut up and drink your wine, damnable elf,’ Dorian chastised. ‘As if you didn’t _swoon_ when Leliana walked in.’

Fenris frowned, lips parting. ‘I did not _swoon. _I am merely pleased to see you,’ he said haughtily, addressing her directly. ‘I trust your excursions in Seheron presented no significant challenges?’

‘Some more than others,’ she said with a small shrug. ‘Dorian, might you accompany me to a guest room? I’d be grateful for the opportunity to wash up and change.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Here, I’ll take her,’ Cullen said, gleefully stealing Dawn away before Dorian could protest. ‘Let’s let them play together on the large rug.’

Cole, who had been lurking nearby a coat stand, drifted over, his eyes rounded with interest. ‘Colours and sound, rounded at the edges. Smell and feel and _voice_ make home. Cling hard but daring all the time, learning and seeing everything. Babies are simply wonderful.’

‘Cole, come play with us?’ Cullen offered as he and Sera headed over to the massive cream coloured fur in between the twin chaises, babies in tow.

‘I might, in a minute. There is a grey corner turning whiter, turning brighter for proximity to the sun and all the ribbons are broken but one now. I will keep watch.’

The spirit vanished as he did tend to do. ‘Is he all right?’ Cullen asked.

‘Hmm, I’ll check in with him in a bit,’ Dorian said. ‘But he seems fine. Not agitated or stressed.’

‘Come,’ Leliana bade. ‘Fenris, why don’t you fetch me a drink?’

Fenris snorted. ‘The audacity of you, woman. Fetch it yourself.’

She laughed musically, walking away as Dorian followed. ‘I like red, remember?’

Dorian heard Fenris mutter, ‘I remember.’

*

He waited until they were upstairs, the people below unable to hear them.

‘You found him, then?’ he asked, wrapping his arms about himself, waiting with a sickly thread of nerves strumming low at the base of his spine. ‘In Seheron?’

‘I did,’ she confirmed, looking around to ensure they were not being listened to. ‘It was as your contact said. He’d been captured by the Ben-Hassrath and was set to undergo re-education.’

‘But you prevented it.’

‘I got there before anything _permanent_ could set in.’

Dorian exhaled shakily, the tight feeling still there. ‘He’s all right?’

‘He’s alive, yes. Still himself.’

‘Not that he deserves to be, the _bastard_,’ Dorian growled, but his throat was thick and his eyes stung. Ever since Dewinter had taken Dorian aside two months ago and quietly told him that he’d heard tell of an especially boastful capture made by the Ben-Hassrath, Dorian had wasted little in terms of resources to confirm if it was the Qunari he dreaded. ‘He’s definitely all right?’

‘The Iron Bull is fine,’ Leliana said, drawing in a deep breath, suddenly hesitant. ‘Dorian, I—’

The mage froze, hoping he was reading her wrong. ‘Leliana… did you _bring him here?__’_

‘I did not _bring_ him, but he wanted to come, to see you.’

Dorian put his hand over his mouth, shaking his head. ‘I can’t… I… _fuck_. Leliana, how could you bring him?’

‘Again, I did not _bring_ him, but Dorian, you should hear him out. Let the door close properly. Trust me, my friend. I would never put you in harm’s way.’

Dorian scoffed loudly. ‘I’m not worried about _harm_, I’m worried that I’ll lose control and flash fry his eyeball! If Cullen knows he’s here, he’ll kill him.’

‘I’m aware of that, which is why I’m telling you.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Well,’ she sighed, smiling tiredly. ‘It’s good to see I’ve retained my talent for spreading joy everywhere I go.’

‘I’m not angry with you,’ he said, rubbing his face. ‘I just… you’re right. Take me to him.’

*

He was outside the barrier, which denied the entry of those not considered _friends_. A brilliant, complex extension of Dagna’s magic she’d woven for the Nook, which now covered their mansion by the sea.

The Iron Bull was waiting for Dorian beside a shadowy copse beyond the front gate. The mage recognised his great hulking outline, chipped horn and all.

The anger within - a thing that had lived in Dorian since the first moment he’d realised it had been Bull writing to Samson, that Bull had never been Tal Vashoth - swirled dangerously, colouring his magic and riling it like the hackles of a cat.

‘Hey, Vint.’

The low, rumbling voice was the same, though a little rougher than before and in the base of it, perhaps an undertone of uncertainty.

Dorian let his eyes adjust to the darkness, the moons above providing the only source of light, but Bull kept to the shadows. Behind him, he felt Cullen on the other end of their bond. He heard the music, heard the muffled laughter and happiness. Bull stood in the shadows, arms crossed, waiting.

Like always, Dorian’s anger manifested like a blade; sharp, cutting and caustic. ‘Bull,’ he greeted with a vicious smile. ‘So _wonderful_ to see you.’

‘OK, I can hear that you might want to kill me.’

‘Kill you? Why would I kill you?’

The barrier sat between them, humming lightly and invisible in all but a thin opaline sheen that coloured the air like a giant soap bubble. 

‘Look, I know it was you who saved me, you and Red. She told me it was your intel that…’ he cleared his throat and stepped out of the shadows. ‘I figured I owed it to you if you wanted the chance to do something unpleasant to me.’

Dorian took a slow, shaky breath. ‘Still making jokes.’

Bull looked down, arms loosening. ‘Not much left beyond a joke or two.’

The anger spiked. ‘Oh, so it’s _poor Bull_, then?’

‘No.’

‘Well, which facade is it? The poor, tortured Qunari who had nought but terrible choices? Or the battle-worn warrior, armed with brutish charm? Come on, _Hissrad, _show me your colours.’

‘Ain’t got nothing but grey, Vint.’

‘My name’s Dorian. Nicknames are for _friends_.’

He was trembling with a hot, painful kind of _injustice_, a feeling that scalded him everywhere it touched. This had been a bad idea, what was Leliana _thinking_, bringing him here? Dorian could barely contain himself for the rage, the furious sinking sensation inside him, born of seeing the man who’d been his friend.

They stared at each other for a moment. ‘I betrayed everyone.’

‘You betrayed _me_!’

Bull looked to the side. ‘You have no idea what it means to be of the Qun, you have no clue and that’s not your problem, it never was, but Dorian, I did my best to protect you all. That probably doesn’t mean shit but—’

‘You’re right, it means literally nothing to me. How did you protect us, while sending off reports about us once a week?’

‘The _reports_ I sent were barely even worth calling that. Towards the end, I was actively using the reports to our advantage! I was the one who told Samson about you getting the red lyrium from Ellana because I knew it would turn him!’

‘And what about _before?__’ _the mage demanded, voice trembling. ‘What about before you had your change of heart? What kind of information were you sending about us? What did you send back home when you first met _me_?’

‘Dorian, I’m not _part_ of the Qun anymore, but I did what I had to back then. Like I said, you wouldn’t understand.’

The barrier hummed lightly when Dorian stepped through it, beyond the point of safety, leaving the reassuring sounds of his home behind.

‘What did you write home about the Tevinter mage?’

Bull sighed tersely. ‘I wrote that you were trouble. That you’d probably cause all kinds of issues and that your friendship with Lavellan was especially worrying.’

‘And what did they say?’

‘What does it _matter _if I never acted upon it?’

‘What was their recommendation?’

‘Still chasing pain, huh kid? I protected you all, I risked _everything_ I had, everything I was to keep you all from the reach of the Qun and now my days are numbered because of it! Isn’t that enough?’

Dorian stepped forward, shaking all over, jaw clenched. _‘What was their recommendation?’_

Massive shoulders sagged. ‘They didn’t want you dead, they wanted to extract you. To capture you.’

‘Drag me to Seheron.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Sew my mouth shut.’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

They stared at one another, two forms of anger circling. ‘Very early on, I made a plan to do just that. In the North fork of the Storm Coast there’s an outcropping with a hidden cellar, used for stashing treasure and valuables. I was gonna stage a fight, knock you out, collar you and hide you there. You’d have been collected later and the others would think you’d been taken South by darkspawn.’

Dorian’s skin prickled with cold, his spine tingling in warning. ‘Good plan.’

‘Yeah,’ Bull said tightly. ‘Except that during the fight, you did something monumentally stupid, like always. I got knocked down and I dropped my axe. You came running over and you… helped me. Took a nasty blow to the head for your trouble.’

‘And that made you think twice?’

‘It blew the plan. Your injury drew Lavellan’s attention.’

Dorian shook himself and crossed his arms, trying to ignore the sick feeling. ‘This is not exactly painting you in a great light.’

‘Look, of _course_ I thought twice after that! I got to know you, I talked to you, we… we were together sometimes, Dorian. _Of course_ I couldn’t do that to you.’

‘Cole said he took your memories sometimes, to stop you giving away anything that would compromise us.’

‘That’s right, but it was early on, before Skyhold mostly.’

‘Mostly.’

Bull tipped his chin. ‘Like I said, you don’t _know_ what it means to be part of the Qun. Go ahead and thank your Maker that you’ll never know.’

‘There but for the grace of getting hit in the head.’

‘What do you want from me? Huh? You wanna make me cry? Have me fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness? That ain’t gonna happen, kid. I did what I had to and then I did what I could.’

‘You did the barest minimum to keep yourself from truly being part of one camp or the other and _don__’t_ call me _kid!_ Don’t stand there and belittle me when you’re the one who was too much of a coward to say any of this to my face a year ago! Turn tail and run before you got caught, leaving me—leaving us scrambling to realise what you’d done, who you really were!’

‘I protected you!’

‘You pretended to be someone you weren’t! You let me think of you as a friend and you were sending information about us back to them, betraying us to the Red Templars!’

‘Only at _first_!’

Dorian hit him as hard as he could, swung his arm in an upward arc and balled his fist. The impact was everything he could muster, but it barely swayed Bull. Dorian’s knuckles exploded with pain, with the kind of agony that comes from hitting a _wall_. The mage staggered back, wincing and clutching his hand.

The Qunari moved forward, brow creasing with concern. ‘Dorian, are you—?’

‘No I’m not all right, you fucking _bastard!_ Standing there like you give a fuck, like you-you _care_! You left without even seeing me!’ he scathed, breath shuddering, hand throbbing as he clutched it protectively. ‘You fucking _left_ and you didn’t even… you didn’t even leave me a _note_! I wasn’t even worth that!’

His jaw dropped. ‘Dorian, I _couldn__’t_ leave you a note, what would I have said in it? I wouldn’t even know where to start!’

It was no salve, no reassurance. ‘You just left, how could you do that? You spend months telling me to put on a brave face, to take risks and then you just _leave!_ No explanation, no _apology_!’

‘Apologise? Dorian, you don’t know what you’re talking about!’

‘I know that you were my friend! I know that I cared about you. I know that I trusted you completely. I _fell_ for your little scene on the Coast. Fell for it completely. You were my friend and it was all lies.’

‘It wasn’t lies, not at—’

‘If you say _not at first_, I’ll call down enough lightning to split you in half!’

‘You’re angry because we slept together.’

‘No,’ Dorian said raggedly. ‘No, I’m _angry_ that I can pinpoint exactly when we stopped and I’m _angry_ because now I know why. You stopped it because that was when you started to actually like me. You stopped it because you started to feel bad which means you were sleeping with me for gain. Right? _Right_?’

In the grey shadows, in the warm Tevinter air, the delicate scent of salt and jasmine all around, the Iron Bull swallowed slightly and nodded.

And though Dorian had known it to be true, had _known_ it the first time he really let himself conceive the true breadth of Bull’s betrayal, it still hurt so fucking bad.

‘You were sleeping with me for your own gain, to learn more about me, to weaken me if need be.’

‘Not to weaken you, but… but to learn more about you yes, at first.’

‘I still remember the first time.’

‘Dorian—’

‘Do you remember what you said?’

‘_Dorian_, I’m sorry, all right? I am _sorry_. Don’t do this, don’t hurt yourself like this just to hurt me too.’

The mage lifted his gaze from the ground, levelled it at the Qunari.

‘What did you say to me the first time?’

He was silent for a long time, unwilling to put breath behind the words that had haunted Dorian ever since he’d realised they’d been said with affectation, with cold _purpose_ and intent.

But he spoke at length, hesitant in the extreme. ‘I said, you were the kind of man I could fall for.’

‘Because you were planning on using me completely, weren’t you? In those _early days_, you were planning to make me yours.’ Dorian ignored the pain in his hand, the bleeding knuckles. Inside his magic churned and swirled dangerously, deeply tied to his emotions as ever, but determined not to lash out unless called upon. ‘You dismissed it after a while, but there was a part of you that considered binding me to you with _love. _A part of you that might have called me _Kadan_ all the while betraying me and everything I was fighting for.’

‘It would never have worked,’ Bull said. ‘Because you were so clearly in love with _him_, but… yeah. If that’s what you want to hear, then yeah, I did consider it and I started laying groundwork for it too.’

He added nothing and Dorian asked nothing else, undamaged hand pressing over his mouth as he nodded. The ocean waves crashed distantly and within, Dorian could feel Cullen’s concern amplifying, sensing Dorian’s emotions and worrying about him, probably searching for him.

Quietly, in a gentler tone, Bull said, ‘I realise that everything after that is meaningless. That when I say that I really _did_ love you, it won’t ring true. I know this, I know how it works and this is why I left. Because no matter how true it is - that I came to care about you _all_ so much, that I changed who I was because of what you showed me I could be - it’s tainted by what I did before it.’

‘You could have come to us,’ Dorian said lifelessly. ‘You could have come to me.’

‘I couldn’t risk you ousting me and the Qun sending someone else, someone who’d have killed you after the fight with Corypheus. I wanted to protect you all, every single one of you. I know how that sounds.’

‘Oh good, I was starting to worry.’

‘I fucked up and I know that too. I wish things were different.’

‘Qunari don’t wish for things.’

‘I’m no longer part of the Qun, Dorian. I can wish for things if I want.’

Dorian closed his eyes. ‘I wanted to see you,’ he whispered. ‘I wanted to hear your stupid booming voice and your laugh.’

‘I know you did and I wanted to see you too. I carried you back to Skyhold. You were dead and I carried your body. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like that. There’s no word for it. Not sadness, not grief. I carried you back and then I left before I could see that you were alive and OK again, even though the others told me you were. I… I know what I did, Dorian. I know what I did.’

‘You owed me more than that.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I would have forgiven you, if you’d have told me.’

Bull closed his eye and silence reigned.

‘We were friends once and that meant something to me, real or not, so I forgive you now too.’

The Qunari looked up sharply. ‘You—what?’

‘I forgive you,’ Dorian repeated, swallowing over the lump. ‘I forgive what you did to me, to us. I forgive all the lies and the ill intent. For whatever little it’s worth, I forgive you all of it.’

He took a step forward. ‘Dorian, I never expected—’

‘I forgive you, but we’re not friends,’ he forced himself to say. ‘We can’t be friends, at least. At least not now. I forgive you and I wish you well. That’s all I have to give.’

‘You don’t have to give me anything.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Dorian said, wrapping his arms around himself, wincing at the pain in his hand. ‘I’m a generous person and I’d like to move on from this with a clear mind. Clear_er_, at least. You were a good friend to me, even if it began in… in a different way. I don’t want this grudge inside me anymore. I want it gone.’

Bull nodded and Dorian could feel the weight of his gaze.

‘Thank you.’

‘I hope you, uh. I hope the others are all right, too. Krem? The Chargers?’

‘I sent ‘em away when the pursuit intensified. I don’t think I’ll go back, though. I don’t want to put them in danger that’s not even their making. Maybe one day, I don’t know. They interrogated me about you, the Ben-Hassrath.’

‘They did?’

‘Yeah. You, Cullen. Your life here, your relationship with the Inquisitor.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘To go fuck themselves,’ Bull said with a hint of pride. ‘They’d have got it out of me eventually. Re-training is not something anyone can resist, it would have remade me completely, but Red got me out before that.’

‘I’m grateful you tried to protect us.’

‘I wanted you to know that you’re a person of interest to them. What you’re doing here, the alliance with the South, the mages no longer in Circles. It’s gonna be war, but you already know that.’

‘Yes,’ Dorian said. ‘We already know that. We also know it’s a war we can _win_. Which side will you be fighting on, Bull?’

‘If I’m called on to fight,’ he said slowly. ‘I’ll fight for the people who offered me a chance to be my own man. I’ll fight for the side that _wouldn__’t_ sew the mouths of mages shut, no matter how annoying they can be. That’s a side worth dying for, I reckon. Hard to turn my back on.’

A spiteful, cutting part of Dorian wanted to hiss that he’d had enough practice to get good at it, but he quashed that part, kept himself together. Cullen was coming, he could feel the other man following the bond.

‘You should leave,’ he said, stepping backwards into the barrier.

Bull looked over Dorian’s shoulder and nodded once. ‘Yeah. I’ll go.’ He moved his attention to the garden of the mansion, visible around the side. Dorian watched him smile a little. ‘Good to see you’re taking my advice, even if it’s a year later. I’m glad you’re happy, Dorian. Hold on to that happiness. You deserve it.’

‘Bull,’ Dorian called out when the Qunari made to step back. ‘I don’t want to hear bad things about you, that you’ve been captured again or... Just take care of yourself. Please.’

He gave a wry smile to the mage, inclining his head. ‘For you, I’ll try.’

Dorian watched him melt into the shadows, into the trees. No more words, nothing left to be said. Only a parting, the parting Dorian had been denied before. He stared into the darkness after he was gone.

Behind, he felt Cullen’s proximity. He could feel how _guarded_ Cullen was then, sensing possible danger, rooting out any threats.

‘What’s wrong, love?’ he asked, coming to stand beside the mage, staring into the trees. ‘Dorian?’

‘Let’s… let’s go inside,’ Dorian said, wrenching his gaze away.

‘What happened?’

‘I’ll explain inside.’

*

Oh, it was really something to both _see_ and _feel _the extent of how Cullen suppressed his own murderous rage while listening to Dorian explain it all. Dorian appreciated the effort, he really did. It was hard enough to recount as it was, let alone having to calm Cullen down or prevent him from storming off after the Qunari.

Cullen contained himself, but _barely_.

‘I’m so sorry, my love,’ he said, kneeling before Dorian, applying healing salve to his busted knuckles.

Dorian shook his head, wiping away tears with his free, uninjured hand. ‘Don’t be sorry.’

‘I’m sorry for your sadness, for the pain this caused you.’

‘I am sad,’ Dorian said thickly watching Cullen carefully apply the healing mixture with a clean towel corner. ‘But… it’s not the bad kind.’

Cullen inhaled through his nose, careful and controlled. He said nothing, just kept right on healing Dorian’s split skin and sore bones.

‘I had to see him.’

‘You’ve no need to explain yourself to me, Dorian. We agreed a long time ago to respect when either of us needed privacy or space.’

‘I know that. Don’t blame Leliana.’

‘There’s no blame.’

‘Really?’ Dorian half teased. ‘Because I can feel how much you’d like to kill things right about now.’

He wrapped Dorian’s knuckles with clean bandages. ‘This isn’t about me.’

‘If it’s about me, then it’s about you too.’

‘I just mean…’

‘I know what you mean, darling,’ Dorian sighed, suddenly so fucking _sad_ that it took his breath away. Cullen moved up into his space and took the mage in his arms, kissing his cheek before wrapping them together while Dorian sat on the side of their bed. ‘I should have let it go.’

Cullen shushed him softly. ‘No, you did what you needed to. That makes it the right thing.’

Dorian smiled as two tears rolled down his face. ‘Using my own wisdom against me?’

_‘Against_ you? Never.’

They sat together on the bed, side by side, leaning there for a while as Dorian let himself be sad, let himself grieve the loss of what had once been a friend. But he also let himself level out after a minute or two. He let himself feel the effects of the departure, of watching Bull walk away, of knowing that the Qunari had heard what he needed to say. The two feelings were slowly meeting in the middle, cautiously combining to form something _quiet, _something that could bear the loss of that friend.

Something like peace.

‘We should get back to the party.’

‘We have time for a few minutes, love. Sit with me until you’re ready.’

‘You’re not angry?’

‘Dorian, you’re all that matters to me. I’m not angry in the least.’

*

‘He’s very angry.’

Dorian laughed and sipped his wine. _Excellent_ fucking wine that Fenris had whipped out from his own private stash. ‘Well observed, my friend.’

The elf looked back at Dorian from where he’d been watching Leliana and Cullen, the pair having what _might_ have passed for a friendly conversation, had they been observed by two who knew them any less. Cullen’s smile was patently false and every now and then his jaw would twitch while Leliana’s eyes danced with friendly mirth that was just a _touch_ too shallow to be real.

‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ Fenris offered, now at least a quarter of the way to being drunk. Dorian liked him very much when he was drunk. It was a different side to Fenris. One who was a little more mellow, relaxed. One who was more open to being happy, who maybe Dorian could elicit a laugh from if he worked hard enough. Dorian loved it when Fenris laughed.

Maybe Dorian was a little drunk too.

‘We can talk about it. I’m a good listener.’

‘Yes, you are, but this is depressing stuff.’

Fenris surveyed him evenly, blinking a _fraction_ slower than usual. ‘The Qunari.’

Dorian drank more wine. ‘Hmm.’

And Fenris just nodded because he understood. He understood what betrayal felt like. He understood how Dorian felt about Bull. They’d spoken about it sometimes. Fenris truly _was_ a good listener and he never judged. He was surprisingly empathic towards the people he cared about. A hard exterior but once trust was established, there was no finer friend to be had, no kinder person.

Cullen and Leliana had made up, the evidence for which was that they were no longer pretending to smile.

‘He’ll never be able to stop,’ Fenris said. ‘Being protective of you, that is.’

‘I know.’

‘It’s part of who he is. He’s a protector.’

Dorian couldn’t help the small, soft smile, tinged only slightly with sadness. Bittersweet, it could be called. ‘I know, Fen.’

They stood there watching the other two, watching the strange friendship slip back into normalcy. Watching Cullen accept that Leliana had been acting in Dorian’s best interests and Leliana accepting that Cullen was, as Dorian said, a protector.

Had spent his life wanting to _protect, _so often failing.

‘Are you happy, Fenris?’ Dorian asked, gaze riveted to the man he would marry tomorrow.

Fenris looked around and smiled faintly. ‘I am right now.’

‘I feel like I should have some kind of wise analogy about happiness and how rare it is, but I don’t. Do you have one?’

‘I don’t think we’re the kind of men who keep turns of phrase about happiness, my friend.’ The endearment warmed Dorian helplessly. ‘But I am happy here, with you. With Cullen, with your brood of exuberant lost mages. With the babies and the endless public displays. With my life, my _own_ choices, with what we’re building here. Yes, I am happy most days. That’s enough, isn’t it?’

Dorian put his arm around the elf’s shoulders. ‘More than enough. You should ask her to dance.’

Fenris snorted. ‘She’ll probably punch me.’

‘Well, that’ll be fun too. Come on, let’s rescue them from each other.’

*

The party wound down a few hours after midnight and Dorian was beyond exhausted. He was exhausted in the best kind of way, of course, but when his back hit the soft, well-made mattress, he let out a sigh that threatened to turn into a snore.

‘I used to have such _stamina_ for these things!’ he bemoaned, while Cullen shut their bedroom door. From above, the light of the moons filtered through the glass dome. ‘Sometimes I would party for two days straight!’

Cullen smiled indulgently. ‘Most everyone was tired, my love. The musicians were passed out on chairs.’

‘Still,’ Dorian said mulishly and then yawned. ‘I’m not even that drunk.’

‘Well, that’s a _good_ thing,’ Cullen said, pulling his boots off. ‘Because I love you when you’re sober, when you’re yourself.’

‘You love me when I’m drunk too.’

‘I love the silly things you say when you’re drunk, yes.’

‘Silly, _pffft_.’

‘I love how you become deeply affectionate when drunk, it’s always fun to watch.’

‘I’m _always _affectionate.’

‘And then I especially love the part of the night where you cry for no reason.’

‘One time, that was.’

‘It was _not_ one time.’

Dorian sat up, scowling as Cullen, half naked but for silky sleeping trousers, crawled towards him.

‘We’ve been through a lot,’ Dorian argued, not even sure what they were discussing when Cullen flopped heavily, sinking into the pillows and sighing. ‘Emotional catharsis is a good thing.’

‘Absolutely,’ Cullen said, pulling Dorian down beside him. Dorian went willingly, ridiculously willing truth be told because he was still more than a little fragile after everything that had happened.

‘How do you feel?’ he asked Cullen while they began to play with each other’s hands, pressing fingertips to fingertips as if there was glass between them.

Face to face, backs excluding all else but themselves, Cullen said, ‘I feel… a mixture of sadness and relief. I feel better now that I don’t have to carry his name anymore. I feel… guilty still, though.’

Dorian’s brow creased, feeling Cullen’s deep well of sadness within, sensing a ripple over the surface of the feeling and knowing the reason why.

‘You don’t need to feel guilty about grieving, Cullen.’

‘I wish it was simpler. I wish for it to be clean cut and gone, but it… it probably never will be. It’s still confusing, even now. But it is better. That’s all I wanted, before tomorrow.’ He focused on Dorian then; golden eyes gently searching much in the way that Dorian’s had been. ‘How do _you _feel?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dorian said honestly. ‘I didn’t expect him to come. I wasn’t ready for it. I think in the end, I mirror much of your sentiments. I am relieved to have said my piece and have him hear it, but it was hard to see him, to hear his voice and have it all dredged up again. Sad but relieved.’

‘I love you.’

‘And I you, my darling. We should sleep.’

‘This is the last time we’ll fall asleep and _not_ be wed, do you realise?’

‘Do you mean to say we can finally consummate our love, come tomorrow?’

Cullen’s laugh was near silent and it created that wide, gorgeous smile, the one reserved only for Dorian. The mage stroked his face, his hair, longer at the top than he’d ever seen it. Stroked over tanned skin, over freckles and fresh scars, over the one left behind by Jassen Ivan Emory.

‘Yes, I think we may finally be able to cross that frontier.’

‘Well, I greatly look forward to being ravished.’

‘I think everyone knows,’ Cullen said, eyes closing slowly as Dorian stroked his ear. ‘That we’re getting married.’

‘Not _everyone.__’_

‘At the very least, I don’t think anyone will be surprised.’

‘It was a good party, though. You think everyone had a nice time?’

‘Of course they did. They’ll have even more fun tomorrow.’

‘Are you nervous?’

‘No. Are you?’

‘No. Do you think we _should_ feel nervous? It’s common, isn’t it?’

‘I never set much store by what’s common. I love you more than anything in this world and I want to marry you. That’s all I care about.’

Dorian smiled broadly. Cullen was half asleep, his eyes fully shut, his breathing levelling out.

‘That’s all I care about too. I thought I would feel nervous, but it just feels natural and right. How _strange _is that?’

‘Dorian?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Go to sleep, love.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘You’re being chatty.’

‘I’m excited.’

‘That’s adorable and beautiful and I love you so much, but I’m tired and I can’t sleep if you’re not asleep.’

‘That hardly seems fair.’

‘You’re tired too.’

‘I’m not as tired as you.’

‘If you don’t sleep now,’ Cullen mumbled. ‘You’ll be too tired to fuck me tomorrow.’

Dorian half sat up, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. _‘What_?’

Cullen was smiling now, eyes still closed. ‘You’re not the only one who has plans.’

‘We could have sex _now_.’

‘I can barely stay conscious, love. Come and dream with me.’

‘But I miss you.’

‘I’m right here.’

‘You know what I mean. I miss _being_ with you.’

‘’M tired, you’re tired too. That usually means sleep.’

‘How am I meant to sleep stuck thinking about _that_ all night. Plus, it’s been _days_, actual days since we had proper sex, do you realise?’

‘Dorian?’

‘Yes?’

‘We’re getting married in the morning. Go to sleep.’

*

Cullen was already awake by the time Dorian’s consciousness felt the absence of the other man. Slowly, he brought himself out of the Fade and opened his eyes. The first thing he tasted was metal; a light, almost sweet tang in the back of his throat. Not mana and not quite ozone, but something unusual, for sure. He looked around their bedroom, sitting up. The balcony doors were open as always and Cullen was standing there, staring out at the scene before him.

Accompanying the white noise of the waves was another ambient sound, something Dorian couldn’t quite _believe_. He slid out of bed and padded over to Cullen, arms encircling his waist as he pressed a kiss to the bare skin of his back before having his suspicions confirmed.

‘It’s not possible,’ he whispered to Cullen who linked their fingers together, pulling Dorian around him a little more. The sky was streaked with zig-zagging clouds, marking the gold and accentuating the sunrise. Gold and pinks, dark greys and purples and the rain…

The rain was simply _pouring_.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Cullen said. Dorian could hear his smile. ‘It’s _raining_, Dorian.’

The mage looked out at the ocean above Cullen’s shoulder, at the downpour that marked the usually bright mornings with a darkened palette. The sounds were soft and rushing, not unlike a waterfall and the scent of combined sea with rain was heady and sweet.

‘We never get rain at this time.’

Quietly, delicately, Cullen said, ‘Maybe it’s a sign.’

Dorian smiled and pressed more kisses into his skin, moving his lips side to side over the warmth that contained Cullen, the skin that smelled of _home_. ‘I think it’s a gift for you on this day.’

Cullen turned away from the ocean as a distant rumble of thunder broke over the horizon, following a dull flash from an approaching storm. He brought his face to Dorian’s, foreheads touching as hands sought skin, brought them closer.

‘Did you make me a storm?’

_‘_I wish I could take credit for it, but no.’

‘We’ll be married in the rain.’

Dorian smiled fondly at the barely concealed excitement in Cullen’s quiet, rough morning voice. ‘You love the rain.’

Cullen sighed happily, kissing Dorian. ‘I love the rain,’ he agreed, one hand sliding up the mage’s back, over his neck and into his hair. ‘I love you more, though.’

*

‘It cannot possibly be raining! This is _Tevinter_, isn’t it? Land without rain? Place of mages and dry days! How the _fuck_ can it be raining?’

‘It rains in Minrathous two or three times a year, but hardly ever in this season. Quite unexpected.’

Dorian poured himself another cup of tea and watched with amusement as Ellana, whose hatred of rain was legendary, stared out of the kitchen windows as if the end of the world were approaching.

‘Cullen loves the rain,’ Cole pointed out, sitting atop a nearby cupboard, head bent low to avoid the ceiling. ‘He’s always loved storms too. Staring up, the only one brave enough not to blink. I will never blink, never look away. I was so very nearly your son, forgotten by all but the earth and elements of it. Magic is in the lightning, oh let me be worthy, let me know the swirls. I will be so, so worthy of them.’

‘I can’t believe it’s raining on your wedding day,’ Ellana went on while Dorian winked at Cole and smiled into his tea.

Around the table, Mia looked up from whatever she was writing and adopted an expression of mock surprise. ‘What do you _mean_, wedding day?’

‘Yes, very droll, Mia,’ Dorian sighed, reaching for a fried egg with his fork. He missed the apple flips every day, but apple cultivars were annoyingly rare in Tevinter and there were all kinds of issues with having one brought up from the South, namely that no one _wanted_ to escort a young tree on such a long, miserable journey by boat. ‘I take it every single person in this house knows?’

Keenan walked in and sat down beside Dorian. ‘Every single person in the house knows,’ he confirmed with a small, but genuine smile. ‘Morning, Dad.’

It was like time stopped. Like someone reaching into Dorian’s chest, taking hold of his heart and gripping it. Keenan had never said that before, never shaped the unfamiliar word, a name used mostly by Southerners. And Dorian needed to say or do something, he was sure, but he was _stuck_ in the moment. Stuck in the sheer fucking feeling of… of _astonished _gratitude. His throat was packed with wool, his eyes burning. Across the table, Fenris was focused on his breakfast, something soft in his expression.

‘So, a wedding in the rain?’ Keenan asked the room entire while Dorian fought to gather himself. ‘Imagine moving all the way North, to the land of perpetual sunshine and heat, only to have it rain.’

He was teasing him. Dorian could get on board with that.

The mage shook himself. ‘I uh.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I don’t mind the rain. It’s not so bad when you’re in the Fallow Mire, believe me.’

‘Cullen _does_ love the rain,’ Fenris added helpfully. ‘But the rest of us can sit beneath a shield, can’t we? There’s mages enough to make a decent one.’

Ellana’s pacing halted. ‘Oh, I didn’t think of that.’

‘Morning!’ Sera greeted, taking a seat at the end with Taras in her arms. ‘Fucking pissing down, bet Cullen’s out there dancing in it!’

‘He, Rosalie and Bran _are_ actually outside,’ Mia said, finishing her letter and blowing on the ink to dry it.

Ellana’s jaw dropped. ‘They’re not.’

Mia shrugged. ‘They love the rain too. It’s temperate rain, besides. They won’t catch a cold in this.’

‘I hate the rain. Dorian made me special socks so that my feet didn’t get wet from all the puddles we had to go through in Crestwood that first week. _Maker_, that was a lot of rain.’

‘Ah, I remember those!’

‘I still have them.’

Fenris chuckled. ‘Did you by any chance _bring_ them?’

‘Of course I didn’t bring them! This is _Tevinter!_’

‘It’ll be fun!’ Sera chimed in, offering Taras a spoonful of mashed banana mixed with milk. He seemed greatly displeased by her offering and wrinkled his tiny nose, rearing away from the spoon. ‘C’mon, little one, ‘nanas are good!’

Dorian looked around the table. ‘Where are the others?’ he asked. ‘It’s worryingly quiet.’

‘Don’t go looking for them,’ Keenan warned, pouring himself a tea. ‘They’re working on something. Landon is on lookout and if he sees you, he’ll probably blurt out the whole thing.’

‘How is he doing, in Skyhold?’

Keenan said, ‘He’s actually doing amazingly there. He’s learning to help Nalari with healing magics and he trains with the soldiers and the mages every day too.’

‘Got a girlfriend an’ all,’ Sera added. ‘One of the newly recruited soldiers.’

‘I don’t think you’re supposed to announce that, sweetie,’ Ellana said, having calmed enough about the rain to help herself to some eggs.

‘What? They’re always snogging everywhere, hard to miss.’

‘How was your time there?’ Dorian asked Keenan, taking care to keep his tone light and curious.

‘It was… great. I stayed there for a bit, travelled a bit too. I took that book where you asked. Left it where the Circle Tower used to be. Then just travelled on my own for a while. Met some people. It was good.’

Dorian was nodding, helping himself to more eggs than he had any intention of eating, not daring to ask if Keenan was going back there when the others returned. ‘I’m so glad.’

‘Yeah, it was really good but, uh. I think I’ll move back home now.’

_Home_.

Fenris, master of tact, got up from his seat and wandered over to Cole, asking him something about the weather while Ellana and Sera continued their in-depth conversation about Taras and why he didn’t like mushy bananas. Mia got up and took her letter with her, leaving Dorian and Keenan side by side, sharing breakfast together.

‘You want to stay, then?’

‘Yeah, I think so.’ Keenan held his tea with both hands, elbows on the table. ‘I missed everyone. I missed being here. There isn’t much for me in the South anymore and I feel that here, I could be someone else. Be my own man. What do you think?’

‘Oh, look,’ Cole said brightly. ‘They’re going to hug.’

And as usual, Cole was absolutely right.

*

‘Why can’t I see him?’

‘It’s tradition!’

‘Some kind of _Southern_ nonsense?’

‘All I know is, you’re not to see him until you get married. I’ve been given strict instructions to keep you both apart.’

Dorian gave Leliana a hard stare. ‘Why do I get _you_?’

‘The others are with Cullen.’

‘You could also be with Cullen, you know.’

She grinned slyly. ‘But then who would torment you all throughout the morning, my dearest friend?’

‘This was meant to be a surprise, you know. No one was meant to swoop in and take over.’

‘Hush your silliness,’ she bade, shoving him back down into the chair of his dressing table. ‘Now, Ellana and Sera are seeing to the seating outdoors, Nalari and Saffy are constructing a long lasting shield while the other mages are attending to the house. Cullen’s family are helping him dress. Your Father is currently having half of Minrathous’s most expensive possessions dragged into your home and Cole is gathering flowers to make garlands for everyone. That leaves your choices rather narrow, I’m afraid.’

‘I can dress myself,’ he pointed out huffily as the rain poured thickly outside and thunder rolled occasionally.

‘Yes, you can,’ she agreed, taking up his kohl and rubbing it on the back of her hand. ‘But that doesn’t mean you _should_. This is your wedding day and you need to look especially gorgeous to trick Cullen into marrying you.’

‘_Trick_ Cullen—?’

‘Oh, come now, mage, where is your sense of humour?’ Fenris drawled from the doorway, strolling inside without a care in the world. ‘Did you do his makeup already?’

‘I don’t wear _makeup_!’

‘Not yet, no. I was wondering about his hair.’

‘There is nothing wrong with my hair.’

‘See here at the top, it’s _just _long enough for a tiny braid, what do you think?’

‘_No one_ is braiding my hair!’

Fenris and Leliana ignored him completely. ‘I think it might be a little too showy. Just slick it back for now.’

‘Hmm, I could cut it.’

Dorian got up from his chair so fast he almost knocked them both over. ‘NO ONE IS CUTTING MY HAIR!’

Leliana laughed, shoving him back down again. ‘We are _teasing_, Dorian. Relax. Have some wine.’

‘It’s not even noon!’

‘What are you planning to wear?’

‘It’s a nice outfit,’ Fenris said, arms crossed as he surveyed Dorian.

‘Oh, it is?’ Leliana sounded surprised.

‘Yes, you’d like it.’

Dorian watched the pair of them in the mirror. Leliana smiled at Fenris, a slow, deep kind of thing. ‘I’d like it?’

‘Yes,’ he said, the elf’s attention all on Leliana now. ‘You would.’

‘And how would you know what I like?’

‘I happen to be well versed in what you like.’

‘I may require proof of that later.’

Dorian groaned and reached for the wine glass.

*

Cullen had always heard that wedding days went by in a flash, but he had never expected it to feel so _real_. Despite their best efforts to keep it a secret, to control the day themselves, once the people they loved arrived, it had been clear that they would make the day special _for_ them and Cullen was all too pleased to allow it. To have his family about him as he dressed and prepared, hair still damp from being outside in the rain with Rosalie and Branson earlier.

‘There,’ Rosie said, buttoning the final part of his upper chest. ‘You’re ready.’

He looked down at himself, at the clothes and the boots, at the things he knew Dorian would simply love. ‘I am?’

It was strange to hear the nerves in his voice, to feel a thin tremor of something shaking within. He hadn’t been nervous before, not in the least, but now, standing in the small pantry with his siblings, minutes away from seeing Dorian again as he hadn’t all morning, he found that his fingers trembled slightly.

‘You are,’ Mia said fervently while Branson took his hand and squeezed. ‘You look… Cullen, we’re so proud of you.’

‘Dorian is the best mage, best _man_ we could ever have hoped for you to love,’ his brother said. ‘You’re going to be so happy together, we can feel it. We can see it in what you’ve made here, in everything.’

Cullen smiled, biting his bottom lip as he looked down, tears springing to his eyes. Rosalie was half wrapped around him and Branson joined in too, Mia coming in last, the eldest placing her arms around all three of the others.

‘We love you,’ his older sister whispered. ‘Now, let’s go and marry you to him.’

*

Outside, the wide and well cared for garden was shielded from the rain with a light blue dome. Cullen barely had time to take in the effort that Halward had gone to, bringing in miniature statues, bringing in _trees_ to make rows and walls, to line the seats. All kinds of huge and glittering rocks making a circle at the front where the chairs faced, the circle in which he and Dorian would stand within and be wed. It was like a lush, shimmering paradise with rain falling steadily above. The sounds of the droplets bouncing off the shield were both soothing and delightful, the ocean stretching ahead of them; the Nocen sea reflecting the lightning when it struck, making all the world into a greyish purple, streaked with silver.

All the mages were seated, spread out between Fenris and Sera, Mia, Rosie and Branson. Halward had Dawn on his lap, sat beside Nalari. Taras was with Rosalie, whom Cole was keeping highly entertained with his many faces and soft sounds. Keenan sat beside Saffy, Aldis and Landon, Marcus and Cain at the front, Christopher, Sedrick and Finn behind.

At his side, Leliana stood, their arms intertwined.

‘Are you ready?’ she asked him, quietly.

Cullen looked at her and smiled, not trusting himself to speak.

They began to walk around the outside of the rows, following an exterior semi-circle leading to the front and on the other side, mirroring him, was Dorian, Ellana Lavellan on his arm in turn.

They walked together, pace matched and precise, around those who were there to watch them get married. Closer and closer they drew and then finally, they stopped at the stone circle where a man waited for them. Cullen let go of Leliana, kissed her cheek and stepped inside it. Dorian did the same.

The Revered Father of the Imperial Chantry smiled at them both as Dorian and Cullen came face to face and the breath Cullen took trembled because _oh_, but Dorian was so fucking beautiful it hurt.

He could scarcely take stock of what his mage wore, what clothes he’d chosen that bought out the perfect hue of his eyes, of colour and cloth, material and designs. He could barely see anything beyond Dorian, beyond the man who’d met him in the circle and chose to step inside, to marry him.

The Revered Father in front of them began to speak and Cullen tried to listen, tried to take in every word of what was being said, but he couldn’t help himself when he took Dorian’s hand in his own, needing to touch him, to feel him.

Dorian smiled and let out a shaky little breath. Cullen felt him shaking in turn, felt the strange sense of _excitement_ twined with _nerves. _

Through their bond, through the magic that watched and smiled, Cullen sent his love to Dorian then; a push of liquid adoration and truest feeling and the mage sent his own version of it right back.

‘Cullen?’ someone was prompting. ‘Cullen, your promise?’

He shook himself, smiling as his cheeks filled with colour because he had been just a little too lost in Dorian to actually remember he was _marrying_ Dorian.

‘Yes, sorry,’ he said and the others laughed gently. ‘I uh. Right yes, sorry.’ Cullen shook his head and recalled the words he’d painstakingly memorised. ‘I swear unto the Maker and the Holy Andraste to love this man the rest of my days. To be guardian of his heart, to bring light wherever darkness dares encroach, to protect and honour, together as one from this moment onward.’

The Revered Father nodded and looked to Dorian.

And in his utterly spell-binding voice, Dorian began to speak.

‘I swear unto the Maker,’ he said, holding Cullen’s gaze. ‘And the Holy Andraste to love this man the rest of my days. To be guardian of his heart, to bring light wherever darkness dares encroach, to protect and honour, together as one from this moment onward.’

‘Cullen, place your ring upon Dorian’s finger.’

The band was made from reinforced silver. From the outside, it seemed like nothing especially flashy, but within there were words inscribed in ancient Tevene, a phrase that Cullen had chosen himself.

_Ega credantia tessium fortis_.

_I trust you to be strong. _

Cullen took the ring from his pocket, carefully pushing it over the tip of Dorian’s wedding finger, over bronzed skin and twisted it carefully down all the way to the base where it sat perfectly, nestled safely.

‘Now Dorian, place your ring upon Cullen’s finger in turn.’

Dorian reached within the folds of his pocket and as he did he said in a soft whisper, ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to surprise you.’

It was not a plain silver ring like what they’d decided. The moment he saw it, his breath caught in his chest because he knew, he just _knew_ what it was.

The ring was made of _glass_.

It glittered and reflected the rainy day all around them, twinkling gently in the floating orbs nearby as Dorian held it between his fingers.

‘I made it for you,’ he said, voice thick and rough, like the mage was second away from shedding tears. ‘It won’t ever break, it’s made in a way that… well, it won’t _ever_ break.’

Cullen stared at it, watched breathlessly as Dorian pushed it onto his finger, as he settled it there where it belonged. A band of glass, shimmering with just the smallest hint of magic.

_That__’s how you make glass_, he heard Dorian say, a year ago, snow in his hair, icy air in his lungs, frozen by the astonishment that Dorian had made him a window, had gone to such trouble because he knew Cullen needed fresh air to feel safe, but had not wanted him to be cold.

And there, in the balmy warmth of Minrathous, surrounded by those they loved, in a circle of precious stones with the rain over head and the ocean nearby, Cullen felt as he did then. That mark of absolute, undeniable _proof_ that he was loved, that Dorian loved him.

The ring sat perfectly, like it was made to fit there.

‘Beneath the grace of the Maker and all he has gifted the world, we recognise this union,’ the Revered Father said. ‘Husband and husband, bound for all time, nevermore to be parted, even by death. Seal this bond with a kiss.’

They met like they were falling, as if stumbling through the dark towards the light. Cullen took Dorian in his arms and the mage kissed him with heedless abandon, with emotions that ran deeper than lust or desire or even love. It was more than love, more than marriage.

Cullen lifted his hand as they kissed, as their family cheered and clapped, and he dissolved part of the shield dome above them, bringing the rain and letting it fall freely onto them. Cool and wet, thousands of droplets hit their skin and their clothes, sliding into hair and down their cheeks. Lips on lips in a kiss that felt like it was a hundred years coming. Dorian’s fingers pushed gently into Cullen’s wet hair as he slanted his mouth against the blond’s.

‘Love you,’ he whispered and Cullen smiled. The glass ring sat on his finger and their magic between them danced, bright and glowing.

He lifted Dorian up around the waist, turning them in a small circle as they kissed, as he murmured, ‘I love you _more_.’

It was perfect.

It was _magic_.

*

Dorian was _married_. The day he’d fought against all his young life had arrived and he simply couldn’t be happier about it. They ran inside the mansion to get away from the rain, Cullen skidding a little when his wet boots hit marble floor and Dorian steadied him, caught him easily, hands on his upper arms.

‘Careful,’ he panted, grey eyes bright like silver. ‘Wouldn’t want you hurt, would we?’

Cullen laughed breathlessly because he _knew_ exactly what Dorian was playing at, caught it perfectly. The others were following, rushing inside after all the clapping and cheering, all the _kissing_ that left Dorian with a deep, painful _ache_ inside him that he was suddenly desperate to fill.

And Cullen had always been ridiculously beautiful when wet. Curls all slick and pretty, the rain giving definition to each one. His skin glistening and inviting, his clothes sticking to his chest.

‘I won’t break if I fall,’ he said, stroking Dorian’s hair, eyes moving over his face like he was drinking him in.

The others were coming, loudly and swiftly.

‘Hmm, we should change,’ Dorian said decisively. ‘Don’t you think?’

Cullen caught on quick. ‘Ah, yes, definitely we should change, we’re all wet. Let’s go change.’

But damn it, Ellana was quicker, sneaky elf that she was.

‘I’ve got them!’ she called out, throwing herself around Dorian as if to anchor him to the spot. ‘You’re going _nowhere!_ Do a quick drying spell and then settle yourselves at that table. We have _gifts_!’

*

Clothes dry once more, the newlyweds were sat at the table while Halward helped the hired caterers bring out all the food that Dorian and Cullen had ordered yesterday. 

‘Where are these mythical gifts?’ Dorian enquired as dish after dish was set upon the grand table, each one smelling and looking better than the last. ‘We’re not even _supposed_ to be doing gifts until tomorrow.’

‘These are just for you!’ Ellana said as Cullen sat beside the mage, thumb idly playing with his new ring. Dorian smiled to see it, to feel the effect it had on him, that tiny little thing that had taken months to craft, to put together with endless filigree layers of unbreakable glass wrought with all kinds of protective magics. It was made with the sand from their beach.

And then he looked down at his own ring, the metal band warm around his finger, the flash as it caught the light reminding him of how fast Cullen could swing a sword, of how lethal his _husband_ was. Of how he grew up, how he trained with that metal forged of the earth, of how that ring also came from the earth, shaped into something lovely with a message within that meant more to Dorian than it probably should have.

Strange, how something so small could affect so much _feeling. _

‘Lunch first,’ Sera said, stuffing her face with caramelised onions and pheasant. _‘Then_ presents.’

Cullen nudged Dorian, smiling subtly. ‘Your Father has taken over completely.’

Dorian sighed and stabbed a beautifully crisp, well-cooked potato. ‘It was inevitable.’

‘I’m surprised he’s contained himself to such an extent. I thought he was sure to make some kind of—’

‘If I could have everyone’s attention please!’

Dorian froze, potato halfway to his mouth. Halward was standing at the table, glass in one hand, stack of notes in the other.

‘Oh no,’ the mage said weakly.

Cullen kind of shrugged. ‘Ah, well. _There_ it is.’

The table quietened, the gathering focusing on Halward as he cleared his throat. ‘Thank you, now I shall attempt to keep this brief as I see my son over there is glaring at me with the heat of a thousand fires.’ Everyone laughed and Cullen wrapped his arm around Dorian, sipping from the mage’s champagne flute. Not because he trusted it to be safe, quite the opposite. Testing it, ensuring it _was_ safe. Hiring people to cater for them from the outside was, especially in Tevinter, a dicey prospect and while Dorian trusted that his father was an expert in ensuring that no poisons got past the rigorous testing, Dorian still didn’t miss the tiny sip Cullen took. 

Halward took a breath and placed his notes down on the table, his drink too. He nodded once to himself and began to speak.

‘It is customary in Tevinter to have only one child,’ he said, while Dorian rolled his eyes and Cullen gently chastised him. ‘The reasons for this are plentiful. Absolute focus on that child, undivided attention on your prodigy, a single vessel for all your hopes and dreams. I think as well, it’s likely to keep disruption to the parents’ lives minimal. A single child, even one as _spirited_ as my son, is easy to raise. Small, insular families are the norm here. It is our way. And yet, looking around at this table, I find my heart swelling and making room for all kinds of new family. For family that was found, for family forged in alliances and in friendship. Family of my son’s choosing. What I once thought was important - things like legacy, reputation, focus on academic study - it’s funny how little they truly mean, when shown the value of family. Of a _real_ family.’

Dorian looked around the table, everyone’s attention on Halward. Saffy and Nalari side by side, leaning against one another, Dawn between them. Keenan sat with Fenris, Cain and Marcus, listening carefully. Christopher and Sedrick with Leliana, picking at their food every now and then. Finn and Aldis sat with Landon, who was holding baby Taras. Rosalie sat between Cullen and Mia, Brandon beside Cole, half watching with interest as the young boy made some kind of paper chain from his napkin. On Dorian’s left was Ellana, Sera beside her.

_Real family_.

‘I was not what I could have been to my son,’ Halward said. ‘I was not what I should have been, which was whatever he needed. I did not bend when he pushed, I shouted when I should have listened and I forbade instead of understanding. I was not the family he deserved, but it’s never too late to try,’ he said with eyes that glistened and a very audible lump in his throat. ‘Every day with the people we love is a gift, more valuable than gold or silver or power. I am very proud to stand here, to be even a small part of something so wonderful. I had many anecdotes about my son; embarrassing moments from his childhood and beyond but I realised a while ago that love my son as you do, you probably know them already. You know my son better than me and so instead of welcoming you all to my family, I’d like to thank you for inviting _me_ into _yours.__’ _He raised his glass, wiping his eyes. ‘To family.’

‘To family,’ was the resounding echo, followed up by a round of applause when everyone had taken a drink. Halward sat down and then, beside Dorian, Ellana got to her feet. 

‘Thank you for that, Halward.’

Dorian looked up at his best friend, leaning against Cullen.

‘Now,’ she said. ‘I’ll preface by saying that Dorian is my best friend, my closest confidante and one of the people I trust most in the world. Cullen is also my dearest friend, one of the best men I’ve ever known and to say that they’re both beautiful is a drastic understatement… _but_,’ she paused for emphasis. ‘They are also two of the stupidest men in Thedas.’

Fenris raised his glass amid bountiful applause and agreement. Cullen laughed and Dorian didn’t even try to suppress a smile. 

‘From almost the very first moment they met,’ she said, reading now and then from a small set of notes. ‘It became very obvious to everyone around them that there was something _there_, and yet stupidity reigned. At the war table once, Cullen _accidentally_ snapped a figurine in half when Josephine asked if Dorian was single. Our resident Tevinter mage here made a habit of _following_ Cullen around during his free time and when asked what he was doing, he would often answer that he was taking his morning constitution… in the evening.’

She paused to allowed for laughter, both Cullen’s arms wrapping around Dorian’s middle as he leaned back against Cullen like a chair.

‘Time and again, they were running into one another, time and again failing to see what it was that drew them ever closer. I’ve never known two people go so out of their way to deny that they were meant to be, but maybe… _maybe_ that’s just because they both needed to be sure. To push as far as it could go and be sure it was real. After endless misunderstandings, after complications that could have been easily resolved with a simple conversation, we find ourselves here, finally. So please raise your glasses once more, to overcoming stupidity and falling in love!’

‘To falling in love!’ The echo went round again, people clapping and cheering, the atmosphere relaxed.

‘Do we get gifts now?’ Dorian asked Cullen under his breath.

‘Not quite,’ Leliana said, elegantly rising from her chair, entirely absent of notes. She wore a smug little smile, long hair braided off to the side entirely, the tips curling from the rain. ‘I have a few words to say.’

She cleared her throat and wrapped one arm around herself, the other holding a goblet of wine. ‘We live in dark times. We’ve lived through darker and there will be darker yet to come. We live in a strange world, where light moments are infrequent, where happiness is scarce and to be taken hold of. There are people who should be here today who are not. Friends who could not make it, people fallen in battle. That so many of us _are_ here, is testament to the bond between us, I believe.’

Sera and Fenris clapped, Cole joining in from where he sat with his chair back to front.

It died down quickly and Leliana continued. ‘When Ellana Lavellan, a young, cocky upstart of an elf, chose to side with the mages to gain the power needed to seal the breech, I thought little of it. She took me aside afterwards and told me that her decision came from the heart, that she had always wanted a different world for mages, for their suffering to be ended and a chance for a new way to begin. When we decided to remove a woman who had long since given up any and all hope of a new life for the mages of the South, it was Cullen who came to me and suggested that Dorian lead them, that he could inspire and protect them. To walk a different path than the one ingrained from centuries of mistrust and fear. When I asked him why, he told me that Dorian was of Tevinter and that Tevinter, for _all_ its flaws, has a record low number of possessions, of abominations bursting free. He said that Dorian could be the start of something, for so many.’ Leliana shook her head, smiling. ‘It was clear, from so long ago, that Dorian and Cullen were a part of the future that the Inquisition could build. To mark the world anew, to bring forth a fresh start. Today, the South is seeing change unlike anything the last few centuries. We are entering a new age. Those of us who were lucky enough to be there at the start of that change, we celebrate you both today. We celebrate your love and your kinships, your highs and your lows. This latest union is perhaps the best so far.’ She raised her goblet high. ‘To Dorian and Cullen.’

It was vaguely _surreal_, to have people cheering their names again. Both their names, like that was how they ought to be said. Dorian and Cullen, Cullen and Dorian. A pair, a union. Strange and surreal.

The speeches had left Dorian feeling oddly vulnerable, a kind of fragility to his emotions that Cullen mirrored. When everyone finished eating and plates were cleared away, Dorian had almost entirely forgotten about _gifts_.

Though not quite.

*

Sera and Ellana’s gift came first; a freshly re-tooled pair of sending crystals, worked on by Dagna. Dorian had lost his in the Wilds. He picked up the delicate things, holding them side by side. One faintly pink, the other purple.

‘We have the corresponding others,’ Ellana said with a smile. ‘So you can contact each of us, should you need to. One will always be left in Skyhold, one will always be with us.’

It went without saying that they would always be together. Wherever they travelled, they never separated.

Halward’s gift was small and well wrapped. Dorian opened it and when he saw what resided in the small box, his heart stopped. Cullen recognised it instantly, though said nothing.

A long, filigree chain of silver and upon the end, a symbol carved out of stormheart. It was the two moons, _Satina_ and _Velouria_. one on either side of the symbol of the Magisterium, twin snakes back to back. It fit in the palm of Dorian’s hand when he took it out, careful and quiet.

‘That’s so pretty,’ Nalari commented sweetly, not knowing any the wiser, not knowing what it truly _was_ that Halward had given Dorian, what he was giving _up. _

And Dorian had not the words to question it, to stop the procession and ask if this meant what he thought, even though it _had_ to. Fenris recognised it too, Cullen most definitely.

He put it back in the box, meeting his father’s gaze. ‘Th-thank you.’

His father only nodded, serene and unflappable, as someone knocked at the door.

Saffy shot up suddenly. ‘I’ll get it!’

‘Oh bloody _void,__’_ Dorian complained realising who it was. 

‘Be _nice_,’ Cullen insisted, closing the lid of the small box.

Saffy led the boy into the room by the hand, positively beaming.

‘This is my family,’ she told him. ‘Everyone, this is Myles.’

Cullen, _of course_, got up to meet the boy properly, even though they’d already done this song and dance twice now. He was very tall, as tall as Cullen and in both hands he held two neatly wrapped objects.

‘Congratulations, Ser,’ he told Cullen intently while Saffy hung off his arm adoringly. Cullen was patting him on the shoulder and leading him over to the table where Sera hopped into Ellana’s lap to make room in the seat beside Saffy.

‘Thank you, Myles, it’s lovely to have you here with us. You just missed lunch, but there will be plenty of food later on.’

Myles sat, smiling nervously and Dorian’s icy interior cracked ever so slightly. The boy was _nice _and he was polite. Saffy’s kindred fuck-spirit or not, he seemed to be a decent sort.

‘I brought these,’ he offered earnestly. ‘They’re nothing special, Saffy told me what you liked to eat and I made a mixture of spices in the oil. They’re nice to dip bread into.’

‘Oh, well that’s… lovely,’ Dorian said, accepting the gifts that were passed down. He pulled away the paper, revealing glass bottles with honey coloured oil and a pure rainbow selection of spices and herbs within. ‘Thank you, they look absolutely wonderful.’

Now Saffy was _oh so_ smug.

Cullen re-joined Dorian and Fenris took charge.

‘Open mine next,’ he drawled, passing his small stunningly well wrapped gift along. 

Cullen tore the paper that time, finding within a set of absolutely stunning sand coloured satin sheets and covers, embroidered with delicate swirls and vines.

‘They’re _lovely,_’ Dorian said before he could remember that he and Fenris were always supposed to tease and banter, not genuinely _gush, _not unless they were drunk. ‘Fenris, they’re beautiful, thank you.’

Fenris looked like he had been on the verge of making some kind of _comment_ about how maybe they could spend more time in the bedroom as opposed to rooms around the house, but Dorian’s earnest regard seemed to bring him up short. ‘Glad you like them.’

Leliana had no gift and was unabashed about it. Her gift had already been given, Dorian supposed, and then some. Cole had taken the time to write the words and musical notes to his song he’d sung for them last night, presented it like a child might present a drawing they were proud of. Dorian smiled at the boy’s wonky handwriting, as the tiny little notes in the margins, nonsensical beauty, poetic rambling and loveliness. 

Mia, Rosalie and Branson had combined their gift.

‘We _did_ have a suspicion you might be getting married after your last message,’ Mia admitted. ‘And it’s only something small, but we thought you might like it.’

It was the largest gift so far. Something so huge that it couldn’t even be passed along the table. Mia had retrieved it from nearby. It was wrapped very loosely with material, tied at the bottom.

When she pulled away the cloth, it revealed a very young, healthy looking apple tree.

‘It’s for your garden,’ she said, smiling. ‘We brought extra soil too, so it’ll grow here and feel at home.’

‘Oh Maker, this is incredible,’ Cullen said, getting up from his seat to touch the cultivar, to feel the leaves. ‘You all brought it here?’

‘Protected it the whole way,’ Branson said proudly. ‘Watered it, kept it steady.’

‘Sometimes sang to it,’ Rosalie added.

‘Thank you,’ Cullen said, slightly wonder-struck, looking back at Dorian. ‘I can make you apple flips!’

‘A little bit of the South at home here in the North,’ Dorian said, looking at the vibrant leaves, reminding him of a world of _white, _that stubborn green peeking out. ‘We love it, thank you so much.’

The younger mages were all forbidden from clubbing together for any kind of gift as none was necessary. Dorian had been very firm on that point.

Which was why it came as no surprise whatsoever when Nalari reached from beneath the table and said, ‘This is from all of us.’

Cullen leaned closely as Dorian unwrapped it, pulling the thin paper and ribbons away to reveal a book, crafted by hand and bound by leather, but illustrated in a very familiar way.

The drawing on the front was of a young boy who looked like a strange combination of both Cullen and Dorian. Cullen’s hair and shoulders, Dorian’s angles and eyes, but _young_. Younger than twenty.

‘_The Watchful Ambler_,’ Dorian read out, his voice catching. The writing on the front was Keenan’s. He slowly opened the book and looked at the first page, eyes scanning over the words.

The familiar epigraph was written by Finn.

_When it happens, it happens fast,_

_Too fast to think, no roadmap showing. _

_Hindsight flares bright for all that is past, _

_And we return to fate_ _’s curve, unknowing. _

On the inside of the leather bound cover, the words, _Property of Dorian and Cullen, _were carved neatly.

Eyes stinging helplessly, Dorian began to turn the pages. Every individual passage was given its own page and it was always written by a different one of them. There was an illustration for each entry, drawn by Nalari. The book was filled with their writing, their drawing, their beauty. It had taken _time, _Dorian didn’t know how much, but he could feel the effort that went into every single page.

‘Do you like it?’ Marcus asked, uncharacteristically soft. They were all watching them both, eyes rooted on the pair.

Dorian blinked and shook his head, tears spilling helplessly. ‘I… I love it. I can’t believe you made this.’

‘It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,’ Cullen said quietly, intently. He traced his fingertips over the drawing of the final chapter, of the tree and beneath the starry sky, of Shay resting one final time with his beloved dog. ‘Thank you all so much.’

Dorian got up from his chair and moved around to their side, moving blindly and driven by such emotion he could scarce stand it, let alone contain it. They rose to meet him in a messy, mass hug, arms reaching for arms and faces burying wherever they could.

‘I love it, I love it, I love it,’ he told them all, kissing whatever cheeks were nearest. ‘Sorry Myles, got you by accident there.’

They all laughed at that and Dorian found himself still holding Nalari even after the others drifted away. He wrapped himself around her and held her close.

‘You can read it to us again, maybe,’ she whispered. ‘Now it’s _your_ book, yours and Cullen’s, always and forever.’

He kissed her hair. ‘Ours and yours,’ he said, wiping his eyes again. ‘Nothing has ever been so beautiful. I’ll have to buy a whole new display case for it, nothing else.’

By the time Dorian was sat back down again, he was a wobbly wreck. Cullen smiled and wiped under his eyes, kohl smudged from tears and he kissed him; a light press, a simple reminder that he loved him more than anything in the world, lips to lips and away again.

Dorian had some more wine and looked around the table, about to thank everyone en masse when Sam got to his feet.

‘You forgot mine!’ he announced. ‘Here!’

It was passed around quickly. A piece of paper, folded three times to make it secure. Dorian opened it and immediately realised that the boy had constructed a piece of magic, a very complex cast and something quite new. 

‘Sam,’ he said, looking up. ‘Did you _create_ this?’

‘Yup,’ the boy said proudly, dropping back into his chair with the air of a prince to whom all was due. ‘Worked on it for _months,_ didn’t I, Cullen?_’_

‘You did, though I had no clue what exactly it was and uh, I still don’t.’

Dorian chuckled distractedly as he read. ‘That’s because you haven’t studied magical theory, how would you—_Sam!__’ _

Oh, but the boy was beaming now. ‘You like it?’

‘How the fuck did you do this?’

‘Like I said, _months_.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s… a kind of cast that when placed on an object and given to someone, it will track that carrier’s wellbeing.’

‘Nothing fancy,’ Sam was quick to point out, no less pleased with himself. ‘Just three settings, really. _Fine, less fine, not fine.__’_

‘There,’ Fenris said, grinning. ‘Now you can be a Mother hen without even needing to follow them around.’

Dorian glared, but it was entirely without potency. He looked at Sam, the boy who’d chosen to alter his name in accordance with his new life, the boy who was going to attend the Colleges with the other in a week or so.

‘How far does it stretch?’ he asked.

Sam put his hands behind his head. ‘There’s no limit.’

‘Friggin’ kid’s a genius,’ Sera muttered, nodding to herself. ‘Team him up with Dagna and watch ‘em go.’

‘I love it,’ Dorian said. ‘Sam, thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ the kid replied easily, winking at Cullen like they were sharing a little secret. Dorian folded the paper very carefully and placed it inside _their _own copy of _Ambler_. The little pile of gifts in front of them was worth more than all the gold in Thedas to Dorian then.

‘Thank you all so much.’

‘Oh come, come, no more _tears_, mage,’ Leliana teased. ‘Let us have some music now, yes? We celebrate and we do it in style.’

*

‘You hired excellent musicians,’ Dorian told his father, watching the others dance now that the table had been cleared away and the large space turned into a ballroom of sorts. Lighting orbs hovered gently, the air cool and sweet with the first of the night-blooming flowers drifting inside.

Halward watched the merriment contentedly. ‘Only the best for my family.’

Dorian was holding the small box, unable to let it leave his sight until he had confirmed the meaning of the gift.

‘Father,’ he said. ‘Why have you given me this?’

‘You know why.’

‘Your seat in the Magisterium, yes, I know _what_ it is and what it means that you’ve given it to me,’ he said, looking down at the twin moons and snakes, the dark metal glinting in the mage light. ‘But I don’t know _why_.’

‘I could give you reasons,’ Halward said. ‘Speak of your abilities, of how you _deserve_ that seat, more than half those so called _Magisters_ who dare to believe they sit higher than you. I could speak of how this will bring your idealised dream of Tevinter, of lessening slavery, ever closer to fruition. They would all be true, but the real reason is far less glamourous, I’m afraid.’

Dorian lifted his gaze to those who were dancing. Cullen with Rosalie, Branson with Sera, Ellana and Fenris, Leliana on the side-lines with a group of mages around her, listening raptly which was an excellent indication she was regaling them with an especially gory tale. Cole had left a while ago after once more singing his lovely song, poetry and art wrapped in hauntingly joyful notes. Keenan sat with Myles, the pair discussing something with interest. Nalari was off somewhere with Dawn, Saffy playing with a very energetic Taras.

‘You’re… you’re dying,’ the mage said.

‘I’m not dying,’ Halward corrected gently, smiling at his son. ‘But my time is short, yes.’

‘From the curse.’

‘Blood magic cast with ill intend causes corruption. There is no way around it and I have no wish to lengthen my lifespan unnaturally. Better to see an end date and fill each day with what I can. I have no energy or interest in the Senate anymore. My interests are here, with these people. With you and with Cullen. Has he given you your gift yet?’

Dorian frowned and looked at his father quickly. ‘Gift?’

‘Oh,’ Halward said, wincing. ‘Apologies.’

‘Cullen has a gift for me?’

‘I’m sure he’s waiting for the right moment.’

‘How do _you_ know about it?’

‘I helped him research it,’ Halward said, purposefully vague. ‘And _no_, I won’t tell you so don’t even ask. You did always love gifts, my son.’

Dorian tempered his curiosity and took out the chain, holding it before him. ‘So this is it,’ he said. ‘Key to the Magisterium. Altus no more.’

‘It’s not the answer to all your problems,’ Halward said. ‘It never will be. Between you and Cullen, however, I believe that having power is _not_ something that would be squandered or corrupted. It is a tool, little more, to bring you ever closer to that which you seek to make real through hard work and dedication and of course, a little of that Pavus talent. What do you think of it?’

‘The design is pretty, a little _gauche_, but this is Tevinter after all. Bold and blatant over subtle and soft.’

Halward snorted. ‘Of the _gift_, Dorian.’

‘I think… you’re right. It’s another step in the right direction.’

‘Are you _ready_ to take that step?’

Dorian watched the metal symbol swing slightly as he held it. ‘I’m not sure I know how.’

‘It’s very simple. What you hold there is your destiny. You were always going to inherit my seat, but you have carved your own path to this moment. You’ve come your own way, on your own terms and here you stand. I could not be prouder of you, Dorian. All you need do now,’ Halward said, beginning to walk away as he looked back and smiled. ‘Is take hold of the moons.’

*

It was late when Cullen’s hand twined with Dorian’s, but the mage had never felt more _awake. _Though he’d lost count of how many dances, could barely recall the delights they’d enjoyed for dinner, could just about judge whose stories at the table were the funniest, he felt awake and very much alive. He also felt that somehow, he’d been _waiting_ for Cullen to come to him when the party inevitably wound down, as lights were dimmed and people embraced to bid a good night. Everyone was staying in the mansion, there were guest rooms and beds enough that no one had to leave. They would be under one roof, well-guarded and safe within the walls of the strongest protective magics known to either man or mage. Leliana and Fenris had wandered away some time ago, but had returned to say good night to Cullen and Dorian, their hands brushing now and again. It made Dorian ridiculously _pleased_ for them_, _those little touches visible to others.

And then, as the hired help finished cleaning things away for the night, as Cullen and Dorian were the last two left downstairs in their now quiet, freshly dark home, Cullen took his hand and said, ‘Let’s go swimming.’

It had been _days_ since they’d last been able to and Cullen so loved to swim, so loved the water once Dorian had shown him how to move through it, how to navigate it without drowning.

Outside, the rain from earlier made everything especially sharp. It gave the scent of the flowers a metallic smack, a boost that so resembled mana. Cullen closed the door behind them, ensuring all the safety runes were well in place and then they walked the length of their garden together, not holding hands, not even especially close. Headed towards the ocean, towards the Nocen sea.

They walked in silence, quietly comfortable and excited simply to be _alone_. Dorian’s heart was doing crazy things, even more so when they reached the dip that led down to the beach. He hopped off the grassy ledge and onto sand, boots colliding with the grains. It gave a lovely whispering crunch, every step sinking just a little.

The ocean sat before them, patient and benign, beautiful even in darkness. In the distance somewhere was Seheron. In the distance, war was brewing and clashes would come again. The strength of the alliance would be tested and times would be difficult. In that distance, ill intent waited and shadowy figures had yet to emerge, but there, that night, none of it was visible. None of it mattered. All that mattered was the taste of salt and rain all around them, the sky clearing of the clouds that had gifted them the earlier downpour. Distantly, thin slivers of the twin moons were becoming visible and all that mattered to Dorian then, truly, was how Cullen looked as he began to strip off beneath the silvery light.

All his lovely clothes were peeled away, placed in a neat pile with his boots on the sandy bank, a familiar twist of land that meant their mansion was directly behind them.

As he undressed, Dorian’s heart was absolutely fucking pounding because while he didn’t really know what was coming, he knew that it was going to be special. Fuck, anything with Cullen was special, but this… he was almost nervous. They hadn’t swum together in days and though it could have been just that, just a night swim together as husbands, he had a feeling it would be more.

‘You’re quiet,’ Cullen said, watching Dorian with a deep gaze, an expression of loving wonder as the mage finished undressing, matching Cullen’s nakedness. The wind born of the waves played over his skin as he brought the hidden tattoo to life, Cullen doing the same.

_‘_I suppose I am.’

Cullen moved closer, lifting a hand to trace the backs of his fingers down Dorian’s cheek. ‘Where’s my bratty husband gone to?’ he whispered, their bodies coming close enough to touch. The sensation rose like a bubble beneath the water in Dorian’s chest, just to feel the press of his skin, chest to chest, waist to waist, hardness stirring and blood flowing like a river in the rainy seasons, desperate to get free, to mix with the air, to mix between the two. ‘Where is my mouthy, cocky mage?’

Strong, calloused hands moved around Dorian’s back, fingertips playing with the most recent scar there; a thin line across Dorian’ shoulder-blades from a highly botched and deeply insulting attack four months prior. Though healers in Tevinter were legendary and could remove scars without so much as breaking a sweat, Dorian never healed them fully. He liked the marks, couldn’t deny that there was something very much reassuring about collecting new ones with Cullen by his side. Cullen had precious few after Jassen had taken them, all but the one across his lips. They collected them together and made a map of their skin, a time-line of events.

‘He’s here,’ Dorian said, voice rough. ‘He’s just enjoying the view, taking a moment.’

‘I missed you,’ Cullen burred and Dorian felt the words vibrate against his chest, felt the _depth_ of the sentiment. ‘How have I missed you when you’ve been beside me all day?’

‘You know why.’

Cullen smiled. ‘Tell me.’

‘Because it isn’t enough for you to be _beside_ me.’

Dorian stepped away, almost keening at the loss, but it was better this way, better to play a little before, always was. His bare feet sank into the sand with every movement and the sounds of the ocean soothed the deepest parts of him.

‘It’s never enough,’ Cullen said, taking in the sight of Dorian with space between them.

‘Come and get me then,’ Dorian said, backing towards the ocean, slow at first but speeding up once Cullen gave chase. He ran into the shallows, the water cold and bracing, despite the warm air. It splashed up his legs, but he kept going, he kept running, not caring about the cold or the dark waters, only caring that Cullen was chasing him. When he couldn’t run anymore, he waded and when the water was up to his waist, he dove under.

It was perfect, pure cool silence. The water surrounded him, removed him from the world above for a few precious moments as he moved through it like a fish, like a creature born to swim. He swam into darkness, no fear to hold him back. When he surfaced gracefully, he took a breath and let the equilibrium settle over him, body acclimating to the water and to the cold.

He heard gentle splashing and turned, pushing fingers through drenched hair to move it out of his eyes, and saw Cullen right behind him. He barely had time to move before those strong arms wrapped about him, capturing him in a salty, wet kiss, branding him with the sea and with his victory.

‘I have you,’ Cullen muttered, holding Dorian close, the water midway to their chests. ‘You can’t escape me, love.’

Dorian let his head fall back, Cullen’s lips trailing down his neck to that place he so loved, where a scar sat of Cullen’s own giving, of Dorian’s asking. One mark among many because they dealt in extremes and if life was to be dangerous, if it was to be uncertain, then Dorian wanted it _known_. He wanted Cullen’s mark upon his neck and their hidden ink beneath their skin, blood and magic between them and as of today, two new rings on their fingers. Glass and silver, magic and metal.

‘I wouldn’t even ahh—know where to start,’ he gasped, expression twisting into one of tortured pleasure as Cullen’s mouth latched onto that place, mouth fitting over the scar, pressure building as he sucked a love bite into it, freshly marking Dorian up in a way that had been painfully absent the last few days. ‘But I’d run, if only to see your pursuit.’

Cullen drew off of Dorian’s skin with a loud, wet pop, lips parted as he breathed, ‘I would find you anywhere.’

‘You already did.’

The kiss was a clash, a desperate meeting born of the need to taste one another. Lips sliding perfectly, tongues curling as the kiss deepened, Cullen’s hands in Dorian’s hair, pulling just right and all around them, the rhythm of the ocean rocked them gently, passively. Dorian felt dizzy with _need_ and between them, on the other end of their magic, he felt Cullen’s desire mirroring his own, if not outweighing his. Cullen was desperate, he was drowning in what he wanted from Dorian, but he was also… nervous.

Dorian broke away first. ‘Why are you nervous?’

Cullen put one hand into the water, drawing on their magic. The ocean began to shimmer, gentle lilac light blossoming as if it were glowing ink, illuminating the waters and setting it with a sparkling aura that Dorian remembered all too well from his bath in the floor, from the first time Cullen had drawn upon his magic by accident. The waters shimmered now as they had then and in a wide circle, the ocean glowed and became more temperate.

‘I’m nervous,’ Cullen said slowly. ‘Because I have a gift for you.’

Around them, the ocean moved and swayed and they with it, gentle waves lapping endlessly, driven by the tides and the will of the moons. All the water of the world, moved by the orbiting stones of the sky and Dorian had never felt the power of it more, had never felt the true _way_ of the water until that moment.

Their bodies were still pressed together. Skin against skin and desire twinned with its counterpart, impossible _not_ to be hard and wanting when it felt like years, like decades since they’d been connected in such a way. One inside the other, didn't matter who, just to be _inside, _to be one.

Dorian swallowed slightly, tasting salt and brine. ‘Is it the ocean?’

Cullen smiled. ‘I would give you the ocean were it mine to give, but no, my love. It’s something else.’

He looked down, at his own hand, at the ring of glass on his finger and then at his palm, scars from Kinloch Hold long since erased. It was a blank canvas, his palm and Dorian’s chest constricted suddenly because he _knew_. He just knew.

‘Cullen,’ he said and had nothing whatsoever to follow it. He shook his head, but not to forbid, only in wonder, only in amazement because he _knew_ what Cullen’s gift was now. As Nalari had drawn her art onto a blank page and all his mages had left their marks in words, so Cullen’s canvas was skin, his ink would be blood and his gift…

Oh, his _gift__…_

_‘_I wanted to give you something special, a gift that you truly _deserve_, for a long time now, but I had to be sure first that it would be safe. That there would be no chance of corruption because you are connected to the Fade. You are magic personified and I would not risk you for anything, _but_…’ he took a short breath, running his index finger down his palm, each line clearly visible in the purple light from beneath and all around them. ‘It’s safe for me to give you this gift, because I have no such connection. I cannot be corrupted and even when it passes through you, becomes one with you, it will be _my_ magic that combines with yours, so you will never be afflicted, no matter how much time passes. I am your conduit,’ he said and Dorian felt the words like a brand, like a red hot iron brand to his very insides. ‘I am _your_ conduit, Dorian and I can give you this gift, _our_ creation, with no price to pay save that we will be bound even more, irreversibly so.’

The temperate waters lapped and the ocean waited, Cullen watching Dorian for his answer and that answer was a living thing within the mage. The magic, his natural magic smiled to realise the intent, to become strengthened and twined with something that would give it form and ability, that would give it _voice_ to sing, to create that most beautiful, perfect siren song of synaesthesia as it longed to do.

‘You’re offering me blood magic.’

‘But it would be _my_ blood, _my_ magic, as it were. I am your vessel. I cannot be corrupted. Let me bring it back, let me give it back to you, to us.’ He brought his forehead to Dorian’s, eyes closing. ‘Let me give you what we lost, make anew that child of our love and your light. I can do it, but you have to ask me, Dorian. You have to ask.’

Dorian’s desire transcended physical need, went far beyond needing to lock them together. What Cullen was offering… it shouldn’t be possible, they’d discussed many times how Dorian could bleed and bring back that sentient, living magic but the price had been too high, they both knew. In losing his natural connection to the Fade and the world but also in the inevitable corruption that would follow, even decades later, even if committed with the best of intent.

But Cullen… Cullen was a man, not a mage. For all his magic, for all his brilliance and talent with what lay between them, Dorian was the source because Cullen was human.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I would never risk you unless I was.’

‘Not about _me, _are you sure there is no risk to you?’

Cullen’s mouth curved, the smile playing about his eyes. ‘There is no risk to me, my perfect mage. I am certain and I’m ready. But as before, you have to ask. We don’t need to, of course, but… this is what I have to offer you.’

He held out his palm, making it clear.

_Me. _

He had only himself to offer, truly. His body, his flesh, his blood. He was the conduit, his body made ready for magic through years of lyrium, attuned to the nuance of mysticism from the curse that had lived in his blood. He was like no other, he was one of a kind and he was all Dorian’s, stood there before him in the tepid, glittering oceans, offering himself on the day that they’d wed.

Dorian took his palm with hands that did not tremble, did not quake in the slightest. He smoothed his thumb over the place where once, there had been a deep, jagged line. Now there was only roughened skin from endless hours of swordsmanship, but nothing else.

The mage looked up, swallowing over the lump in his throat. ‘Yes.’

‘Yes?’

‘I want the gift you offer, I want it more than I can even say. My husband, my protector, my _darling_ Cullen… yes. Please, yes.’

Cullen’s exhale _shuddered_ and his happiness was etched into every curve of him. ‘Then here is my gift to you, Dorian.’ Carefully, he drew upon a tiny amount of the magic within the mage, leaving the rest of it untouched. He drew upon it as one draws a deep breath, but he did not use that magic for anything just yet. He held it there within him and opened his palm fully. With his other hand, he froze a small piece of the ocean and crafted it into a dagger of ice. He swept it over his palm swiftly, wincing only a little and Dorian was captivated, Dorian was fucking _mesmerised _when that slightly curved line split open and trickled red, the deepest, loveliest red Dorian had ever seen. It spilled into the seawater. All of Cullen’s being, twining with the oceans.

Cullen spoke in carefully practised Tevene then, words coming out perfectly, indicating a tutor. They were words Dorian had not heard in such a combination. A new form of magic, a new twist on the previous incantation to make use of blood for purposes of power.

The blood from his palm turned to light and Dorian felt a sensation not unlike a hook in his naval, a kind of sudden _tug_ that dragged him closer to Cullen, his magic contracting and yet expanding, but not painfully, not unwillingly. Making room, growing, strengthening, becoming more _alive_.

Dorian closed his eyes because while not painful, the sensation was intense. It hit like a fever and it gripped him hard. He felt lightheaded, his body becoming hot, skin tingling, blood _singing_. Cullen was still chanting and the waves rocked gently, waters lapping around them in a never ending dance, a kiss that would never cease. Dorian’s magic was forming, was combining with what Cullen had inside him, what he had taken and grown, what he - the perfect conduit for all that Dorian was - created himself.

Cullen was making magic, he was _making _it and bonded as they were, through blood and through love, through scars and ink and rings, that magic bled helplessly into Dorian.

The mage let out some kind of sound, something between a moan and a gasp. He could _feel_ it, he could feel every bit of it. He felt Cullen, he felt all the magic of the Fade and more than that, he felt that familiar coiling. Through his bond with Cullen, he felt something that could smile, something that turned his magic the colour of blackberry wine, but streaked with purest white gold, streaked with natural lilac.

‘…feel it, Dorian? Can you feel it?’

Dorian opened his eyes and Cullen was right there, he was right in front of him as his vision swam slightly, as his body adjusted to the sensation of something larger and more solid than his natural magic, but a part of it. Two halves combining perfectly. Cullen’s strength and Dorian’s will, Cullen’s blood magic with Dorian’s own kind.

_We are here_, _our Dorian. _

It spoke, as always, in colour and sensation, but it was distinct and it was so _familiar_ that Dorian let slip a small sob, kissing Cullen then because he didn’t know what else to do, didn’t know how else to thank him, to rejoice in the return of what they’d made together once, of what had chosen Cullen to save Dorian from his curse, from death itself.

The coils of that creature were entirely made of light; a shimmering, pulsating spectrum of colour. Dorian could feel it, could feel it slip inside him from Cullen, though it could not yet catch and stay there because it was _Cullen__’s_.

‘Your magic is inside me,’ he said against his husband’s lips, fingers digging into Cullen’s skin as the sensations became nigh unbearably perfect, as joy turned to rapture and rapture became a slow rolling wave of building, cresting bliss. ‘Fuck, Cullen. _Your_ magic is inside _me.’_

_‘_I know,’ Cullen panted softly, caught in the maelstrom. ‘Can you feel me, love?’

‘I need,’ Dorian said, voice breaking as he clung to Cullen’s shoulders. ‘I need to be inside you.’

Cullen sounded half wild when he said, ‘Yes, we need to solidify the bond. I need you inside me, _Maker_, please, I need you, Dorian. Let me give you this magic, let me put it inside you and give it to you for all time. Take my gift, my beautiful mage and be inside me when you do.’

It was a fever dream of fumbling, of wet hands on skin and needing to kiss through every perfect, dizzying moment of touching, of grinding, of friction. Of fingers inside and water everywhere, the ocean that Cullen had bled into, that their magic illuminated still. It was desperate and it was rough because need dictated it be so. No time for finesse, no more time for teasing or games.

Basic and primal and love, so much love in all of it, Dorian couldn’t stop until he had Cullen wrapped all around him, until he had Cullen’s thighs about his middle, able to take his weight because the water made him light. He couldn’t stop until he was all the way inside that tight clutch of heat, inside Cullen, inside the man he loved. Bottomed out and unable to catch his breath without moaning, he finally stilled. He let his heart level out as much as it could, given that he was buried inside Cullen, hands beneath the other man’s thighs, Cullen’s arms around his neck.

‘Make me bleed, my love,’ Cullen breathed, pushing his plush, perfect bottom lip into Dorian’s mouth, offering himself further, offering more than was necessary.

Dorian took it between his teeth and bit down, swallowing all Cullen’s delicious little noises as that warm liquid came fourth. Metal and iron and so very Cullen, just like Dorian imagined his wedding ring would taste if he put it in his mouth. In his blood, was the key to that magic, to that beautiful song being made as Dorian slowly began to move, dragging himself out and plunging back inside, drawing deep, guttural groans from Cullen.

The magic took hold of the blood, of everything mixing together with no hope of ever returning to form, like black and white combined, like lilac and gold cast into water, in the deep dark blue of a connection that surpassed all else but the origin.

Dorian lost himself in rhythm. In the swaying of the water, in the tide of the moons, in his body becoming one with Cullen’s, in their blood, in all of it. It was sex and it was magic, darkness and light, feet in sugary sands, Cullen’s tightness around him, ankles locked around the mage’s knees as he held him like he weighed nothing, fucked him in the open ocean beneath the sky, beneath the moons. Their magic was growing stronger, was becoming louder and as they kissed, red mess, swollen lips and tongues dragging with abandon, Dorian began to hear that _song_ once more.

That song he heard in the Fade sometimes, a symphony of minor chords, made _right _at the end by the addition a single major. 

And Dorian was fucking _lost_ to it. To Cullen, to the feeling of being inside him, to the swelling, rising sensation within, to the taste of Cullen and the feel of the magic _he_ had made, now taking permanent hold inside the mage. He was lost and never wanted to return. He felt as if they were somewhere high, a delicate prickling thing at the base of his spine as if experiencing vertigo, but they were low, they were at sea level, not atop a freezing castle.

‘I love you,’ he heard himself say. ‘I love you, Cullen. I could never _not_ love you, you’re everything, you’re—oh, Maker above, you’re my world, you’re—’

Cullen brought their mouths together, one hand in the mage’s hair, the other around his waist as he fucked himself on Dorian’s cock, as he drove the mage deeper into him, as the water moved and rippled with their joining and Dorian was detaching from his body, something was _happening_, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Cullen.

Cullen… who reached down _into_ Dorian somehow, whose magic was singing as it became part of Dorian for all time. Cullen was all that mattered then when he sobbed into Dorian’s mouth, when he pleaded wordlessly for _more_, for it to be _harder_ and _deeper_. Cullen always wanted everything of Dorian, more than the mage had to give, even though there was no _more, _no _harder_, no _deeper_. It would never be enough for Cullen and Dorian would not have it any other way for neither would ever be satisfied with the way of the world, with the state of things. They would always want more, they would always seek to make the world a better place and they would always, _always, _be hungry for each other.

‘Give me everything,’ Cullen pleaded and then it _snapped_, like a tree breaking in half, like lightning striking the surface of the seas. Dorian screamed and Cullen swallowed it down, orgasm tearing through him like the purest, most raw energy he’d ever felt. It was more than sex, more than blood magic. Cullen was right, he was _giving _him something, something sentient and alive, something that was a part of them both. It was painful and it was exquisite and it had Dorian crying, it had his own saltwater mingling with the oceans as he rode it out, Cullen tightening around him moments later, a second wave of fiery water plunging deep like a whirlpool, dragging Dorian down with it anew, no mistaking the pleasure-pain that time, no escaping it either. Cullen’s rapture was Dorian’s, in all ways. In mind, in spirit, in body and in blood. In moving inks and glittering rings and the love, once forged of curses, now a living thing unto itself.

Dorian didn’t realise he was saying Cullen’s name over and over until he _heard _it like a stranger’s voice. Didn’t realise how hard he was holding Cullen until he relaxed just a little and found it easier to breathe. Slowly, he returned to himself to find that he and his magic had joined with what Cullen had made.

His natural magic was still there, interwoven with that which was both new and familiar. A twisting, resplendent creature whose coils were blackberry wine and lilac blossom, shimmering with both dark and white gold, one end in Cullen, the other in the mage.

_We are the light that shatters the dark, _it whispered to Dorian as he pressed a shaking, trembling kiss to Cullen. _We are whole, child of your love and your magic, yours forever, ours always. _

Cullen’s eyes locked onto Dorian’s. Slowly, they lowered into the water, until gravity had almost no hold on them, the surface reaching their necks and Cullen kissed Dorian again. The tide had brought them closer to the shore, enough that Dorian could kneel on the comfortable, pure sands and have the water just beneath their chins. Still inside the other man, Dorian held him like he was precious, like he was spun glass.

‘Thank you,’ he said. _‘_Oh my darling, t_hank you.’_

Cullen smiled, dazed and breathless still, but he was stripped bare by the sheer purity of the happiness he felt, Dorian could tell, even if he hadn’t been able to _feel_ it. Cullen looked so young, so _beautiful_ it twisted Dorian’s heart. ‘’M glad you like it,’ he said, slurring just a little. ‘You’re hard to buy for.’

Dorian had not the energy to pretend to be anything other than what he was in those moments; perfectly, completely happy.

‘I am,’ he said, resting his forehead on Cullen’s as the warm, glowing waters lapped gently around them. ‘I’m high maintenance, y’know? Probably should have told you that before you married me.’

Cullen laughed softly, rubbing his nose against the mage’s as he slowed his breathing, their heart’s finding a matching rhythm, magic settling like a contented cat between them. ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘But it’s a risk I was willing to take.’

_The End _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so incredibly moved by every single word of kindness that you guys took the time to gift me with. I love you guys and writing this story has literally changed my life. I'm very proud of this fic, it's a part of me and I am honoured to share it all with you in this tiny little corner of the sky, in the rare-pair that we adore. Thank you all for coming on this journey with me. Thank you all for the art, for the support and for being there while I wrote this. This story would never have gotten past the first four chapters without you all. 
> 
> I hope this was everything you wanted and more. 💜💜💜
> 
> And if you're feeling bereft, come read my newest fanfic, 'Body Glitter' which could not be any more different from this, but features our boys in an entirely modern, very British setting with MISUNDERSTANDINGS the likes of which you've never known. I mean, there's a TAD of angst but mostly it's romantic, comedic adorable roommate fluff.
> 
> ALSO if you liked what I did to your heart and thought, "hey this girl writes shit I like!" come follow me on Twitter because I have a dark sexy YA series coming out and I fully intend to take over the world.  
ALSO ALSO, I am publishing The Watchful Ambler as an illustrated short story so if anyone wants to buy it when it comes out, here's my main Twitter, over at @azriel_green 💜💜💜


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